From:
^Commissioner Broadcast <Commissioner.Broadcast@ssa.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2024 2:31 PM
Subject: Increasing Our Onsite Presence
A
Message to All SSA Employees
Subject:
Increasing Our Onsite Presence
Every morning for the last 32 days, I’ve been going to work at headquarters or catching pre-dawn flights to Social Security Regions across our country.
I do this to hear from — and learn from — as many of you as possible, as soon as possible, about what’s really going on.
And while the best ideas for improving our operations always come from those on the frontlines, some decisions must ultimately fall to the Commissioner.
So, let’s acknowledge this truth:
The Covid pandemic and shutdown changed the nature of work. There is no private sector company or public agency in the world which has since found the perfect balance between onsite presence and telework.
But because I understand any new adjustments to our telework policies will affect you personally, I wanted to give you as much advance notice as possible so you can make adjustments in your own balance between work and life.
After much listening and deep consideration of currently available evidence, I have decided that the following policies will be effective across the Social Security Administration beginning April 7, 2024.
Here’s WHAT’S NOT changing:
- Field Offices will remain open to the public five days a week.
- Employees in field offices, teleservice centers, and program service centers (including the Office of Central Operations) will continue their current balance of onsite presence and telework.
- Employees in hearing offices, hearing centers, and case assistance centers will continue their current balance of onsite presence and telework. ALJ hearings will continue to be held five days a week by teleconference, videoconference, or in-person, at the option of claimants and their representatives.
- Employees in the Office of Appellate Operations and the Office of Quality Review will continue their current balance of onsite days and telework.
- Employees with nonportable workloads and those ineligible for telework will continue their onsite presence.
Here’s WHAT IS changing:
- In our headquarters and regional offices, we will be moving to “core collaboration days.” We do this in order to better serve the American people, to better support our new trainees, and to better support and train our frontline workers in their mission.
Therefore:
- I will be present onsite at the Baltimore Headquarters (or in regional or area offices) five days a week.
- The Commissioner’s Office will be onsite four days a week with one day of telework optional.
- Because servant leaders make themselves present and accountable to the people they lead, Deputy Commissioners, employees in headquarters components, regional offices, and area director offices will increase their onsite presence to three days per week with two days of telework optional.
- Employees in the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) will increase their onsite presence to two days per week — with greater presence for top level executives at the discretion of the CIO.
Our return to a greater onsite presence not only gives us more opportunity for collaboration, engagement, and innovation, but it also brings us into alignment with other federal agencies across government, who have been increasing their own onsite presence.
Conclusion:
In the coming days, you will receive more information from your managers about logistics like signing up for a transit subsidy, updating your parking badge, making your desk arrangements, and more. Facilities will also be working to expand cafeteria and onsite food options on core collaboration days.
As we improve the quality of our data to measure our effectiveness across the complex components of the Agency, we will continue to adjust in order to reach the best possible balance within individual units. These decisions will honor both the letter and the spirit of our Union agreements. And these decisions will be based on the mission of SSA using the best available evidence, not fear.
Our mission is the security of the men, women, and children of our Nation.
Thank you for your dedication, and I look forward to seeing you in-person if I haven’t already.
Yours in solidarity,
Martin O’Malley
Commissioner
I can see the reasoning. SSA HQ employees have had 5 days per week telework since 2020, but they really need to coordinate with other employees in office.
ReplyDeleteSame with Systems, they need to be in the office.
The PC employees should keep their present higher telework levels because the managers can see exactly how many cases are being worked in paperless. For most PC employees who work cases, there is little need to collaborate with other workers.
As for the field offices that is a high stress job and difficult to retain employees. Their two days per week at home is very helpful, and much of the FO employees work can be done at home.
Let me guess. You're not a HQ employee. If you were, you'd know that HQ employee work, performance, morale and health quality improved with telework, collaboration was occurring the same, if not better than in person, and there is no need to work by yourself in an office when you are doing the same work better at home. People will leave as a result of being forced back in.
