Grace Kim, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Operations, has been awarded the Presidential Rank for Distinguished Service. This award was given to 48 federal civil servants across all agencies.
Kim is in charge of much of Social Security operations providing service to the public. The service is terrible. Why give her an award? I don't know enough about what Kim has done to say whether she deserves the award but poor service was inevitable given the serious underfunding of agency operations. It's possible to do a better or a worse job of dealing with a difficult situation. It's certainly stressful to do a better job of handling a disastrous situation that's not of your own making.
22 comments:
Rewarding failure is entirely in line with SSA's longstanding policy of ensuring that all agency decisions enrich the lives of the ranks of SES hangers-on. These are people who, and this is not hyperbole, do not even write their own e-mails. They have staff do that.
The way things are now, Congress can appropriate $20 Billion and things will still be dysfunctional because the senior leadership at SSA is deeply dysfunctional.
Fish rot from the head down.
Owes her position to David Black and a total lack of conscience
I remember Ms. Kim from her start in Chicago. She has always been an attorney for the G, joining SSA from HHS when they became an independent agency. Not an inside SSA nuts and bolter. She was smart, personable and obviously ambitious. Not sure what type of background would be the best fit for DCO. The number and amounts given in these awards are outrageous. Lots of troubled agencies and departments involved with a lot of explaining to do if someone would ask.
If you look at the various metrics alone you can see the downward trend in all service areas and employee viewpoint since she became DCO. Isn’t anyone paying attention to that? Look at the recent FEV survey results. Operations is the lowest and has been trending down since she became DCO. If she is acknowledged for this kind of leadership performance then I guess in her minds eye she thinks she’s doing a great job. Very discouraging for those of us who have been hoping to see leadership change.
Awards have wrecklessly given out at field office levels for years. 90 percent or more of the employees get them in my office. One got an award for dependability. She showed up for work regularly and seldom took unscheduled time off. But a undependable employee as far as quality of work. Why should it be different higher up?
You totally nailed it!
Government awards are usually to recognize the successful exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The difference between an SES dud and the CS in our unit that takes (unplanned) leave as quickly as she gets it and does none of her work, is only the number of zeroes on the bonus check.
Well deserved. Ms Kim led operations during the greatest challenge to operations since the 70s with office closures, pivotIng to 100 percent telework, loss of staff, insufficient budget at the agency level and inexperienced political leadership unable to independently make decisions or exercise influence to benefit the agency.
She has been a mediocre manager, at best. Zero leadership demonstrated. On and on about how she moved mountains. In reality, the support to staff and service to the public has been a failure. Hundreds of suggestions were offered by caring staff to improve operations and it was made crystal clear that subordinates were to keep their heads down and mouths shut, or else…
Sounds like a fellow executive or Ms. Kim herself wrote the above comment. It's hard to justify a $70,000 bonus. SSA leadership ranks near the bottom in federal agency FEV surveys, let alone the downward trend in metrics cited by another commenter.
Kind of reminds me of the Oscars. They sometimes give awards for great movies. Sometimes not (how did The Exorcist not win the Oscars in the 1970s). So it's like they have a tradition to give out awards so somebody has to win. Not always deserved.
I have no idea how good Grace Kim is. Seems like the SSA handled the pandemic fairly well with the phone and video hearings. But how hard was it really. This probably helped with the backlog. I do know the VA disability backlog went down so the persons responsible for that deserve awards.
Ms. Kim was deputy to Ms. Calvert. Check out the second footnote about the OGC attorney on this case. Says all you need to know about SSA management.
https://www.flra.gov/node/66960
Kim should be brought into a room and not allowed to leave without her resignation signed and witnessed. The award is demoralizing, Kim is everything wrong with ssa. Awards for being terrible and incompetent.
This highlights why I despise working for this embarrassment of a federal agency.
The higher ups are so out of touch with the field and get rewarded for making even the most routine tasks difficult to complete.
What a joke
1030 I concur with you. The agency is embarrassing and leaders like Kim are directly responsible for failure. She is unable to meet the task and will never succeed at her job. The award insults thousands of hard working employees. The award should not be given to Kim.
There's no mention here of the total lack of policy progress yet recognition for the head of the policy component responsible for major SSA programs -- field offices can only implement good service to the extent that there are implementable policies and systems. Underpinning all service is the policy and the tools employees use -- without those there is no light for service improvements.
Reminder: her component placed 391st out of 432 in subcomponents across the Federal government in "Best Places to Work".
https://bestplacestowork.org/rankings/detail/?c=SZ00
Ms. Kim went along with Saul's plan to end SSA Operations telework a couple of years ago. But she has since come around, and is now supportive of SSA employees teleworking.
As long as she's good with me continuing to telework, I'm good with her getting an award.
Ms. Kim "came around," when the Biden administration ordered federal agencies to improve labor relations. Ms. Kim was more than willing to hurt employees when she got promoted doing so. FEV results should play a role in manager appraisals and bonuses. Her component ranked near the bottom government-wide. Someone else noted that Ms. Kim even refused to listen to employees on ways to improve public service. Ms. Kim should be asked to resign.
It was NOT 100% telework. I was in the office every single day during the pandemic killing myself to make this colossal disaster afloat.
This is literally the craziest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. I'm amazed she still has a job.
It's so depressing. Agency workers who actually deal with the public genuinely try to help, but there aren't enough of them and new hires learn quickly it's a terrible place to work. Agency leadership is the worst! Awarding Ms. Kim is a bad joke
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