From Deputy Comm
Grace Kim.
Subject: Operations Re-entry Plan
I know most of you are curious about Operations’ future telework plan. The global pandemic has changed our operating environment, how and where we work, and highlighted those areas where we are not meeting our public’s needs. Over the course of the past 19 months, we have learned that we can effectively accomplish some work while teleworking, but our public service responsibilities mean that we still need to do some work onsite.
In Operations, I am planning for greater flexibility for telework for employees. We will use the lessons learned throughout the pandemic to inform how we implement a telework plan that allows employees to work from home and ensures that we effectively serve the public and carry out our mission. We will work closely with AFGE to ensure we meet all labor obligations. I am excited to share that I have proposed a telework program that will allow most Operations employees the opportunity to telework between 2-5 days a week depending on your job duties. Soon, your supervisor will share the telework availability for your position and give you 30 days’ notice before we transition to our new telework plan, which at earliest will begin in January. Until then, we will continue to operate as we have been under our current Workplace Safety Plan.
After we have completed re-entry and implemented our telework plans, we will evaluate how we are doing. This evaluation will inform our longer-term plans as we enter Fiscal Year 2023.
I want to thank you for your hard work and commitment to serving the public during this unprecedented time. I appreciate your patience as we consider how to safely re-enter the workplace. I will keep you updated on the re-entry process.
Grace
31 comments:
SSA management often sends out bad news late on Friday. Less blowback on managers that way. as many employees have already left or taken the day off. Also for the employees who do get the news, it gives them weekend to get over it.
What is the bad news? After 20 months, SSA has announced a plan to reopen the agency for business while promoting employee safety and telework. This is good news for millions of Americans who depend on SSA and for the thousands of SSA employees dedicated to public service.
Anonymous 4:50PM - what's the bad news with this? Field offices never had teleworking previously. This will give them the opportunity to telework 2-5 days based on their position. Some people just have to see the downside when announcements are made. Try looking at the upside.
@4:50 Classic public relations move to announce such news on a Friday afternoon. SSA's offices are so antiquated, some of which don't even have windows that can be opened, that it will be amazing to see a plan that actually safeguards the health and well being of employees.
Still a lot of uncertainty. Glad they are getting the ball rolling, though.
7:08 and 7:15: Going from 100% remote work to as little as 2 days telework per week, and rushing back to the office in January with so little notice, is hardly good news for SSA employees. No wonder they put this out late Friday afternoon.
I just don't see how it is safe yet especially for people who work in FO or HO. Crowded offices, face to face interviews, and poor ventilation. PSC and teleservice centers won't be a picnic either with crowded hallways and elevators.
It would be better to wait until at least spring, by then the COVID situation may be better and also by then maybe the Pfyzer and Merck pills may be available for those who do get this virus.
It does seem strange that SSA has put out nothing to the news media about their new reopening plan. And SSA employees are being given only a little bit of information at a time.
All PSC 7 employees are having a Teams meeting online Monday morning, with Deputy Commissioner, about the reopening. I imagine its the same in the other PSCs. Perhaps we will get more info , such as which positions or offices will still qualify for 5 days per week telework, and which will have their telework cut.
@11:41 am This rush to reopen is stupid. COVID19 is still not under control. The health and safety of employees and the public is going to be unnecessarily jeopardized by reopening too soon. Very dumb idea to rush to reopen.
It's been 20 months. Covid is over. Time to reopen.
@9:07PM
More than 1000 deaths daily still from COVID. Try to be wronger.
SSA should reopen, and I'm happy to return to the office, but they better change how they operate. We can't go back to the giant petri dish of claimants packed together for 2 hours waiting shoulder to shoulder. Some smaller offices are appointment only; I sure wish the level 1 FOs would do the same.
Sounds like telework will still be an option for a lot of positions which is great. I have no issue going back as long as they don't allow packed lobbies. The only issue I have with returning to the office is it will push my already aging backlog of cases even further back because when we're in the office, it's all we can do to work the office traffic, forget about anything on your desk.
@1019
SSA employees will be vaccinated by the end of this month or face disciplinary action. The risk of dying from Covid for those under 60 that have been vaccinated is very low. It is much higher for those over 80 but very few SSA employees fall into this category and the few that do, let them telework full time.
The risk for vaccinated workers is extremely low and offices should reopen to the public they should be serving.
The unvaccinated have the opportunity to get the shots and have chosen not to do so. Their choice should not determine whether vaccinated employees should be in the office or not.
2:40 I agree that the older SSA employees should be allowed to continue to telework. But the age you suggest, 80, is much too high. I think the risk for the vaccinated starts going up at age 60, so let SSA workers who are 60 and up continue to telework all the time.
The Israeli experience showed that booster shots are needed for people 60+ or else they get Covid, are hospitalized and some die. This will likely be a constant cycle with immunity waning each year and new booster shots needed. Let's not put older SSA employees at risk who are nearing the end of their immunity period but haven't yet been able to get another booster shot.
