... Hundreds of agencies submitted their return-to-office plans to the White House budget office to meet last Monday’s deadline, laying out how they would begin to phase out remote work for hundreds of thousands of employees after Labor Day, with a full return to federal offices planned by the end of the year. ...
But with the more contagious delta variant surging and sending tens of thousands of unvaccinated people to hospitals across the nation, trepidation over the reentry plans has risen among some Biden administration officials ...
The Social Security Administration, the focus of increasing pressure from Republicans on Capitol Hill to reopen, has not submitted its reentry plans to the White House budget office. ...
The White House is under intense pressure from disparate sides of the debate over reopening. Unions that represent the majority of the federal bureaucracy of 2.1 million workers — and are a key Democratic constituency — are reluctant to cede full control of workplace decisions to the administration, although they have not disagreed publicly.
Advocates for the disabled, meantime, have pushed for reopening some of the nation’s 1,240 Social Security field offices. Applications for disability benefits have plummeted during the pandemic, as low-income Americans without access to the Internet have been prevented from seeking benefits.
And the administration has been hammered for months by Republican lawmakers over the slow pace of returning federal employees to the workplace. Republicans have charged that closed offices and remote work, particularly at the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, have led to diminished services for the public. ...
On a conference call Tuesday, the agency’s union leaders concurred that the administration’s push to reopen, particularly the field offices around the country that provide vital face-to-face service to low-income applicants for disability benefits, “is happening a little prematurely,” ...
Covid is now an endemic disease. It's not going away ever. The toll it takes can be dramatically reduced by vaccination but we can no more eliminate all Covid risk now or in the future than we can completely eliminate all risk from influenza. It's unlikely that we'll ever find a way to be any safer from Covid at any time in the future than we are now. The risk from Covid, including all variants, is minimal if you're fully vaccinated and we're never going to be able to remove that minimal risk.
Anyone who claims that Social Security is getting its work done now is either a fool or a liar. The agency is having massive problems. Certainly, the biggest cause is a lack of adequate staff. There would be major problems even if Covid-19 had never happened. However, it's going to be impossible to convince me or anyone else who deals with the agency that employees are just as productive working from home every day. There's just been too much deterioration in service since last March. And, of course, there's some things that can't be done from home, like meeting claimants in person. However, quaint that may seem to some, there's a huge demand for that sort of service.
Many Social Security employees find working from home every day to be quite satisfactory. Their unions are hyping the risks of the the delta variant to the hilt to try to stave off the day when those employees are forced to return to the office. However, let's be honest, how many of those employees are really cowering in their homes in terror of Covid-19? In the world where I live, it's hard to get a restaurant reservation on the weekend. People are attending concerts and ball games in large numbers. Families and friends are gathering for social occasions. My guess is that the vast majority of Social Security employees are out and about doing these things and more, just like their neighbors. If they can do that, they can come into work.
If you think that delaying reopening is a good idea, what's your end game? What do you think is going to happen to make it safer in the future than it is today? If your position is that we should never reopen the offices to the public, do you honestly think the public will tolerate Social Security field offices closing for good?
The unions will never be happy with it but the field offices will reopen to the public at some point in
the future and I can guarantee that they won't be any safer then than
they would be now. Let's get on with it. The American public needs and deserves it.
45 comments:
You know what else might happen? Permanent telework.
Charles, CMS manages to operate just fine without field offices. SSA can as well.
I cannot speak for the the workloads you are talking about - I don't see them firsthand. The "behind the scenes" work such as the office of systems generally has exceeded expectations for productivity during the full time telework. We can certainly debate/criticize whether the direction the work is going is appropriate - certainly a factor but also not really a telework issue.
The point being is that there are areas within SSA that are flourishing under the full time telework and areas that are suffering. The reopening plan hopefully will take that into account.
I'm an agency employee and I'll be in the minority, but I agree. It's time to go back to the office
Responding to this is nearly pointless. Most SSA employees aren't against returning. SSA employees do not to be back in the office 100% of the time.
On this blog and in general the public believes everything must be in person 100% of the time. Seriously if the agency cared about in person so much the would hire more staff and that has never happened.
Responding to this is becoming pointless... yea SSA sucks, employees are lazy, they dont want to work and sit at home and watch tv all day and do laundry.
