I listened to yesterday's Senate Finance Committee hearing on the nomination of Martin O'Malley to become Commissioner of Social Security. There seemed to be only limited Republican opposition. When a Republican Senator mentioned that he didn't like the firing of Andrew Saul, the Chairman of the Committee was prepared to politely mention that Republicans were hoist on their own petard. They were the ones who brought the lawsuits that led to the President's ability to fire people like Saul -- who richly deserved it!
I liked one thing that O'Malley did. Whenever a Republican Senator complained about backlogs and delays and poor service generally, O'Malley had the numbers and could talk about the staffing cuts in the Senator's home state, which were in the 20-30% range for the field offices and DDS. That seemed to mute the complaints. Don't let them "cut it until it bleeds and then complain about the bloodstains."
Update: Another take on the nomination hearing.
13 comments:
Here and on various SSA employee or retiree sites on Facebook folks are vocal about O'Malley, esp Maryland residents. Bad Mayor or lousy Governor most common refrain, likely this will spark same here. But he was able to manage one of the most dysfunctional city's in the US and a wealthy blue state. Many of the folks will be non-city residents who moved away from the city but complain like they still lived there. Others will be people who didn't like his politics (rain tax comes up often, like calling estate tax a death tax). That's politics and policies and red leaning folks complaining about urban cities and blue state leaders. He likely will meet his match at SSA but he at least has administrative leadership chops which SSA needs badly. If what he did in Baltimore City could be done at SSA, senior management will find themselves measured and made to account, which wouldn't be a bad thing.
I think O'Malley did a pretty solid job in this hearing, and I'm not particularly a fan of O'Malley. He said the right things. Whether or not he FOLLOWS what he said, is still to be determined. Couple big takeaways I can recall:
1. O'Malley talked about helping the agency streamline its online services, with some focus on streamlining the SSI application, as well as pushing more services online. This will be tough for him to theoretically accomplish in his 1 year if he gets confirmed.
2. When a certain senator pulled up the "BLAH BLAH TELEWORK" bullshit, O'Malley was pretty quick to point out that telework is less worrisome and the bigger burden is on the loss of employees. Much like mentioned in the above article, I think he used Indiana as an example? Both DDS and SSA have EACH lost something like 20% of its employees over the past decade. O'Malley mentions that it doesn't matter telework or not, those 20% of employees are now just NOT THERE to do ANY WORK.
3. O'Malley, at a multiple points, talked about the need for leaders in the agency to actually LISTEN to employees about what works and what doesn't. O'Malley tied this concept pretty hard to SSA's aging legacy systems and atrocious technology. I can remember specifically at one point, O'Malley stated that he had read stories/had conversation with an SSA front line employee who's main complaint was technology and that "I shouldn't have to have 16 different applications open to do my job. Switching from one to do this, then switch to another one to do that, just to work a single case" or something to that effect. THIS IS VERY TRUE, THIS IS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR FROM SSA LEADERSHIP.
Again, talk is cheap, actions are where the money is at. But, he did at least SAY the right things.
"[S]peed up training" is a huge red flag. In Operations, training has been both too brief and delivered terribly via VOD.
A serious person concerned with having competent front line staff (and ultimately happy staff that will stay) would be saying the opposite. Operations needs to go back to the slow, intensive, hands on in person training from decades in the past. You know, back when front line staff actually knew the regs and policy and could all independently handle most anything that came their way.
Don't worry, when confirmed O'Malley will have five years to get the job done. Trump ain't winning jack next November.
I don’t think training being brief and delivery by VOD are mutually exclusive. Training SHOULD be sped up and someone SHOULDNT need to take years to feel competent at the job. In person classes would be great, that’s the only focus, X amount of weeks/months. Ask all your questions as they arise during training, go back to your FO and have assistance with your mentor. Currently the model is “do some videos. Management will pull you away because you’re a warm body to fill a reception window or throw you on phones to meet some absurd metric. Then go back to your videos with no human interaction.” The VOD training takes so long because it’s not your only focus. In person training CAN shorten that window by a LOT if you are ONLY in the classroom training.
On the surface, “speed up the training” sounds weird. But if you parse through the details, it doesn’t mean it will be negative.”
Just going to say that I know the comparison is a stretch, but being a good generalist CR (is there such a thing any more?) who doesn't make mistakes often and gets teh job done is a lot like a doctor, where there is a lot to not just learn but do to get good at it. I always felt competent at each step of going from trainee to journeyman, but understood I didn't really know it all and was not yet a "master" rather than a journeyman. So fast can be good but competency must be required.
