The Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing yesterday on Securing Social Security: Accessing Payments and Preserving the Program for Future Generations. The hearing was held in Phoenixville, PA. Here's an excerpt from the testimony of Jessica LaPointe, President of American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE) Council 220, the labor union that represents most Social Security employees. This chart shows employee attrition rates at selected Social Security field office in Pennsylvania:
Remember, these field office positions require lots of training and experience.
15 comments:
I've been at SSA nearly 40 years. In the first 25 to 30 years, it was uncommon for someone to quit. Sometimes a spouse with a better job would move or in one case the worker's spouse died. Otherwise it was just attrition due to retirement. There was a T2 CR that was 5th in seniority out of 6 in his unit and he'd been with SSA 19 years. The 6th person had only been there a dozen years. SRs were blocked from promotion in our office because people left by retirement only once every few years and those were in T16.
The last decade, and especially last 5 years, turnover has been terrible among newly hired. The older employees have pretty much all retired and the replacements don't stick long. There's a few but 2 newly hired were fired, one transferred to another federal job, 3 that were hired to start the same day never showed up, etc. So the office has gone from predominantly experienced with a few new people to the opposite and the results are not good. Poor training and ridiculous workloads probably contribute to the turnover rates. Also, hiring from a small pool, veterans only, results in a higher percentage of workers who can't do the work.
I’m in Ohio. We went from 14 to 4…really sucks for claimants and employees.
Don’t worry though, we have 3 management personnel so we’re good.
Those of us who are “successful” punch in and do an awful job, but do it fast enough that no one complains about our productivity. Then the toxic mess becomes someone else’s problem. This repeats until the applicants give up or go to the local news.
For several years now, Ohio’s DDS training classes have had a 40-50% failure rate. HR is aware, and so is the union, but instead of addressing the problems, they promoted the head of training to management! Add to that the roll out of DCPS in early 2020 combined with the rush to WFH in March 2020, and you’ve got supervisors with no experience in DCPS leading people still learning the system. Most of us stay due to WFH and try to close cases as fast as we can.
Yup. I remember those days. I left a little under two years ago. I made a comment about my experiences on this blog only to be met with "how people like me were the problem and I would be easily replaced." Notsomuch. The agency will continue to hemorrhage experienced staff. New hires will be very iffy how long they will stay.
very disconcerting I am experienced 40 + .. i train newbies ,,albeit remotely which is not the way to go .. they stick 6-8 months then disappear .. all their work is reviewed .. rome was not built in a day .. i am lenient ... we need bodies .. the hope is they will improve... sand against the tide
We too have lost too many trainees to keep track of. Workers have different priorities than they did 10, 15, 20 years ago. The entry-level GS-5 pay is a joke. Even a 7 is a tough sell for most. Combine that with insurmountable workloads, a poor training experience, leadership that can’t move us into the future quickly enough, insufficient technology, poor staffing and constant in-person, public-facing positions- NOT WORTH IT for the new class.
Let's not forget that federal pay has decreased every year relative to inflation. In Houston, the pay rate in 2010 for a GS-7 step 1 was $43,734 which is $62,121 in 2023 dollars per CPI. In 2023, the actual pay for a GS-7 step 1 is $53,898, about 15% less than in 2010 accounting for inflation. Similar numbers play out nationally. Of course employees are not staying.
Managers in Ohio here. The situation is really really dire . This year will be a bad budget year and rumor is we need to lose 500 employees to make budget. We are depleted with little hope from lackluster leadership. About all we are asked to do is redeterminations and medical reviews. If 2023 fevs survey was bad - we will drop further
I am one of the quitters.
There were 5 of us in training. Two quit before training ended. I quit at the end of the the first year. It was a horrible job, training sucked, the public suck and my coworkers were horrible people that if I see them in the crosswalk, I will not be slowing down. I was literally told to stop helping people and just do what they came in for and nothing more. I was assigned a workload at the beginning of the month I quit and at the end of that month they told me my work was 18 months behind. I pointed out I had only been there a year! I was told it was my work and I was responsible for it.
I responded by walking out of the meeting, sending an immediate resignation letter, stood up and walked out.
I do not feel bad about it. Not even a little. I am glad to be gone and will never consider another federal or state job. I tell everyone my experience. I have no idea why anyone would stay and do those jobs, it simply isnt worth it.
@930 Training and management, for the most part, do suck. I found the public to be wonderful for the most part. I am in T2 though so that's part of the reason. Sure there are a few people that are difficult and hard to forget but the vast majority were people I enjoyed talking to and working for.
I'm one of those who left. I'm 35 and had 9 years of experience, and had won award after award, my processing time was faster, and my accuracy was higher than almost anyone else in my office, but the reward for excellent work were more work and 3's on my evaluation, so I left for three VBA. I had expected to be at SSA for 40 years, employees like me were the next generation of leaders, but extreme workloads and inept leadership were too much.
You should be happy with those 3’s lol. At least that’s what the line from management usually sounds like.
Mean while, you’re busting your butt for the agency and getting those 3’s and Bill is across the isle is providing bad information, barely doing anything but the minimum not to be put on a plan and playing on his phone…but he gets 3’s too!
SSA is a joke of an agency. Rotten to its core.
I guess it is universal that every office has a Bill or two.
anon@1:07pm,
In most offices, these days there are a lot more of those Bills than just one or two. Especially the younger ones.
Granted, it is not always their fault, when their training was dictated by managers and supervisors with no morals and lacking any sense of compassion.
However, at some point, they have to grow up and take it on themselves to actually learn to do their jobs. Which, honestly, most of them don't have the incentive to do. The agency didn't get to the top of the "worst places to work in government" listings by chance.
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