Nobody can change minds here.
Reopening should happen when it is safe to do so. The problem, given SSA's history of treating employees poorly, is that there is very little confidence that it will be done safely in a manner that prioritizes the health and safety of the public and employees at SSA alike. Considering how managers at field offices and hearing offices are so inept at so many things one can only wonder if it will be done safely.
What you say is accurate, I suppose, but it's draped over the backdrop of about half this country (mostly idiots, though plenty of folks still not able to access it due to our various social failings and some who can't take it for genuine medical reasons) not getting the vaccine or likely ever getting it.
If we're gonna have half the population vulnerable, we're going to keep having cycles of huge waves of infections followed by hospitalizations and deaths. The numbers now in a number of places (Missouri, Nevada, Arkansas, etc.) are starting to look a lot like those before the first big nasty surge.
So what is the end game for the delayers? Wait until the gov't either grows a backbone and makes the vaccine compulsory, and our vaccination rate eclipses 80%, or we wait the couple/few years it will take for herd immunity to kick in (assuming there's no game changer variant during that interim that can overcome natural or vaccine-given immunity and/or is more deadly).
Sad to think because of good ol' American Exceptionalism and having to be smarter than everyone else that we'll never eradicate another disease.
7:43: Nailed it!
If commenters here want to have the debate, lets at least frame it honestly. Everyone claiming the employees dont want to return out of self interest, is also pushing the anecdotal claim that services have dropped and therefore SSA should reopen. In reality, the true claim is SSA needs to reopen so there can be more initial disability claims, denials, and therefore, more chances to make money off the disabled. Be honest, how many people on here want FO's reopened so they can go file an initial claim with their clients or a recon, in person together? How many people want the FO open so they can go in and help someone with an overpayment waiver, or a PE change? If you really cared about people with low access, call them on the phone and have them come file in your office online, or have them mail papwerwork to you to let you file. Your specific issue is with disability intake, and that is only a PART not the BULK of what SSA does. There has been no issue in retirement claims medicare, or the hundreds of thousands of new survivor, widow and LSDP claims filed as a result of the pandemic. How many reps helped with any of those?
If you want SSA employees back in the office, at least admit you have just as much of a personal interest in the reopening as the employees do who want to stay safe from Delta. Dont frame it like you are out to make service better for the poor or underserved, who you have no qualms about taking 25% away from even though they are some of the poorest individuals, by definition, in this country. If it is that important, maybe SSA should require reps to accompany their clients to the FO for limited express appointments, so that everything can be handled at once, like a correct appeal filed, medical records turned in, appointment forms signed? I'm sure no rep is going to have a problem with that and ask to just call or mail anything related to the case since apparently they can't do that now.
I understand the need to reopen. But at least be honest about the motivation. Nobody on here is saying medicare applications are down, paystubs are behind on being processed, death reports are lagging, survivors claims aren't being paid, etc. It just happens to be the one segment of service that benefits you the most, that you think is so important that it should supersede the rest of the agency's work, when in reality nobody is willing to take steps on their own to improve thing for the people they are so fervently claiming to advocate for.
Can't speak for any other component, but as a member of support staff at a local OHO, I can 100% confirm that ~90% of my duties are now completely electronic. Hell, even paper files have been converted to ENM and the bugs are being worked out. HACPS is likely to be an even bigger step forward in system integration.
There have been bumps, but the amount of infrastructure that was clearly possible and that has sprung out of the ground has been remarkable.
At our office, service has not deteriorated. Again, cannot speak for other components. Hearings are being held by phone and video, most of them without a hitch. Sure, it requires a few young folks in the office to know their way around a computer and "what is PDF?!", but it's 2021. Better get more used to it.
The only real issue we're having is that management is the only ones permitted in the office to handle any "in-office" requests, such as the RARE document that needs mailed, CD copy of the file being burned, etc. And even then, it's not an overly cumbersome workload.
I answer my phone when it rings. I handle the request myself most of the time (as a specialist), and pass the call if necessary. I respond to e-mails timely and my electronic workspace is squeaky clean.
This is, and always will be, a personnel problem. You did give a token effort to mention that, but what you fail to mention is that these issues lie with poor employees/management and not telework. I'm so tired of it being scapegoated when all it takes to do my job successfully is a modicum of understanding of electronic processes, which is, granted, not a sure thing with so many boomers refusing to retire.
