From Money:
Government agencies aren’t exactly known for their stellar customer service. People looking for help from the Social Security Administration (SSA), however, may have it particularly bad.
Average call wait times with the agency have more than doubled in a year, according to SSA data. Even worse, AARP, a leading critic of the SSA's customer service, says that the average amount of time for a Social Security disability claim to be processed has increased to 223 days — and that 10,000 people die every year while waiting for approval. ...
The SSA received a $785 million increase in administrative funding this fiscal year to revamp operations. Now AARP is campaigning for the agency to get another increase of $1.4 billion to address its woeful customer service. ...
This is well intentioned and I hope it comes to fruition, but not matter what happens SSA is going to continue to suffer for at least the next 3-5 years. Even if SSA gets a massive budget increase, it still takes YEARS for new employees to be fully competent at the job. Maybe that will improve with better training and mentor time, but as the old adage goes “hope for the best, plan for the worst.”
ReplyDeleteHonestly, it’s great more people are recognizing the funding issues we face, but realistically it’s way too late. Throwing money at SSA won’t fix it any time soon and it’s going to get worse no matter how much funding is added. Everyone spent too much time blaming telework and not actually looking at the root issue, which is staffing, retention and actual functional IT improvements. I promise you nobody in HQ has any optimism about any of this and if you have heard the ACOSS speak or Mr. Goss you know the tone at the top is preparing for things to worsen if that is even imaginable.
ReplyDeleteAll the money in the world can’t fix SSA. Give them $8 billion more to spend, and they’ll just spend 90% of it on bad software and blow the rest paying dumb 20-something “management consultants” (none of whom have ever managed squat) to fabricate fake data reports about how long each component of each GS-5 through GS-12 employees‘s job should take. Then they’ll turn these fake numbers into the next generation of productivity standards, and the death spiral of piss-poor service will accelerate even further. It’s how the agency has spent most of its budget for 30+ years now. Anyone who thinks this time will be different is certifiably insane.
ReplyDelete@11:30 and @ 2:35
ReplyDeleteBoth of these comments are spot on. Management does not care about retention, not even the slightest. Management's current mindset is that everyone is replaceable. They willingly let YEARS of SSA knowledge to walk out the door without even so much as an attempt at retaining employees. Their thought process is that they can just hire someone else and start fresh. Which is where the agency is at right now. LOTS of competent, seasoned, decades plus of experience operations employees are basically saying f*** these unrealistic workloads and metrics, I'll go work elsewhere and management basically says "don't let the door hit you on the way out!" SSA management, for the past decade, has promoted clueless management simply because they are "yes men/women" and will just do whatever is asked without any sort of critical thinking, they just follow orders so they can get their NEXT promotion, all while driving employees away in droves.
During COVID, agency management really screwed the pooch by letting employees and telework get absolutely dunked on. The public and congress constantly ran with the idea that SSA employees were just on a 2 year vacation doing nothing from home. Field offices would get daily letters from the public chastising employees for "being on vacation for two years, time to get back into the office and back to work," all the while, field employees were expected to answer 1000+ calls to field offices every day. Most offices can maybe staff 5-10 employees on "phone duty." 1000 calls a day, by 10 employees (at most) would be 100 calls each, per day. Phone lines were open from 9am to 4am. 7 hours a day (1 total hour for breaks/lunch), means each employee was expected to answer 14~ calls an hour at a minimum. A call every 4 minutes. Resolve complex issues and do multi step inputs in 4 minutes, before the next call, rinse and repeat, all day, sometimes multiple days a week. Back end workloads were not getting done because it was literally impossible to do anything for 7 hours a day but answer phones or take telephone appointments. The agency did NOTHING but crack the whip. They never stood up for employees and state that they are NOT on vacation but are working extremely hard to answer the need of the public. Many employees felt let down by management letting them drown in work and being shit on by the public and congress.
A huge part of the problem is that senior "leadership" at the agency has no experience running a large organization. They are often in leadership positions with social work degrees crying only about DEI issues and not actual organizational issues that are plaguing the agency. The current ACOSS couldn't care less about employees, her resume is currently lackluster at best and she just delegates everything to her underlings, who also don't care as long as the whip is cracked hard enough for metrics to be met. Grace Kim was one of the most incompetent DCOs the agency has seen in a long time, it's fantastic that she's no longer in that role, but the change made could be just as bad, but only time will tell.
The agency is in a fast downward spiral, all because years of terrible leadership and there won't be a turnaround until the top leadership is wiped clean for competent management.
Give them the money but have to end telework.
ReplyDeleteThe agency cannot end telework. There is an agreement with AFGE to keep it in place at least until 10/27/25.
DeleteNo there isn't. The MOU you reference refers to the ability of probationary employees to telework. There is no agreement in place to continue telework.
Deleteanon@7:21am,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, that agreement also includes an out clause that will allow the agency to alter/end telework whenever it wants to. The union likes to pretend it isn't there, but it is. So far, management hasn't used it because they are laboring under the a delusion that they can rehabilitate their reputation with the worker peasants to improve on last year's annual survey embarrassment. That delusion will get crushed when the new results become available - the only question in my mind is how low their rankings can actually go.
And, Biden could order the end of telework at any time at the stroke of a pen. He isn't particularly a supporter, after all. If he does this, the union agreement won't matter.
Finally, the red howler caucus has certain members who believe telework is by their definition an affront to whatever god they pretend to worship. To say the annual budget negotiation circus later this year is going to an especially contentious event is an understatement. Biden and his handlers are obviously not wedded to telework (exactly the opposite in fact) and will not hesitate to trade telework off against some other nebulous political objective he/they consider more important.
Democrats only pretend to care about federal employees in election years, and this ain't one.
Eh, in this day and age the year preceding a presidential election year is also an election year. It's a 24 month cycle.
DeleteAlso, the main reason management currently supports telework is because they know they won't be able to hire halfway decent candidates without offering it and that they will lose a large number of workers to other government agencies and private employers offering it.
I know it is hard to swallow for some, but after being in place for 40 months, telework is here for good. Eventually the FOs will be eliminated and there will just be large regional offices, like the card centers, where people can travel to if they insist on conducting their business in person.
Republicans are the only party that can fix SSA.
ReplyDelete11:24 And by "fix", you mean "destroy", right?
ReplyDeleteThis Won't Get Enacted But It Shows You Where The GOP's Heart Is
https://socsecnews.blogspot.com/2023/06/this-wont-get-enacted-but-it-shows-you.html