DeleteTook him 32 days to lose his credibility. He launched engage ssa to hear from employees. The top two ideas there? Increase telework and close the office a half day on Wednesday again to let us clear our desks. Everyone can see these ideas and their votes on engage ssa. And what does he do? Make it clear that he isn’t listening to those ideas. 32 days is even faster than Saul.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s going to happen if agency morale and workloads don’t improve with additional in person work? Does that mean he would actually consider the engage ssa ideas and give us desk time?
Can you read? He said FOs are staying open 5 days a week, adjustments to hours may or may not be coming, nobody really knows yet. Even if offices close early on Wednesdays, the offices are still open 5 days a week technically lol
DeleteWhat do people who say “increase” telework mean? RO/CO were already at max telework, it literally couldn’t be increased any more lmao. If the field/tsc/psc are having days spent in the office, so should RO/CO, period. We’re all one agency, with a single mission. Deal with it.
Anyone who thought O’Malley or anyone else in the agency would actually do anything to improve morale or improve service beyond continuing to simply yell “Faster! Faster!” is either deluded or hasn’t been paying attention for the past 10-15 years.
DeleteBravo. It's about time. Now for the agency to realize FOs are not benefitting from two days per week telework.
ReplyDeleteIf you think FOs are having trouble recruiting and retaining employees now, take away telework and see what happens. Yikes.
DeleteYou do realize that employees who are working from home are either taking telephone applications all day or are literally answering phone calls back to back from 9am to 4pm, right? So okay, let’s propose that they are going to go into the office 5 days a week. While in the office, they will literally be taking telephone appointments all day at their desk or sitting at their desk answering the phone line back to back from 9am to 4pm. So how are they going to help walk-ins then? It’s always people who don’t work for the agency that think they have the solution but they really have no idea what they are even talking about.
DeleteRO/CO employees are losing their shit about having to spend a couple days a week in the office. It’s hilarious. Someone internally pointed out that from 2004-2014, operations has lost somewhere in the range of 8k operations frontline positions (so CSR and CS positions combined) but the agency has gained something like 2k~ managerial positions in the same timeframe (Keep in mind, these managerial positions generally get paid a lot more than the positions that were “lost”). Imagine that, you know where the vast majority of those “managerial” positions went? RO/CO. The agency needs to cut the bullshit middle fat, made up positions/titles and put more resources in the field. The agency has NOTHING to show for this lopsided disparity other than increasing backlogs and terrible customer service.
ReplyDeleteI guess the new the commissioner didn’t take into consideration how the public feels about teleworkers in the field offices. It is now acceptable practice at SSA that the public-should wait in the lobby for more than an hour to get questions answered. Not everybody is proficient on online transactions. The commissioner should invest more time on hearing from the taxpayers who happen to pay the federal employees salaries.
ReplyDeleteSo make FO employees have reduced telework days. Don’t punish offices that aren’t public facing.
DeleteSounds reasonable and a fairly balanced approach towards some normality. Hopefully more to come including emphasis on increasing FO staffing.
ReplyDeleteI believe field office managers should enforce the rules and have surprise visits to all teleworkers homes to make sure they are working. This would give the public more confidence in the telework program. Unfortunately, it’s not happening.
ReplyDeleteThe work is tracked meticulously, and we’re hounded day in and day out about our metrics. Perhaps you should try to educate yourself before spouting off about issues you don’t know the first thing about. Bet you’ll just keep shouting and doing whatever the dummies on Fox and OAN tell you to do instead.
DeleteWhy does any individual who is looking for telework accountability part of the FOX or OAN agenda? The surprise visits to a teleworkers home is not being enforced by management. That is why desk audits are done at field offices. There are many telework jobs available in the private sector but they are being cut back since it’s not working.
DeleteHaha do you realize how absolutely ridiculous this sounds? A: the union would never let this fly and B: you assume managers have enough time to hop in the car daily and make random visits to employees house? You do realize some employees commute as much as an hour or more each way? So the FO management is going to drive an hour just to say hi and then drive an hour back to the FO? And people think “lazy teleworking employees” are a waste of tax dollars LOL
DeleteDoes the Privacy Act of 1974 ring a bell? Maybe refresher training is needed. The managers job is not is to drive to an employees home to say “hi” but to make sure that the public information is safely guarded. The rules are in place for a reason.