@7:43 if SSA treats you so poorly, why work there? Honestly, Why?
"Anyone who claims that Social Security is getting its work done now is either a fool or a liar"
Isn't this a little strident, Charles? Frankly you are starting to sound like one of the anti-union, antigovernmental GOP Congressman on this issue. You seem to have made it your mission to make sure SSA offices reopen.
Charles, it has been repeatedly pointed out to you that severe cuts in overtime resulted in increased backlogs at the PSCs.
You ignore this factor and pile blame on telework, and you imply indirectly that SSA workers are goofing off at home. Simply not true. I work hard at home and so do my coworkers. Stats would show that more work is being done per hour now.
The Biden Administration is correct to tread cautiously. SSA workers in FO would be at very high risk if they have to do face to face interviews.
Telework keeps everyone safe and it should be made permanent in my view.
I really dont care if they go back to the office or not. The same mistakes and problems will arise, wfh, in office or any other way. The volume of process means there will be problems.
If everything worked like it was supposed to, there wouldnt be a need for my job. Since that is MY primary concern, wfh, I need the job security!
I have seen an exponential increase in mistakes and just out right failure to take action by SSA employees on what had previously been simple matters since Covid started. I now spend at least an hour everyday following up on things like forwarding claims from the field office to the State agency of OHO, issuing SSI notices of award and the like. I have also had more mistakes made by the payment centers regarding payments, failure to withhold fees, w.c. offset, in the past 14 months than I have experienced in my prior 23 years of practice.
I am not sure if these mistakes on previously routine matters are a function of lack of oversight since folks are not in the office, distractions fro working in the home, or something else. All I know is that they are now a major issue.
You are spot on with your analysis of the covid situation, though some would probably still call it misinformation. If people choose to not take the vaccine, it is a testament to freedom of choice. It's time to move on.
There does need to be some type of reopening but in the meantime I do know of some reps who sit down and actually do the initial application with their clients. They were doing this well before covid. So maybe that is really something to consider. If there was true phone help, it would be even easier. The call center mentality is not working.
Hopefully the new acting Commish is reading this blog. My advice to her is to put the bean counters out to pasture or mandate a M/L group to come up with reasonable metrics for all components. The state of the Agency now is that quantity is job 1 and quality service for the claimants is a distant 3rd after employee discipline. I was mentored by people who came on board during the 1970s and they instilled in me that service for the claimants was job one and that public service was something to be proud of. That we were really making a difference. Now it is numbers all the time and the hell with the claimants. Everything is upside down.
Offices should reopen but the idea that one can request face to face service for something that is handled as efficiently other ways (phone or internet) should be put to rest. In the last year plus I have had probably 100's of requests from the public to come in for a face to face interviews related to filing or the adjudication of claims. All have been handled over th phone as there was no option for the person to have a face to face interview. For claims specialists and some others, conducting a face to face interview isn't just walking to the front of the office and talking to someone for a few minutes. One has to remove their computer from docking and then reconnect it up front. Many times this only takes a minute or so but not infrequently it can cause one to have to restart the computer, which can be say 10 minutes or so. It can be a real time waster alternating between phone and in office interviews. It would make sense to give all phone interviews to one person but even when that happens there's usually one or more people who thought it was an in person interview or felt that they would do much better talking face to face. With the plastic shields separating the public from interviewers even pre-Covid, it was more difficult to hear and understand each other in person than on the phone.
So yes, reopen for the things that have to be done in person--first time SSNs, replacement cards for permanent aliens, changing SSN records to show someone is now a citizen and a few other tasks but keep the rest of the work done as it is being done now.
One major issue nobody is addressing is the level of training new hires are currently receiving. Even before the pandemic, the training was at an all time low for new hires (and promotions) due to lack of funding for in person training where they would go stay for multiple weeks at another location and receive in-person classroom training and experience. This obviously requires significant funding. This necessary level of training was eliminated years back so now ALL training is by VOD. The agency scraped by with VOD training pre-covid because the mentors assigned to the new hires basically did all the training. So yes, these new hires were trained, but not near the level than if they were in person. Now that everyone is telework, new hires being trained on VOD do not have the same level of back end training from the mentors/TEs that was available pre-covid. So for a lack of better words, any new hires
that started 2020/2021 have practically no knowledge of what they are doing. Nobody will admit this, but it is reality. So the level of production from the new hires is minimal at best, and in some cases creating more work on the back end due to their lack of knowledge and mistakes.
