From The Hill:
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) argued with a Social Security official over claims of backlogs in a Wednesday hearing about post-pandemic teleworking policies.
Boebert asked Oren “Hank” McKnelly, an executive counselor for the Social Security Administration, if the administration monitored its employees’ output and hours if workers are logging on from home.
McKnelly assured Boebert social security employees are “subjected to the same performance management processes” whether they are teleworking or working from the office. ...
“We have systems in place that our managers use to schedule, assign and track workloads,” McKnelly said, adding that if employees work virtually, they must be responsive to various forms of communication.
Boebert continued, asking the official why the backlog of social security applicants has increased from 41,000 to 107,000.
“We’ve been historically underfunded for a number of years now,” McKnelly fired back, to which the congresswoman disagreed.
McKnelly said in the past 10 years, the administration has seen an increase of more than 8 million beneficiaries and experienced the lowest staffing levels ever at the end of fiscal 2022.
“That’s a math problem,” he said. “If you have those workloads increasing and you don’t have the staff to take care of those workloads, you’re going to have the backlogs that you’re talking about, representative.” ...
22 comments:
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Oops you left off the last paragraph of your cited article.
Why did you leave that off?
Is it possible Ms. Boebert is unaware of the Baby Boom?
I’m sure it’s a liberal conspiracy, and wasn’t done in an effort to avoid running afoul of the fair use doctrine and commit copyright infringement.
Knock this nonsense off, fascists.
Here's the last paragraph:
It takes 220 days for social security claims to be decided, on average, which is 100 days longer than it did in 2019, said Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), the chair of the House Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee, in a hearing in October.
Her question about monitoring telework seems reasonable. I telework and I had that question at first. Employees who are productive in the office will be at home and those who aren't very productive in the office won't be at home.
Her comment about staffing numbers and requirements was ill informed.
She doesn't know a thing about SSA but that's about par for most politicians.
The last segment was a question about whether the agencies would be ready to bring employees back, if the next President ended telework. The honest answer for SSA would be "no".
For example: If SSA employees suddenly had to come in every day, There would not be enough seats in the Ball Building for Operations employees . These employees who are presently coming in less than 5 days a week, , are hoteling, without an assigned seat. If they had to come in every day, employees who arrived later in the day would not be able to find a seat.
Security West building where thousands of PC7 employees worked, has been closed and gated off for a couple of years, everyone is in the Ball now.
She is one of the most ignorant, and dare I say stupid people to serve Congress. What I am thankful for is the concerted effort by SSA to get the staffing numbers out there. Even O’Malley was aware of it in his testimony. It doesn’t matter if you have the whole agency sitting at home or the whole agency sitting in an office if you are drastically understaffed. And asking about DDS time also shows ignorance. I bet the rep from Ga small unaware that Ga has the lowest accuracy rate of any state in DDS quality as measured by OQR. Why? Low paying jobs with unmanageable workloads don’t attract applicants anymore.
If they really want SSA to improve, which they don’t, they would fund it better. The house suggested cuts certainly won’t improve service. Telework is a talking point to appeal to the widely ignorant base who things SSA employees are sitting at home doing nothing. Last time I checked, SSA didn’t go on a three week recess after voting out its leadership.
…For a decision at the initial level.
As written, or reported, it’s not well informed. But they are congressmen , so low bar.
5:02PM, you raise a good point. My office massively cut back on office space when we were allowed FTTW. If we were suddenly mandated to come back to the office, we would be in lots of trouble...
Haha her idiotic exchange is already floating around Tik-Tok. Posted by someone who keeps track of dumb things GOP reps say. For SSA to make an appearance on Tik-Tok is hilarious.