DeleteI think you need a refresher course in reading and comprehension. The original post said “to make sure they are working” not about “making sure public information is safely guarded.” Those are two vastly different things, don’t be so obtuse.
DeleteIsn’t it an SSA policy that taxpayer information needs to be protected?
DeleteThis policy makes no sense for OGC, in particular. Under the prior General Counsel, OGC was restructured so that it is no longer geographically based. Instead, attorneys from each former geographical region are now collaborating with attorneys all over the country in Divisions instead of Regions. Each Division is made up of attorneys who are physically located anywhere in the country. Moreover, OGC hires since the reorganization reflect a practice of hiring attorneys from anywhere in the country who are working outside of their geographic area.
ReplyDeleteThe level of inefficiency this will create is staggering. OGC attorneys who have been able to work uninterrupted for long hours are now going to have to commute, some more than an hour and a half each way to work, and lose out on valuable productive time. Commuting around the cities will force attorneys working in the eastern United States to start their workdays at 6 am to get out of the office by 2:30 pm to avoid huge traffic; and will make it nearly impossible to collaborate with their colleagues working on the West Coast. OGC does no work with the public, and its work is 100% portable.
OGC had already lost ground in the most recent FEVS survey with employee morale, this change will significantly increase dissatisfaction and result in attorneys leaving the agency with no room to hire replacements for already over-burdened staff. Retirements will skyrocket for those eligible. I see no benefits at all under the current OGC organizational structure to returning to work for any days, let alone three days per week, so we can sit in a regional office on MS Teams calls to collaborate with our colleagues - which we already do from home.
Maybe morale is low because you haven't been able to have meaningful in person interactions. Give the commissioner credit for at least changing the status quo up to try to improve. I think you will find it engaging to actually interact with people in person again.
DeleteMorale is low because OGC is not staffed or compensated appropriately. Nice try, though!
Delete
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see the front line workers in the FO and PSC being treated well for a change. In the past as under Saul, Operations employees suddenly had their telework completely eliminated.
At least O'Malley isn't being that drastic with any components, , he is not suddenly imposing a 100% cut of telework.
About time RO/HQ employees show up and work like the lower graded FO employees. This will improve morale on the front lines!!
ReplyDeleteNah, the FO employees will continue to leave for greener pastures regardless of if RO or HQ employees are working in the office or teleworking at home.
DeleteI'm in an OGC region. We don't deal directly with the public and have to communicate with headquarters and other regions remotely, whether we're working from home or sitting in an office. This move doesn't make any sense for us.
ReplyDeleteAre any disability firms hiring experienced litigators?
The new policy is ridiculous. Forcing people to come into the office 3 days a week, but 2 if you’re in systems, to do jobs they can clearly do at home, under the idea of mentoring, relationships, and collaboration is delusional. How’s is it going to work out when you have several people with low morale in the office “mentoring” and “collaborating”… how are we even expecting to recruit talent to mentor with such a low number of telework days and opportunities? The problem SSA has is a handful of bad leaders in important jobs… and bad leaders are bad leaders where their employees are home or in the office. Good leaders find ways to reach and connect with their employees no matter where they are… and good leaders know how to deal with bad employees at home or in the office.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with this. If it’s good enough for FO employees it’s good enough for the rest of you. Just find a new job with permanent 100% telework. It’s easy right? You’re obviously more qualified and important than us here in the trenches.
ReplyDeleteIt’s not about being better than the FOs. Systems folks care about the frontline which is why some of us work late to be available to the workers in other time zones. All this does is make that support harder to come by. Most people are going to come in early to avoid traffic and to secure a parking spot so if you have a problem after 2:30 or 3 eastern time, you’ll have to wait until the next business day. And I get the collaboration thing but the problem is they removed most of our meeting rooms/spaces and lowered the cubicle walls so even if we want to meet together, we can’t. We can’t even meet in an aisle without distracting our co-workers so we will have to call from our desks which is no different than being at home. This is a very reactionary decision with zero planning. I think April is going to show just how bad of a decision this is.