That’s a very interesting point about the training. Anyone else have input on that? Is it the lack of hands on training that OJT provided or is it the new online training model or both? What about IVT. That seems to be gone completely.
My office has been decimated during COVID so it doesn’t matter if we are in the office or at home, we just don’t have enough bodies to handle the work on a daily basis.
2:10 is back to the refrain Charles used to love to sing, which is of course one of the major causes if not primary cause of SSA's myriad problems. Yes, there is a unique blend of both hardcore management and production stalking and large areas where problem employees are left unbothered for years. Yes, there are other big issues others mention a lot.
But far and away, the lack of employees where they are needed is and has been SSA's problem for over a decade now. Before COVID SSA struggled with backlogs, poor work quality, untimeliness, etc. etc. and those problems never really got better anywhere unless SSA threw lots of hiring money at them (OHO's backlog comes to mind; DDS' backlogs come to mind). The transition to fully electronic work with COVID worsened that a bit as folks had to use new/different methods to do some of their usual work while taking on massive amounts of brand new work all the while various workloads got out of whack (some basically dried up while others exploded, which SSA couldn't just snap its fingers and adjust to quickly even if the net work remained constant or even dropped some!).
I'd wager that if SSA brought aboard (assuming proper training...see posts above) say 6-8k new employees, the lion's share going to the Operations field and the rest sprinkled everywhere else as needed, things would be better than fine in a couple years. Just look at all the transactions/dollars/people/etc. SSA deals with and tell me barely 60k employees is sufficient to deliver great customer service while doing all that.
You get what you choose to pay for and there aren't enough sticks or technological advances or anything else in the world to magically make 60k employees able to do what 70 or 80k are needed to do.
It would help if attorneys would stop calling RCC to get workers' compensation comps completed.
It can take hours or days to get all the WC proofs and input comps. Therefore these cases are not worked in RCC they are sent back to the mods , if a RCC call is received regarding workers comp issues. Otherwise that is all RCC would be doing, working WC cases. Very time consuming.
21 comments and nobody is threatening to retire.
We have a new record!
4:00 PM: Sorry to disappoint but I'll retire before I go back to my SSA office. And I've heard several other employees in my area say the same thing.
I'd be retired except for the fact that I love teleworking. I'm not under the illusion that I will be missed for long. But I do know that my years of experience have given me job knowledge that enables me to work the most difficult cases.
I'll feel a little guilty quitting, but I just can't deal with that commute and the traffic again. I'm used to staying home now, after 16 months here.
That's because employees know that, much to Charles' dismat, they won't be forced back into the office until it is safe to do so. That's the beauty of having an employee friendly commissioner serving under an employee friendly POTUS. What a refreshing change!
An inconvenient truth: it's only 39% effective.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/delta-variant-pfizer-covid-vaccine-39percent-effective-in-israel-prevents-severe-illness.html
The way SSA workers were treated under Trump and Saul was a disgrace. After we had waited years to be given remote work , two years ago Saul decided to suddenly terminate telework for almost everyone.
The Biden Administration and the new SSA Commissioner will not abuse federal employees like that. Also SSA employees wiil not be rushed back into unsafe offices. And that is good.
This blog needs to adjust to the new reality that exists. . Not good to keep ignoring the growing COVID19 cases and variants , and insist that this should not matter, that SSA should still reopen all offices.
Things are not rapidly improving with COVID as was happening two months ago in May.. It's going in the opposite direction now.
Front page article in today's New York Times : about how many companies are now reconsidering their reopening plans, due to the recent unexpected rise in COVID19 cases.
Perhaps it is good that SSA and other government agencies moved slowly on reopening plans.
