The Social Security Administration is once again offering "early-outs" to its employees. Employees who are 50 and older and have 20 years of federal or military service or employees of any age with 30 years of federal or military service may retire and receive pensions. The point of the early-outs is to induce employees with higher salaries to retire. Unfortunately, those are the most experienced employees, the ones who can solve knotty problems. They're often the most productive employees.
i guarantee they are also the ones that are so entrenched in their ways that they can never figure out how to adjust to new rules, policies or regulations.
ReplyDeleteWe have several in our office that are eligible...their retirement would be a benefit to SSA and all beneficiaries. We have one ALJ who doesn't know how to check his e-mail.
Half the story. I agree there is a treasure trove of knowledge in the older employees, and I personally benefit from knowing and working with such experienced people.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is also the oldest and longest-serving employees who are the laziest/most resistant to change/unmanagable in the office. It's the older employees who are so unfamiliar with (what today is) common technology/software/etc. and constantly waste our HOSA's time with simple Windows, Word, etc. problems anyone in an office environment should not need assistance with. It's the older employees who print out everything that was so painstakingly made electronic only to look at briefly, throw away, and scan back into electronic form.
I am very much looking forward to the increase in energy, productivity, and new ideas that will come when new blood comes in to fill the massive void all the boomers (and older--you'd be surprised how many folks in their late 60s and 70s keep on working) will leave behind.
Will we miss their expertise? Sure, but I imagine a lot of their really helpful knowledge, etc. will become useless because this knowledge is so often related to our antiquated systems, which I would suspect are overhauled and/or replaced, not so much the actual regs/POMS/etc.
This is with out a doubt your worst post this year. Everytime they offer this the agency gets to drop dead weight. productive and happy employees do not take early out. IT has a sigma as being the way of getting ride of all bags who are holding the FO back
ReplyDeleteRather mean-spirited posts from those who resent older employees for some reason. Guess what--the geezers who leave will not be replaced with "new blood". You will just have to work that much harder to prove that you did not need the old codgers.
ReplyDeleteThere won't be much, if any, new blood given SSA's extremely limited hiring budget. Most losses will not be replaced with a younger hire, especially at the FO rather than ODAR levels, that work will only fall on other employees.
ReplyDeleteDoing less with less is the permanent state of affairs as long as Congress is opposed to spending any money on domestic agencies.
@ 11:18
ReplyDeletesorry you feel that way. However, you highlight one common misconception.
When staff is reduced, the remaining people don't work harder or do more work. Rather, they work at the same pace and the backlog just grows. Taking away one person from a group doesn't miraculously make all the others more productive workers. Why do people continue to think that?
Can someone please explain what precisely is the incentive to take one of the early outs? That is, why would someone who is already retirement eligible need an early out?
ReplyDelete@ 1:20...you get to stop working.
ReplyDeleteSure, you won't get paid, but if you are ready to retire and have planned for it, it just lets you start earlier than if you had to wait to age 55 or 30 years or whatever you need to achieve retirement benefits.
@ 1:20
ReplyDeletesee http://www.opm.gov/retirement-services/fers-information/eligibility/
and also http://www.opm.gov/retirement-services/fers-information/computation/
I doubt if the people leaving are those who solve knotty problems and are most productive. Those people already left or do not need early retirement if they do wish to go.
ReplyDeleteTo all you young Turks who think you are hot shxt, just remember you will be older one day. You think you will still be hot shxt, but you won't. I'm sure HO's filled with snotty 20 and 30 year olds will be so much more efficient. Especially when all they really care about is work at home. They have no work ethic unless it gives them immediate gratification, they think that they all get promotions like yesterday and thanks to all that texting technology, they can't spell or write worth a damn.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with that!
Actuall there are some big benefits to retiring early. There is a program that pays you 80% of what your social security payment will be at 62 even is you are 55. Lots of bucks. Further, normally if you retire early you lose a certain percentage based upon on how many months early you retire. This can also be a bunch of money. We had two very productive knowledgable employees retire last time and we still miss their corporate knowledge like crazy...
ReplyDeleteUh, early retirement is not for anyone in their 60's or 70's. That is called normal retirement.
ReplyDeleteIf you are deadwood, then why would you retire in your mid 50's? No one else is going to hire you. If you are 55 and still at the top of your game, you can jump ship, get a pension, and another job in which your skills may be valued.
I'm a very productive BURNED OUT employee who's almost eligible for early out. I will take it if they offer it when I'm eligible because this "do more with less" (it is NOT do less with less, they want MORE out of us) is too much to take for more than 25 years.
ReplyDelete2:29, is there someone on your lawn?
ReplyDeleteI took an early out at 53 with 30 years of service. Turns out, with the subsequent pay freezes, and the fact that I wasn't due a step increase for another two years anyway, that I did just fine even with the actuarial reduction. Best decision I ever made, getting away from that insanity before I suffered a heart attack or stroke. If you can do it, take it.
ReplyDelete5:22:
ReplyDeleteYes, but only to the extent that 9:49 and 9:50 still depend on mommy and daddy.
@2:29
ReplyDeleteAt least we know how to operate technology. And with spell check, our lack of ability to spell doesn't matter--it's not like folks in field offices have to write prose. Meanwhile older folks' near complete inability to change or use the most basic technology is crippling productivity and preventing major changes to our systems (CPMS, PCOM, etc.) that would greatly benefit efficiency, accuracy, ease of use, etc. etc. ;)
Really? Lots of generalizing in this older vs. younger debate. I am one of those older FO employees who knows plenty about using basic technology as well as having the ability to solve 'knotty problems'. What I observe about many of the younger employees is that they rely on the computer systems so much, they don't know how to do work that ends up falling outside the automated systems, and in SSI, there are still plenty of manual computations that need to be done. Just this week I spent a few hours repairing the damage to a computer record that was created by more than one employee making up fake overpayment amounts in order to 'balance a record' and get rid of a diary. Turns out the individual did not owe the $6000 we were billing him for and that he only owed $847.
ReplyDeleteBut what can you expect from these young folks who never had to learn how to make change for a purchase because the cash register does the arithmetic for them? Or who don't know how to boil water without a microwave oven.
I would never want to go back to paper files, even though our electronic system is flawed and not well planned. However, when the system is not able to perform the correct operations, it does take the knowledge of a human being to accomplish the task. And I do prefer that an employee be able to explain payments rather than just say it was the computer that made the decision.
So the new and the old knowledge is still needed.
The comments to both 1/31 posts make me think you should consider disabling comments for awhile.
ReplyDelete