DeleteGet a doctorate level education and handle highly complex and sensitive information on the macro level. You want us to be treated the same as you, and we arent
DeleteYou guys are just killing it right now for us. lol thanks for all of the amazing support
DeleteAll COSS did is take away valuable resources SSA needs. Many of the RO employees that directly assist the FOs will retire. If positions are backfilled, the FOs will lose staff to the ROs. If positions are not backfilled, the RO experts who remain will have more duties and even less time to assist the front line.
ReplyDeleteUntil frontline initial level training improves and SSA hires people who want to stay with SSA at volumes that make a difference, morale will not improve in any component, especially the FOs. It is do more, more, more with less, less, less. The public SSA faces today is nothing like it was five years ago either. FOs deserve hazard pay.
The frontline needs HQ and RO Systems and Policy experts to remain with SSA and help the FOs assist the public. If the agency loses even more expertise than it already has, the frontline will suffer, as will the public. DDS processing times will increase if the RO support drops, too.
Support will decrease not just because of retirements but from employees taking more leave. Presently, they can flex out for a short time to get to an appointment or school event and come back online to finish up 8 hours or work extra, which many do even off the clock. Now, they will need to first commute to those appointments and events, so why commute back especially if the commute is a typical hour one way as it is in cities where ROs are located. Some ROs are in cities where the typical commute is two hours one way.
Do not think for a minute all HQ employees will be onsite 3 days per week. Many are out stationed because HQ needed to increase the available talent pool, same as private sector employers have done.
Similar to OGC comments, RO Systems and Policy staff are highly specialized employees that handle very specific workloads. They need to collaborate within the RO is not as common as it with other ROs and HQ. Collaboration happens via Teams, not by having face-to-face meetings that require travel.
This will continue for RO and HQ employees who choose to remain with SSA, but from buildings full of distractions and interruptions.
I see a lot of FO people cheering on this decision, but I have two questions. How’s making RO and HQ staff come in going to clear your backlog? We don’t have a backlog.
ReplyDeleteSecond, anyone who believes in the “one size fits all” approach cannot complain about poor management because that is poor management. It should be up to the DC’s like it was currently. For example, in my team, I’m an hq employee but I live 800 miles from HQ. A large part of my work is done with external agency partners all over the country. So now, I get to go into a building somewhere and continue to talk to my team via Skype and teams, and do my external work the same way. What’s the point of that? The only thing that’s going to change is instead of pushing through sick days of myself of my kids to keep my work current, or work credit for critical issues, I’ll be happily using my over 800hrs of sick leave and will be out the door at my end of tour to make it back home.
I’m tired of people comparing the FO to other components. Each component has its own challenges and doing something for the sake of being equal is not based on analysis or sound management but rather in feelings. And that’s why you aren’t a manager, and those making that decision shouldn’t be either.
No backlogs? Sounds like a misallocation of resources. FOs could use you.
DeleteHaha my thoughts exactly. The field has a backlog because of the lack of resources, apparently RO/CO has too many resources and not enough work. Maybe they should start taking GI line TSC calls to help. Or jumping in and taking teleclaims as well. Doesn’t BOP use “augmentation” to fill gaps in resources? Maybe SSA should do the same.
DeleteWhat about people who were hired remotely and/or outstationed? So, aren't they at a disadvantage working from home and not having to come into the office to "collaborate"? Doesn't everyone deserve this benefit?
ReplyDeleteOld has-beens with old ideas pushing old solutions and getting old results.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone think the "new" COSS will crack down on management abuses of "outstationing" that allows them to work remote indefinitely? I know it's a big problem in ODP. Not a chance.
FO employees are not at all in the same position as other employees with fully portable work, it is not even close. FO employees are expected to deal with the public, it is their job.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly why you need to interact more in person to breathe and realize the organizational goals.
DeleteAmen.
DeleteExactly, RO/CO employees love to bemoan “but but but, that’s not MY job!!”