SSA needs to be more available for in-person appointments. They don’t need a full reopen, but they need to be more accessible than current procedure allows. At the very least, every office should have a drop box so the public and attorneys/advocates can drop off documents. Since the beginning of the shutdown, for the most part, I have been able to reach workers at my local offices. But sometimes a call to a supervisor is still needed when someone fails to respond. Same as pre-COVID. SSA thinks that computerization means they can cut back on employees and they have reduced their employee numbers for over a decade. And the workload keeps increasing. The population ages. Older people need more hand holding. They can’t presume everyone has friendly teenager to assist them on the computer or smart phone. Before I went to law school in 1974, I briefly worked for SSA during the time that SSI was transferred to the feds. I had at least 8 weeks of training at a hotel site with accommodations. I was trained we were to provide service to the public. Now, it seems, many workers are more interested in service to the agency. (And before anyone yells, I have worked with dedicated people who are interested in service) Bottom line, SSA needs to hire and properly train a lot more people.
@10:11 pm Good point. Sadly, the delta variant is raging out of control, particularly in areas where the vaccination rate is low. And, because so many people remain unvaccinated, the likelihood of even more variants developing increases with each passing day. At this juncture, SSA cannot be reopened safely. Having said that, SSA should also be doing all it can to make sure public service is not negatively impacted by the lack of reopening.
"field offices will reopen to the public at some point in the future and I can guarantee that they won't be any safer then than they would be now."
Whew! Sounding like Cancun Cruz here!
@327 SSA offices do have drop boxes and have for a few months now.
In the office I work at, documents dropped off still take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to be scanned. Then a few days to more to be assigned to the right person. Having more people in the office may decrease these times considerably but it will also mean less telephone coverage.
Those people who refuse to get vaccinated, also need to be protected from the COVID19 and the new variants.
Many of the anti-vaccine crowd are confused about vaccinations, easily led, badly informed, and are making a huge mistake. But they still don't deserve to get COVID19 and end up on a ventilator just because they walk into an opened and crowded SSA HO, or FO waiting room.
Same with the SSA employees who refuse vaccinations, they don't deserve to get sick either.
Although keeping the SSA offices closed isn't a perfect solution, it seems to be the best route for now.
@2:46 pm. All good points. The COVID19 issue is not going away anytime soon. The best thing to do is figure out a way to optimize service to the public in light of the pandemic and not keep projecting a reopening date that may not happen any time soon.
Delta + a return to the office = public health disaster
Cya in 2022 (maybe)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/delta-variant-doesnt-want-back-100045801.html
Open the SSA offices only to the vaccinated. It'll be an incentive to get vaccinated. No reason to reward the vaccine-ignorant, who are only prolonging this pandemic.
The COVID news has not been good lately. Also there have been articles in major newspapers, indicating that private industry companies are now rethinking prior reopening plans, due to the deteriorating situation with this awful virus.
In light of this recent evidence and news, , it would be helpful if the author of this blog stopped posting articles calling for SSA offices to reopen.
A written retraction of his prior posts indicating that FO, HO, and PSC should reopen this summer, would also seem to be appropriate.
Really is about the public. Would assume most of the people visiting local SSA offices are fairly elderly. The SSA for years now have tried for these folks to transition using the Internet as much as possible.
Do not see why the public cannot transition to most online and phone services. But there will always be the need for those who cannot adjust to technology.
Now with OHOs. I believe those should be the last to open. By definition, most of those attending have serious physical or mental problems. They presumably are the most vulnerable to Covid.
The SSA just needs to be smart about it.
@1:48 pm Regarding "SSA just needs to be smart about it", the biggest problem at SSA is the management at field offices and hearing offices who seem to lack basic common sense all too often. When SSA reopens one would hope that the directives regarding same are quite explicit and not open to interpretation by management members at field or hearing offices. No one would want that as pure chaos would ensue and the health and well being of the public served by SSA and the employees at SSA would needlessly be jeopardized.
Hall's comments reflect a lack of understanding about how SSA operates. Does he think his fees will go up if offices reopen? I don't know about FOs, but as far as HOs are concerned, aside from a skeletal crew to do in-person hearings for those claimants who want them , there's no need for most employees to go to the office everyday. Electronic monitoring and real-time data collection ensure that there's no chance to goof off at home anymore than in the office.