HQ (and teleworking) employee here. I am so sick of the way certain members of Congress perceive the way SSA is working. I do feel like Hank could have been better prepared for some of the questions yesterday. I actually feel like I could have answered some of the ones he hesitated on or is bringing back to staff. OLCA (I am assuming they helped prep him) could have done a little better. But I am thankful that he stood his ground on questions regarding the backlog and staffing. It is so hypocritical of the GOP to sit there and say “we need bodies in the office to work face to face with constituents” and yet not provide the funding levels for staffing that SSA is asking for. I don’t think they are capable of understanding we are operating at capacity in the FO and TSC. Give us the money for staffing. We monitor employee work, we have performed more work and transactions than ever and are operating at all time staffing lows. The smoke and mirrors of telework reduction does nothing more than portray us as lazy do nothings sitting at home and collecting a paycheck. Maybe if they could get their act together, pass meaningful legislation, pass appropriations bills and worry about their own productivity maybe they would stop using these sham hearings as a diversion. Its disgraceful to the 27,000+ frontline employees who are busting their backs every day to serve the public.
There's also https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/11/lawmakers-continue-debate-teleworks-role-agencies/392368/ which notes
"Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., tried to press McKnelly on why the Social Security Administration continues to allow employees to telework when its backlog for disability determinations doubled during the pandemic.
"So SSA made an agreement that allows probationary employees, employees with minor disciplinary actions and trainees to telework,” she said. “Think about that. Employees who are on probation. Wouldn’t it make more sense for these workers on probation or who have had these disciplinary actions or trainees to work in the office to ensure their improvement or to monitor their behavior?”
The term “probationary employee” in the federal government refers to a new federal worker’s first year on the job, during which they have not yet earned full civil service protections. It does not refer to employees “on probation.”
After watching this hearing, I think that the Republicans will quickly end or severely restrict federal employee telework if they win the Presidency in 2024. And SSA Commissioner O'Malley will either go along with ending telework, or be ousted.
It's a shame, SSA employees will be granted telework during Democratic Administrations then have it yanked when the Republicans take power. Back and forth like this, if it happens again it will be the third time telework will be granted then yanked.
Actually fewer and fewer people are being offered wfh as an option these days in the general work force. Taxpayers see government employees getting the opportunity and they do not like it. The old "My taxes are paying you to work, not do your laundry" thing. I get it and I get that many of the studies are now showing that wfh is not as effective after a while and that productivity spike is short lived. I also get the whole desire to wfh as an employee because it is so easy and less stress. It is hard to balance the two opposing opinions.
Truth is SSA needs more people, but not just bodies filling cubes. They need really good people. Really good people dont want to work at SSA. It is, by every measure an undesirable job. Why would the top 10% of workers or even the top 25% of workers want to come into the agency as it stands today?
I dont think people understand that the correction to this problem will take a decade. A decade of hard work, changing mindsets and attracting great workers with better training to handle an overly complex job that is strangled by ancient tech base and so many stupid rules created over the years. I honestly dont think it will happen in my lifetime.
I know for a fact I can get much more work done at home than in the office. No commute time, no distractions from coworkers, etc. If the agency wants to further shoot itself in the foot by getting rid of telework, so be it. It would be incredibly asinine to lower productivity even more
This is so true. There are too many executives who demonstrate “magical” thinking. The believe problems that have been years in the making can be meaningfully improved in one fiscal year with a few “quick wins”.
This narrow focus on telework so dumb. I have mixed feelings about telework myself, but for christ stakes this does not rank within the top 5 reasons for why SSA service is failing. The main area it negatively impacts is new employee training. But SSA needs to dramatically reform the retaining process, and simply ending telework would not resolve this issue either.
@622AM Telework for the vast majority of SSA employees started under a Republican Administration.
@1031AM Getting more work done at home because you have no commute time is not a winning argument. I agree there are less distractions from coworkers but many of those distractions are work related questions. If someone isn't the office answering them, the questioner is just going to have to ask someone else so there is no net gain in productivity for the office as a whole.
I wish that wasn’t true but you’re exactly right. I have 6 years left until I can retire and I don’t expect any significant improvements during that time. In fact, I expect it to get worse before it gets better.
I caught that as well. While not explicitly stated, it was clear that she was thinking exactly what you stated. How the heck is she unaware of a probationary period for GS staff after several years?
@718 I don't think much of Boebert at all but I don't think it's outlandish that members of Congress don't know what a probationary employee is that works for the government. The first thing one would think of if they didn't know would be that the employee did something wrong and was on probation. I have worked for SSA over 30 years and it wasn't until the last 10 or so that I heard the term and learned what it meant. When I started I may have been on probation but I was never referred to in person as a probationary employee.
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