DeleteIt's about time Operations employees (PSC, FO, TSC) are not at the bottom of the totem pole. Are not the ones bearing the brunt of these cuts,( as has historically been the case at SSA).
ReplyDeleteThose ones who deal with the public and do the difficult front-line work. We feel that we are being appreciated by the new Commissioner in this decision.
Thank you, Commissioner O'Malley, for letting us keep the same levels of telework. This will help so much with Operations morale, retention of employees, and hiring employees for Operations workers in the agency.
Getting to watch your colleagues get dumped on might provide a little short-term boost to your mood. But by the time they’re back in the office in April, you’ll have forgotten all about that cheap thrill, and be even more miserable than you are now.
DeleteYou might actually get some long term improvements if, instead of rooting against your colleagues in the agency, you spend that time pushing for meaningful changes to your own working conditions.
“If you spend time pushing for meaningful changes to your own working conditions.”
DeleteLOOOOOOOOOOL. What do you think operations employees have been screaming about for the past decade?? SYSTEMS, DO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL!! POLICY, DO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL. Make our jobs easier, so we need to rely on help LESS. RO/CO are the laziest bunch of high brow turds employeed at any agency I’ve seen. No technology simplification (see CCE dumpster fire and constant single use applications pushed out on the regular) and no policy simplification. If ya’ll did YOUR jobs, and you know simplified policy so different policies didn’t contradict one another or have more grey area than the god damn moon, the field wouldn’t need to rely on you.
The RO/CO always loves to tell the field “your problems are your problems! Fix them on your own!”
But they don’t give the field/power to fix things lol
Has anyone had a division or DC level meeting about this yet? What’s going to happen to employees who are outstationed but not outstationed to home. For example we have team members in Boston, NY, Las Vegas, DC, and Delaware who were added to the team form their FO or ADO during maximum telework. They were given a spot at their closest regional offices in case of an emergency and that was the understanding. They had to live within 2 hrs of the building in case of a call in our outage at the ADS. Are they now going to have a permanent desk there and commute in each day? I know if that were me, I’d go back to the field where it’s easier to get through the day and not have such a terrible commute rather than make a 90 minute drive each way to sit alone and “collaborate” over teams the same way they already do.
ReplyDeleteAnyone’s DC addressed this yet?
I heard out-stationed people can keep their arrangements.
Delete@4:17 is this a component level decision? May I ask what DC you are under? And is there a difference between outstationed and outstationed from home? I am sort of scrambling to wrap my head around the logistics of getting these new people full access to their buildings etc. I know I should wait for our DC to address this, but I’m curious what’s happening across components.
ReplyDeleteAnd to those saying management can’t come to your house? Read your telework agreement, Article 41 and the MOU. Management can come inspect your ADS with 24 hrs notice, but specifically for compliance with the telework arrangement, not to check if you are working. We can do that already. We know when you log in from somewhere other than your ADS as well as a lot of other work metrics. Which again is why this is a crazy decision.
Nobody said management can’t come to your house. What was said that management cannot come to your house just to check and see if you are working. Which is what you reiterated. So thank you.
DeleteMost CO and RO folks should spend time in their office but not 3x a week. 1-2x per week with all day(s) being core day(s) would make more sense than 3x with the possibility of still only seeing a coworker 1x per week depending on the elected telework days outside the core days.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteFor those complaining about no longer having 100% telework, get a grip. The Covid pandemic is over, and SSA employees shouldn't expect to be able to work from home all the time. The public would not accept that.
At least some telework days are still being given. I'd have been grateful for even 1 day a week of work from home,, back , when my telework was suddenly eliminated in 2019.
One day is so helpful for scheduling and planning appointments , to flex out from home when the doctor or dentist is nearby.
I think you all have lost your minds. We all used to work in the office just fine. Heck, it's fair to say it was even a good time often enough. Then bam - covid hit, and suddenly people came to believe they should never have to work in the office with other humans again. It won't hurt any of you. Heck, it might just be a good thing. People were designed to be around people. Surely, we're better together. Right? Get over your negative selves. Nobody ever died from going into the actual workplace. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteYou are right no one has died going into the office however, when you work in an office where a serial stabber was apprehended on the corner of the building you work in, or there was a shooting in the train station directly across the street, or a cop was hit in the head with a hatchet one block over, or a rapist was appended 6 blocks away it makes you think you might be. And for what - the same job the I can do from my home.