@12:39pm All SSA employees should be treated fairly and equitably. The problem with reopening is when members of the public come to the office and are not vaccinated they can transmit COVID to employees at the offices. Too soon to reopen.
Vaccinated under 60 are pretty safe even if they get Covid. Covid is heading towards being like the flu. Numbers are going down in cases and hospitalizations. Vaccines have made it safe for people to return to work. Waiting at this point, and actually it appears that the wait will be over soon, is close to shirking one's duty.
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/11/scicheck-why-its-easy-to-misinterpret-numbers-of-deaths-among-the-vaccinated/
8:11 I agree it's too soon to reopen,, why the sudden rush? January 2022 is much too soon to reopen. COVID is currently showing a slight resurgence in the USA if you look at the stats and there are too many breakthrough cases.
Many Americans are not even eligible yet for the booster because they are not age 65. This makes them even more vulnerable. SSA should at least wait until spring so everyone can get the booster.
@1147 People who aren't eligible for the booster who are under 65 aren't eligible because they don't need it.
That simply isn't true. Boosters for all will be announced shortly.
Social Security should reopen field offices, be by appointment only and require wearing masks. California DMV reopened this way in June 2020 and the two times I was there I was impressed.
Covid is not over, but it is probably never going away. We have to learn to live and work with it which means taking precautions but getting on with our lives.
Yeah, not going away but, thanks to emerging therapeutics, by November 2022 it should be no more dangerous than the flu and carry a nearly 0% risk of death for the workforce. That is the point at which the offices should reopen, and no earlier.
As a former DM manager it will be interesting to see how this works. If it is appointments only to keep the lobby from being shoulder to shoulder, the calendar is going to be near impossible to manage when considering staffing levels fluctuating (call-ins, leave, etc). Not to mention that the calendar will stay 100% booked. As a slot on the calendar opens, 25 people will will be trying to get that spot. Good luck to FO management tasked with managing that fiasco.
@ 2:22
If a person is fully vaccinated, isn't Covid already no more dangerous than the flu? The statistics seem to bear this out, but I would gladly review contrary data. Make health exemptions for employees that are extremely vulnerable and move on. The hysteria on this thread seems detached from reality. Most workers have returned the office months ago.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58545548
@2:22pm Good points. Folks tend to forget about the degree of interaction with the public at SSA field and hearing offices. It's silly to think that it can be done safely now. It makes no sense to rush the reopening and risk the health and safety of the public and employees at SSA when the work is being done. It seems ridiculous to do the reopening now for the result of the rushed reopening can be, literally, deadly due to the COVID virus.
The re-entry plan is out. Everyone here should be pretty happy. FO employees are looking at 2 days per week telework. That’s a decent start and was the focus of so many complaints here. However, OHO, including ALJ’s, their staff, OHO management, clerks, etc will be teleworking 4 days per week with decision writers teleworking 5. So not much will change in posture at OHO. But that shouldn’t be a problem. Everyone should be able to go into the FO with their clients and do business like so many wanted.
@819
"Everyone should be able to go into the FO with their clients and do business like so many wanted."
Claimants will come in and that is fine but attorneys rarely come in to FOs in my office. In 30 years I have never seen one nor heard of one coming in. They don't have to come in to get their work done and it would be a waste of time for them to do so.
A new survey by Slack shows that twice as many executives want to go back to the office as do non-executives, and the executives call the shots: two-thirds of them report that they are fashioning their work-from-home plans without input from employees. Labor Department data indicates that we are now down to about 11% of employees working remotely from more than a third at the peak of the pandemic.
Bet the SSA staff are going out in public, using public services, going out to eat, going to shows, going about normal life, sometimes with a mask and sometimes without and there is no reason whatsoever for them not to be in the offices for the public they serve, just like every other American worker.
Dont want to go back? Quit. We can get by without you.
It takes years
Guess what, we are willing to go through the pain, because if you are not what makes the agency good, you are what makes the agency a problem and we will all be better off without you. Claimant and Coworker alike.
Lol...get back to us in six months.
That is the wfh response time to anything out of the normal. 6 months
6 months is about how long it takes to replace all your original documents lost by SSA when you had to send them in and they disappeared, and you didnt get your benefits started. Back pay is all fine and well, but that doesnt seem to work on utilities and groceries.
Trust me, service is not going to improve with the adoption of the "new normal." The brain drain has already taken place.
The solution is a combo of the following:
1. Elimination of the veterans' preference, which makes it impossible for field office managers to hire qualified candidates for CSR and CS positions.
2. More funding for staffing. The agency needs approximately 10,000 more technicians to handle the baby boomers retiring and filing for disability.
As a Veteran and former CR I find that you are wrong.
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