The three service centers, among 10 campuses nationwide where the IRS is trying to reinstate 11,000 employees, had to partially close for a week for deep cleaning. ...
The tax behemoth that touches virtually every American has made the government’s most aggressive effort so far to recall its workforce. But like other federal agencies following President Trump’s order to reopen the country, the IRS is struggling to ensure the safety of its employees as it tries to chip away at a crushing backlog and serve the public. ...
As of Monday, about 3,000 customer-service and clerical workers had volunteered to return to the office, an absentee rate of almost 75 percent. ...
Not surprising. Most states have barely made any meaningful progress toward slowing the spread of the coronavirus, and the government's top figurehead has refused to demonstrate the very simple but highly effective behaviors (mask wearing, social distancing) needed to quash the outbreak. In fact, he's been subtly (and at times rather flamboyantly) discouraging those very behaviors. So yeah, no surprise that trying to force large groups of people back into offices together has been an unmitigated disaster.
ReplyDelete"absentee" makes it sound like people were calling in sick when they weren't, or just not showing up. They didn't force people to come back; they asked for volunteers and more than 1 in 4 IRS employees volunteered, even without adequate PPE or other protective measures. That's actually more than I would have guessed!
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ReplyDeleteSocial Security should learn from the IRS situation and keep offices closed, with only essential personnel going in, and maximum telework where possible.
And this includes the parts of the agency least favored by Saul and Grace Kim for telework privileges:, the payment centers, the field offices, and the tele service centers. All offices should remain closed.
This is what will probably happen: SSA will call back employees in late August or September because data will show a decline in cases/deaths. This will be just in time for the 2nd surge to start. Why? Because they are idiots. As much as I love unlimited WAH, we should go back in July (no public) and prepare for the 2nd surge.
ReplyDeletecertainly no need for most PSC or TSC folks to go back, but I think field offices are going to have to come back eventually, in some form, maybe doing less work but collecting documents and scanning them for offsite processing. Otherwise how is SSA going to do stuff like alternative ID verification so people can get mySSA accounts, dealing with people inaccurately listed on the Death Master File, or making emergency advance payments? I don't know if SSA can even process name changes remotely. They couldn't as of a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteSSA should be thinking about the best way to handle mailed and faxed documents. There isn't really a need for field offices to be processing them--it could be done in other locations with more limited and spread out staff--but it needs to get done. SSA hasn't been that good about it before, with documents getting lost ALL THE TIME but if they want to reduce the number of people who come to DOs they are going to have to improve this. Many people would love to mail/fax/upload stuff to SSA instead of going in person, but if the agency can't promptly track and process this paperwork so someone calling the 800 number can be told "yes, we have your Form Whatever and you will hear from us in X weeks once it has been processed" they are going to go to field offices in person.