Delete914pm should request a reasonable accommodation for lack of safety on Jamaica Ave
DeleteWell, I don't know where that office is located, but I can say that crime statistics are considered when determining office locations. Generally, the agency will exclude from consideration locations that don't meet appropriate risk levels when acquiring space.
DeleteThe Jamaica Ave OHO used to be next door to a golf course in suburban Queens but HQ forced it to move into a colocated building with the DO and NEPSC back when five of the six ALJs there were busy doing all the things that resulted in the Padro class action. That's why they're on Jamaica Avenue. Next question.
Delete@5:40 it’s the NEPSC
Delete6:24 The days of Field office employees being treated poorly, while SSA employees in HQ and RO enjoy unlimited telework and other perks,, are over.
ReplyDeleteIt's obvious that Commissioner O'Malley sees valuable field office and PSC employees differently, than our prior commissioner did. And this change is long overdue.
You understand that PC employees are onsite only one day a week?
DeleteThats really how you understood it? It’s obvious he’s just starting first with the non-bargaining employees, because he easily can. He isn’t valuing certain employees in the agency. Bargaining employees will be back well before 10/25
DeleteGosh, one can dream. For at least the last decade, operations was essentially looked at as second class employees. Expendable, replaceable, thrown to the meat grinder just to me arbitrary statistics/goals so the senior execs and senior management could get their bonuses that year while operations is crushed with overwhelming workloads and backlogs. It’s still too early to tell, but hopefully change is happening within the agency.
ReplyDeleteI have nothing against CO/RO employees and do not think all should be coming into the office “just because.” It sucks if you truly have a job that can be done from home, but you will get used to it. If you value remote work that much, then you may need to look for another job.
ReplyDeleteI am pleased with the decision to bring back all leadership back into the office though. Especially leadership in operations. They should be doing as they expect from frontline FO employees regardless if they can remotely do their job. They should be leading by example anyways.
Operations leadership in CO? You think they ALL work in CO? No. Out stationed.
DeleteLocal Operations leadership can telework at the FO, ADO, and RO levels at two days, but even some execs at the RO level are hired as out stationed.
That was a beautiful five minute speech by O'Malley. It finally sounded like somebody who cared to have his eye on the ball. The ball is serving the American people. Kilolo - I have no idea what that lady was doing. I honestly can't believe we had to suffer through that incompetence as long as we did. DEI championships serve no one.
ReplyDeleteI’ve heard some comments from mid level leadership that O’Malley has inquired/started spinning the wheels of certain things, more in a month, than Kilolo did over three years. Is that a likely statistically true fact? Probably not, who knows. Is it crazy to hear from multiple mid level layers of SSA management, yeah.
DeleteHopefully this is just the start... Central Office and Regional Office employees should always be available to front line employees and have no telework as their jobs require in person interactions and relationships.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't true. You must not be a CO employee. We have our own customers that we collaborate with but we do not have daily or frequent contact with the public. We do the same work from home that we would be doing in the office and there is no need to commute, spend money, and sit at our desks working on teams with our colleagues across the country when we do the same thing more efficiently at home.
DeleteClearly the Commissioner believes in the value of in person relationships and collaboration. Hopefully if your views don't change the Commissioner removes telework for CO employees as there is value with in person relationships.
Delete@9:43 having CO and RO employees available to the front lines inches exact reason we need to continue telework. I’m an RO employee on the east coast who served frontline employees in every region. When I went into the office, my hours were 6:15am to 2:45pm EST. If you were on the west coast, if you didn’t reach me by 11ish your time, you were waiting until the next day to get an answer. Working from home, it’s 8am to 4:30 and sometimes credit past that, increasing your chance to get help.
ReplyDeleteYou also said RO and CO jobs are to support the field but in person work is required? If I’m completing your health insurance in Baltimore for you in Colorado, or if we are processing your payroll in Baltimore for you in Texas, how does that require face to face work?
