From a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) on The Social Security Administration's Human Capital Planning (footnotes omitted):
... In a May 2022 hearing on customer service, Grace Kim, SSA’s Deputy Commissioner for Operations, explained “. . . insufficient funding over multiple years to hire the level of staff needed, and higher than average attrition rates across the agency” had driven SSA to its lowest staffing levels in 25 years. SSA’s ability to hire during the year is affected by when SSA receives its funding. SSA’s final budget is not usually passed timely as appropriations for agencies are not always signed into law when the FY begins on October 1 each calendar year. Congress and the President must approve the budget or a continuing resolution (short-term legislation to keep the Government open). Otherwise, a funding lapse may result in a Government shutdown where agencies can only conduct mission-critical activities, and non-essential work like training is suspended. As a result, SSA will send guidance as to when components can hire. SSA stated it is difficult to plan and manage funding under the Federal budget process especially if there are funding lapses or continuing resolutions. Office of Operations staff explained they cannot over-hire to account for losses throughout the year.
When SSA can hire, it often hires staff in large numbers after it receives an approved budget and trains the new hires together. One Regional Commissioner noted a “steady source of income” would allow for more balanced planning and hiring all year as uncertain budgets create cycles of hiring and freezes. Other Operations subject-matter experts explained hiring staff in large numbers creates a strain on human resource support staff who need to address a large number of staff hired at one time. Also, SSA reported the timing of funding can limit SSA from strategically hiring staff during advantageous times of the year, such as recruiting before students graduate and during the times college campuses typically hold recruitment and job fairs. Not being able to strategically time when to hire staff places SSA at risk of not hiring the most qualified candidates as they may have accepted offers from other employers and are no longer seeking employment opportunities when SSA receives funding. ...
5 comments:
Retired here, I would go back to work part time if it were more flexible. But their definition of part time was 32 hours a week. Nope, not doing that.
SSA has become a train wreck.
None of those issues have been a hindrance in the past, so perhaps DCO Kim and the rest of the goofs in Woodlawn and Falls Church should actually pay attention to the FEVS survey responses and have some hard conversations about how they have managed the Agency the past 15 years when those results took a nose-dive.
Management attitudes towards workers--and I don't mean at the DO or Hearing Office where the DMs and HODs are just conduits for messaging from do-nothing higher-ups. Meaningless subjective productivity measures and conflicting directives meant to address "priorities" (if everything is a priority, then nothing is) are morality killers, and the constant loss of manpower at the same time more and more of those subjectively created productivity measures are used is a great recipe for a terrible work environment. Nobody wants to work at the Agency because there problems are readily apparent shortly after EOD. People might be willing to tolerate it if they were paid commensurate with what they are asked to do, but Congress refuses to adjust pay-scales and the COLAs that get approved are a joke.
So in short, workers are asked to do more with less time, and do it for a wage that doesn't even keep pace with inflation.
But sure, Grace, it's all about timing issues. Anything to avoid confronting the actual problems.
Actually, if you ever had to do budgeting at SSA you'd realize that timing indeed has an impact on jobs. Not just the obvious get the soon to graduate crowd, but hiring in the feds actually has weird nuances that one can play with to hire more people than your budget actually allows. Hiring someone when half a year left costs less than hiring at the start of the FY. You can backload hiring and get more hires for same budget. Hence the need to have access to more CR money per quarter affects how many can be hired. But if you never had to work on an office budget for new FTEs, worked with your budgeting office regarding FTEs and timing, these nuances may indeed be something new to you.
Again, @9:44, since you appear to have either missed or ignored it the first time, none of these "nuances" have stopped the agency from hiring adequate numbers of qualified people in the past. Everything can look like an impediment if you want it to, especially if it can be an excuse to deflect from the actual problems. Keep whistling past the graveyard, though, it's working great.
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