From some newspaper in Maine:
Social Security offices in Maine have been closed since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 ...
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine 2nd District, is calling for the SSA to open its doors.
“The current unavailability of most in-person services at SSA field offices … creates difficulty for people who lack broadband access, have certain disabilities, or are otherwise more comfortable with in-person service,” wrote Golden in a recent letter to the administration.
“In light of the public’s need to access SSA services in a timely and convenient way, I request that SSA expedite its OMB-mandated reentry planning to increase staffing at field offices to enable a wider set of in-person services, and to end the requirement for people to part with their original identification documents.” ...
Social Security employees should not think that because the Democratic Party is friendly with their union that there will be no pressure to reopen the field offices from Democrats in Congress. There's going to be increasing bipartisan pressure to reopen. Representative Golden is just one of the early ones to chime in.
27 comments:
start the pool!
Except for the occasional isolated Congressman calling for reopening,. I'm not seeing much pressure to reopen SSA FO, PSC, or TSC. Those Congressman who are happy with the status quo are not saying anything.
Telework is working much better than anyone expected.
AFGE did a survey of federal employees which was released on July 1. They found that 80% of employees said they were more productive working at home,. rather than in in the office.
This makes intuitive sense when one considers that there are less distractions at home, employee morale is higher, and employees are not tired and stressed after long commutes. Also less leave is being taken.
Ah Congressman Golden...the Democrat who hails from a congressional district that voted for the former guy 52%-45%. He is calling for reopening because a big chunk of his constituents think the virus is a hoax.
To 9:13
Your grocery and big box stores somehow are able to be open to serve you. As is the courthouse. And the pharmacy. And those restaurants that survived the pandemic economy. But apparently it is too challenging for the SSA despite the clear need of many people unable to contact through or navigate the online system. The so called poll you cite is self serving and quite unbelievable from an unbiased perspective. Consider the source.
I think we should re-open, but we need to change the way we do business. We have gone almost 16 months without in-person service. The congressman's concerns are valid, except for the line about being open for people that at more comfortable with in-person service. There are very few circumstance where having in person help is more beneficial than contact over the phone.
Telework is here to stay (my opinion is it will be less than full time, but more than one day a week) and staff in the offices will be limited.
Presumably SSA will be among those agencies submitting their return to work plan in the next couple weeks. Relatively soon after, FOs will reopen. My totally uninformed guess is that FO employees will still telework 2-3 days a week after reopening. Management will claim it lowers productivity. AFGE will say the opposite. And likely the truth will be that factors like telework that are marginal to productivity hardly matter compared to overall staffing levels.
The field offices should open before the OHOs. Presumably those at OHOs have health problems. The waiting rooms at OHOs could be a disaster if someone has Covid.
I have noticed a lot less defiance and more acceptance from the staff lately when this topic comes up. You dont hear the I will retire chorus and the death before return to office talk. Seems that the reality is setting in. I guess we might see it come if the wfh option doesnt meet expectations.
12;34 I disagree that SSA employees will meekly accept a return to the office order.This is not November 2019 any longer like when Saul ended telework before..We have worked remotely at home for 16 months now.
The job is getting done and done well, at home, and we are safer at home..
The fact that AFGE just released a survey to the press a few days ago should tell you where the union stands on this. And where SSA employees stand.
As previously mentioned, 80% of employees surveyed said they are more productive working from home. Now unless you believe that 80% of federal employees are dishonest, some credence should be given.
11:25 is spot on! I agree we should re-open the offices to the public but with limitations for on-office contact.
Like it or not things change and the agency would be foolish not to use the situation as a means to move forward with telework where it’s able to be done. For example…why do we have teleservice centers or PC’s as physical locations? All of that work is able to be done remotely. Wanna talk about wasting taxpayer money, stop leasing office space for work that can be done by people in their homes!!!
The FO’s are a bit different and I agree some services should come with option to have an face-to-face appointment. However, the majority of the FO’s services can be done remotely as well so to go back to 40 hrs a week in the office would be ridiculous.
Some combination of telework and in-office work is logical. However, this is the federal government so the opposite of logical is the status quo!
@1214 The FO I worked in had over 300 visitors a day. Not sure OHO had that many, do they? Of he 300+, most may be younger people but many have disabilities or are old.
@158 PM. Individually employees may be as productive at home but the agency isn't in some areas such as replacement SSNs, new SSNs, getting proofs for claims, etc. So many need to go back for that.
Biden has ordered all agencies to submit reopening plans by mid July. Reopening is happening no matter whether or not one back bencher issues a press release.
if there is more work being done at home as the AFGE survey indicates, why reopen? It would seem to be counter productive and could actually increase the backlogs at the payment centers.
Another issue is attrition. Prior to reopening, SSA should survey employees to find out how many would quit or retire rather than return to the office. A sudden wave of departures of experienced employees should certainly be avoided.
As older employees would bet at higher risk from vaccine resistant COVID variants, at least let employees age 60+ continue to work from home.