It seems so my like people in the FO want RO and CO people back in the office simply to make things equal. That’s thinking like FO management. Congratulations, you just justified pushing your staff too hard to meet numbers just because other offices do. lol. How short sighted. You aren’t making a decision that is best for your coworkers you are cheering on that they will be less happy because you are miserable.
The staff at HQ and RO should come into a certain extent, approx 2 days a week.
ReplyDeleteIts wrong to have FO personnel carry all the weight of the agency. The folks in SSA who telework full time cant possibly believe they would never have to come back. Fortune 500 companies brought employees back in a hybrid environment. In 2022 Rentry occurred for FO/TSC/PC staff. The reentry was handled with disdain towards staff in the operations components. The agency would not even tell employees when the offices would reopen to the public.
The rest of SSA is receiving the same medicine FO/TSC/PC employees were given in March 2022 upon reentry.
Everyone wants the government to "be run like a business" and guess what? This is exactly what business is doing. Tech, finance, all of them clawing back to the office. Every single metric based on productivity shows that the longer a worker is on telework the less productive they become. It worked amazing during the crisis, but not any longer. You want to be treated like civies, then this is what you get.
ReplyDeletePlease share all of those metrics with us.
Delete
ReplyDeleteThere should be no favored positions at SSA with special perks such as 100% telework. I'm in PC7 and I've heard a number of complaints about HQ employees getting 5 days a week telework, while we don't.
I have to come into the office and so should HQ and RO, and Systems too. Those employees are not better than the rest of us.
We have had too many years of some employees being treated as favored, while others on the front lines, PSC and FO, are being treated as second class citizens.
Everyone should get some telework, unless their job is non-portable. Nobody should get to work from home all the time.
Your opinion is rooted in emotion, not logic. "I hate going into the office, so everything should be forced to do the same, whether it is necessary or not." It's bad for the environment and is merely the agency justifying it's massive physical footprint, and all of its attendant tax-payer funded expenses, which should have been shrunk for good during the pandemic. There is no need for physical ADOs, ROs, PCs, or a CO for that matter. Eventually FOs will also go the way of thr dodo. Once Gen Z is leading the agency, nearly everything will be done virtually.
DeleteThe telework decision will reduce morale, decrease performance and reduce overall service to the public just so boomers can feel more comfortable and we can be forced to pump cashflow into our respective cities to prop up commercial real estate. If nothing else COVID has made it painfully obvious neoliberalism has fully engulfed this country. We exist to serve the economy, not the other way around.
ReplyDeleteThe single biggest issue in the federal workforce is how short-sighted and devoted we are to doing it the way it's always been done to the detriment of our mission.
On the upside, the teleworkers who underperform at home where they aren't interrupting everyone else can go back to being a distraction in the office.
I can't wait to pay $500 a month in travel expenses and sit on the road for 2 hours a day so I can sit in a cube for my 6 hours of Teams meetings with people across the country while trying to ignore the constant drone of people who need to be in the office because that's the only socializing they have in their lives.
Now if only we can get everybody to double space after their periods.
Wow. This thread, and that one a few weeks ago make me realize that FO employees really don’t like RO or even more so, HQ employees. It’s not our fault we don’t take claims all day. There is more to SSA than just claims. Nobody in HQ hates on or puts down the FO, but it sure seems like the FO will put down HQ at any chance. lol. It’s not our fault you have the work environment you do. If you hate that, blame operations management, but don’t hate on HR or Systems or Communications just because you don’t like FO work. It’s kind of sad to feel hated by the FO we support each day.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly the leadership SSA needs – people in HQ/RO/CO should be in the office and collaborate in person just as the frontline does. Comments like 6:24’s “Don’t punish offices that aren’t public facing” completely miss the point. It’s alarming that people don’t appreciate the mission; it’s public service – not just direct service. Lead by example.
ReplyDeleteWhile I think Kijakazi missed the mark, I find it repugnant that many on this blog resort to calling her “Kilolo” versus how they refer to “O’Malley.” See 9:25 and 9:58 and in many other comments on this blog. Is it misogyny or xenophobia, y’all tell me?