All of the trainings, new employee and new/reminder trainings, teach you the policy (Usually poorly) but do a HORRIBLE job of teaching you the how-to. You learn the 'how' when thrown to the wolves. Left to navigate awful Systems and try to remember all of the nuances of the poorly given policy training you received and apply it using programs that are archaic or frequently non-functional.
3 is profoundly true. The “technology” SSA employees use daily to accomplish certain things is absolutely absurd. I had to load an EXR a few days ago, it has probably been a few months since the last one. I had to follow the guide. Open PCOM. Go to the DCF. Then go to POS. Then open EDCS. Go back to PCOM to get the relevant dates because EDCS can’t read the MBR in POMS. Go to PCACS and search/request the paper file. Back to EDCS. Open WorkTrack simultaneously to key in the medical info. Back to ECDS. Back to work track to profile the electronic copies into eView. Back to EDCS. Send it to DDS.
There are certain processes at SSA that just makes the average claim rep go insane if one comes across your desk. I’ve had a few at a time, claimants calling non stop. 5-7 DIB/RIB appointments a day. Answering phones all day. Working a full day at reception. We’re open to the public 9-4. We have cases coming back from DDS that need adjudicated. Piles of other (over payment waivers, recons, tax forms, earnings corrections, address changes, IRMMA issues, angry letters, Medicare enrollments, paper applications , 1696s and attorney status letters, etc) forms that need processed. Work CDRs piling up. Records that need manually set up and sent to PC. Overpayment personal conferences to schedule and have with claimants. We do our own mail- print it, stuff the envelope, meter it to go out. We have meetings to attend, mandatory trainings to take. It never ends. Management breathing down your neck all day every day. If you don’t pull tickets fast enough, they send you a message asking why. If you don’t answer a phone call fast enough, another message. They constantly barrage you with status emails “what’s going on with XXXX. can you give this priority.” Wait stop what you’re doing, go answer phones. Why didn’t you get that done??!! It’s maddening most days and it’s why SSA is hemorrhaging employees. Leadership doesn’t care about anything but the metric meeting.
9:35. It is impossible to predict who will win the Presidency. You may not want Trump again, but it is quite possible he will win. Or another Republican.
This is why I don't understand why O'Malley is taking the job as Commissioner. He could be out in a year, if the Republicans win. If Trump wins, he'd fire O'Malley and appoint Saul again, or someone like him.
Speaking from 30 years at SSA, PC7 and OS:
Training needs to be deliberate and focused and just as in school not everyone learns at the same rate. You can rush training but not learning. My old BA training took 6 months in classroom, then 3 years OJT to be a journeyman. And all along there were constant changes to programs and policies to keep up with while addressing the growing workload.
Staffing at SSA - we talked about this back in 2009 saying that was the tipping point for hiring/training/replacing attrition losses. Since then it has only gotten worse in shifts and starts depending on whims of Congress and funding. If a professional staff is wanted/needed then the organization needs to be handled professionally, not according to whims of politicians and political appointees with their own agendas. SSA requires a baseline guarantee of funding that grows with population changes in order to handle the growing workloads.
Automation - It's a geometric progression for the cost of what automation can solve, as the closer you get to 100% solution, the more time/effort/money is required to improve. Also cyber security is of paramount importance to address with any systems improvements (see the direct deposit fraud that occurred once it was available online). SSA handles a workload larger than any other organization ($6 Billion payroll/month and growing), and its data is linked/used by many other government and commercial organizations (e.g. banks). This alone should demand a more robust and reliable operations funding floor, and this includes the over-worked, under appreciated front-line field office staffs.
Speaking of training…the Ohio DDS adjudicator training since 2020 has been around 10 weeks or so. I was one of the 40-50% that got hired in my class. The in office training was quite a revelation. The trainers were having a blast, laughing and talking loudly during lectures by fellow trainers. Several trainees openly talked on their phones and Face-timed throughout the day. Trainers never said a thing to them, as it continued the whole time. Never seen anything like it.
Many of us were worried about using DCPS, but we barely touched upon it. We didn’t know that DCPS was new, 2020, and the trainers had little experience with it. Better still, our probationary supervisors had never worked with it either! Just imagine how that played out!
Management’s top concern is closing cases and rewards those who cut corners. So many potential employees were cut during probation for not focusing on speed first. So, that focus is a big part of the staffing problem.
@941 Training shouldn't take years but learning does. Some cases are pretty rare, turning up once every 20 years or so. More common problems like combined family max cases are often difficult for newly trained claims specialists to spot.
Anyone that actually wants the job should be immediately denied. There is ZERO upside to the job, you are hamstrung by Congress, no control really. You take this job to be a consultant/lobbyist later.
Post a Comment