4:02 hit it on the head.
I can tell you for a fact that Terri Gruber has already said in a staff meeting that they are treating:
1) "COVID WORK AT HOME"
and
2) "TELEWORK"
as 2 different things; circumstances; not overlapping in any way, shape or form; and definitely not the same thing. They can't treated or compared in the same way.
The writing is on the wall and not the wall the union writes on. There is a reason why SSA/OHO ranked 389th out of 411 on the best places to work in government components ranking.
I like working at home and being in charge of my own workload. I get more work done because I can concentrate on the case I am working, and not be interrupted by disruptive phone calls from claimants, attorneys, or questions and conversation from other workers.
I can now choose to deal with those other distractions at an appropriate time of my own choosing. It was quite aggravating to be in the office in the middle of working an extremely complex workers compensation case, and have my train of thought interrupted unnecessarily. Also this was not efficient.
Also less time wasted now on mandatory group meetings which almost always contained little useful information.
Doing business on the phone would be more helpful if someone actually answered the phone. When they don't for at least fifteen minutes, the call is dropped and you have to start over. Hearing offices are even worse. Messages left go unanswered and calls to known extensions are like a black hole.
Social Security employees want telework. They think this makes them more efficient.
Explain that to the lady who called me today who was getting RRB benefits with an offset for her SS benefit as a divorced spouse which gets deducted from her Tier One RRB benefit. But SS was deducting the Medicare Premium as was RRB. Six months and not corrected until now SS just cut of the spousal benefit. Every time she calls, she gets a different story. It would be easy to go into an office and find the one person around who knows how to correct this, but with the office closed, all she can do is cal and call and call and call.
Some of you seem to believe that management is not monitoring SSA employee work since we are working at home. I work in PC7 and I can tell you that our work is monitored quite closely.
We have cases picked up regularly and checked for PQR errors and this info goes directly to the managers. The managers can also tell exactly how many cases we have worked per day on the paperless system, just as they could when we were in the office.
Two employees in area are now on PIPs which means they could lose their present job and be downgraded if their performance does not improve.
Congressman Golden was one of two House Democrats to vote against the stimulus, and the only one who voted against a gun bill.
It seems his views are closer to those of the GOP , than are other House Democrats.
The Biden Administration and the Democratic Party in Congress have a good relationship with AFGE. They will not allow Saul to impose draconian cuts in SSA telework- which he did under Trumps presidency.
You understand that you work FOR those disruptive claimants, correct?
I like working from home because i don't have to answer phone calls from attorneys and claimants sounds like: I like to to work from home because I can do less than what I need to do. But those are the reasons why ppl should be back in the offices. Also some SSA workers i spoke with, are using hotspots for connections because they live in rural areas making their work quite challenging.
@535 I think the message should have read more I have more control of my time so can call back claimants and attorneys when I am done with the most challenging work rather than continually have to start and stop. Working from home definitely cuts down on interruptions from fellow workers. I can answer their messages when I am done with a particular task rather than being interrupted. Field offices seem to be at times like a bunch of fires that have to be put out right that second which makes doing some work nearly impossible. At home, less or no fires to put out so schedule and work can be done more efficiently.
6:56 sounds good unless it is your benefit that is on fire and it is being ignored by a taxpayer paid employee so they can do the dishes and walk the dog.
Wish I was working with field offices that are claiming to be more productive while working from home. Sadly that has not been my offices experience. It is taking 3+ months to get our attorney forms processed--and yes, I have been using the new electronic fax numbers. The quality of service has also dropped. Misinformation seems to be the norm now, though I recognize this has less to do with the telework policy, than overall brain drain. However, this combined with no in-person operations, makes the situation for unrepped claimants intolerable.
In person operations are highly overrated. Who do you think is going to be in person when you go into the office? The same people that you slam now for not returning calls, not doing their work, etc etc. Some things actually can be done better in person but really it's very few. Not sure why reps care or not as I have worked in a field office over 30 years and never seen an attorney or heard of one visiting our office and there are some within walking distance.
One good thing about in person service is it may cut down repetitive phone calls. Got a call recently from someone who dropped off a document in an office drop box right before closing. He called from the parking lot to see if we had gotten it. Since I am at home I can only tell if it's scanned in and has his name/SSN on it. That has taken our office at least a few days so no, can't tell we got the document you dropped off literally a couple of minutes ago. And the phone call was his fourth of the day.
Remember if you can do your work from home then so can a third party provider and they can contract it out cheaper.
@152 Technically you are right but in reality contractors cannot do our work because they don't have program knowledge. Even the so called sophisticated computer programs cannot do our job correctly because they are so complicated. Secondly, you may not mind poorly vetted contractors having wholesale access to your financial and medical information, but I bet you would be in the minority. If you think there are problems now, just wait until you bring on the contractors to do our program work. We use contractors now for some things and the only area in which they do not routinely fudge up is IT trouble shooting.
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