I’m a new trainee. Was hired one year ago. I volunteered to go back to the office because my training was not advancing. We are a rural FO and we scan mail the day it arrives. Two days max before you see it in Worktrack. I’m hearing the large metro offices who are also in our area are having a hard time. The large offices do not have enough in office help to open the mail and scan daily. They are weeks behind. We also have to help the other FO with the phones. It’s hard to help because we cannot help the caller. We cannot see the documents they mailed in. So yes service is most definitely suffering. Our small FO 2 hours away from the big city is taking appointments for them. I don’t get it. Our FO has 35 people total. The big city offices (they have 4 offices) each have over 75 employees. So yes it is time to open the FO. Even if appointment only. I have seen with my eyes people not able to resolve their issues. I fully anticipate any day to see a crowd of people outside with pitchforks they are so frustrated. Basically most appointments go to immigrants. That s the truth.
@4:57 - I can imagine the training is suffering at home but that’s the way the agency wants it. They have done away with group learning and having actual instructors in the classroom like I had years ago. It’s a terrible disservice to the new hire and the public.
Side note, you have 35 employees?!?!? Geez, that must be nice! I’m in a metro area and we have 8 total not including management. And to top that off…4 of our 8 are trainees!! 2 have been in training for about a year and aren’t done abs two more just got hired. We also have 2 retiring in the next 20 days.
Somehow we’re expected to just keep producing despite the losses. Funny enough, we are also expected to take claims for the larger offices in addition to our own.
I’d quit if I had any other options. I’m looking constantly and as soon as I find something else, I’m out. It’s just not worth the stress and the lack of appreciation.
Hope your situation improves!
Do you have a high risk child at home, Charles? Do you worry every day that you're going to bring a deadly virus home to her?
No?
Then maybe you should think about showing some empathy for those of us who do. Being forced into the office before my daughter can be effectively vaccinated would almost certainly guarantee that I bring her a death sentence.
Does that even matter to you or the Republican congressmen screaming that I need to go back to the office to do a job that can be done 100% from home? Do you begrudge the occasional load of laundry during a break that much?
I read this blog for insights on SSA, not for anti-worker venom and narrow-minded opinions.
I expect that when they go back they will be petty and slow down even more than they do now. Personally I am over it. They will get the same service when it is time for them to use the agency to correct something that was done wrong the first dozen times.
I have noticed this as well. This is causing chaos in my office with post approval. I spent 3 hours on phone with PC7 today for really weird careless errors which are causing huge delays in the release and angry clients thinking we are the issue. I have turned to 3 way calls for the client to listen in on my call to the PC to protect the reputation of our business and to show the client we are not neglecting them. I tell the payment center that I’m going to call every 3 days not the 30 they always suggest, until I see some movement in the claim. The clients have really appreciated this. Since I started doing it this way, past two months, I have collected the most $ in attorney fees for the month of July than any other month and closed out the most files for one month bc they released clts retro. But this week, more errors and really wacky ones.
We do all our clients online applications. The attorney does this for them while on phone or by email. She also completes their function and work history forms at same time over the phone so it’s ready to submit to ere as soon as DDS request them. We have an initial and recon attorney and once it goes to rfh its assigned to the other attorney to take over. This system has been a huge game changer for the business. We started doing this before covid but now we do it for every client. Best year for us in ALJ approvals, we have One Attorney to handle cases once it hits RFH…only 1 unfavorable out of 49 ALJ Dec for him. Initial/Recon attorney has managed to get 56 approvals. Clients hate completing this by hand and procrastinate sending the forms back etc. So we create a fillable form that some clients do through email or we simply take the time, sit on the phone asking the questions and filling it in for them. This actually saves time by avoiding client procrastinating delay. We are a small firm with 2 attorneys and 5 staff members. I have no issue if SSA employees work from home bc all this is done electronically. Our attorneys speak to every new client that calls and will speak to current clients throughout and consistently update them by email on case status. This helps limit those current clt “what’s going on in my case” calls. If you want your business to survive sometimes it requires a change in how you operate instead of blaming SSA. Telework seemed to improve our communication with FO. Also, ere at initial and recon has improved … I’m waiting for and dream of the day the initial and recon levels to be included in the status report feature! Hearings are scheduled much faster than before covid and we do all hearings by telephone and prep our clients by telephone or FaceTime! I’m scared for them to go back in office out of fear it will cause delays.
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