ReplyDeleteYes!! I've noticed that as well and it drives me nuts. I'm curious if these same people referred to ACOSS Colvin as "Carolyn."
DeleteYeah, short sighted boomers running business like Google and Zoom are short sighted calling back employees to the office, so is Elon, so is every single industry. But hey, make up your own false narrative, yell rigged, whatever makes you feel better that your opinion is a fact. But look at the dept of labor numbers, workers suck at being good workers at home.
ReplyDeleteJust a question for everyone who says CO doesn’t do any work and the FO does it all. I’ve been at home since 2020. Quick question. Anyone not get paid in the last four years? Anyone not get their WIGI in the last four years? Any new employees been onboarded? Any of y’all have your health insurance stop? Anyone miss their TSP matching? Anyone add someone to life insurance or change FEHB plans? Any of y’all not get a W-2? Anyone not get a COLA? Just checking since I can’t do my job from home and need to be in person with each and every one of you to make this stuff happen.
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side, I’m sure I will be working fewer hours now. No credit on commute days, and I’ll be taking my sick leave for myself and children. But remember this, most of us in HQ have been in the field. I did 6 years. Most of you in the field have never been in HQ. So don’t pretend to know like you know how things work. Whenever you assign blame to stuff that you are off base one, it just makes you look ignorant to things outside of the FO level.
Again, it's nuts to think folks never thought they were going to have to go back to the office. It's unreal the passion of that belief. It was always fantasy. Get over it. Enjoy the gift you had for far too long. Tell your grandchildren about "the good ole days of hanging out at home."
ReplyDeleteI'm an HQ employee and all this means is that I won't be available as much as I am now to support FOs, HOs, TSCs, etc. Rather than being divisive and falling into an Us vs. Them mentality, we should be focused on the reality... we are all part of the same agency, and this is not going to do anything, but negatively impact morale for some employees and worsen recruitment and retention. If we want to fix SSA, we need to invest in the employees that make it work and that means adequate budget, training, hiring, etc. O'Malley is no different than Saul, neither gives a damn about SSA employees or our mission.
ReplyDelete10:17 AM wrote: <>
ReplyDeletePlease explain how an RO employee sitting in an office that's not open to the public better serves the agency mission than the same RO employee sitting at an ADS. Does the spirit of collaboration flow through you more freely if you know that they had to commute 1.5 hours to sign in to the MS Teams meeting from an urban office building?
Let's just call this what it is... the dark side of human nature. SSA employees with direct public contact don't like that their jobs require a greater physical presence, and they begrudge other employees who serve the public in different but important ways.
1017 AM] You were never going to work from home forever. You need to accept a hybrid environment which is what the rest of the world is operating under.
ReplyDeleteThe agency doesn't decide where you live. Commuting distance is a choice. I too think this should not be a battle between CO, ROs, FOs. Commuting is also a problem for FO locations. That doesn't change the fact that the job may well be best accomplished onsite at least a fair share of the time. Credit hours are not extra hours but instead hours earned that will additionally be taken off later. SSA also doesn't issue children. We may be missing some key facts here.
ReplyDeleteThe RTO announcement has resulted in anxiety and stress for SSA employees who work inside headquarters and the regional offices. The Commissioner should reconsider and push back the return date until October 1, 2024 to allow impacted employees to look for other positions inside SSA and outside.
ReplyDeleteMorale is very low for all SSA employees and this will cause major problems for employees to have to return the office. Many employees live all over the country and cannot just commute to Baltimore. SSA cannot afford to fall behind.
12:21 shows the truth of "working from home" with this statement:
ReplyDelete"On the flip side, I’m sure I will be working fewer hours now. No credit on commute days, and I’ll be taking my sick leave for myself and children."
So while they were "working from home" they were doing other things like taking care of sick children not the work of the day. Funny, too sick to work in the office, but not too sick to sit at home and pretend to work for pay.
Thats telework in a nutshell right there!
Carefully read the defense of telework posts. It is very revealing, the more animated they get in the defense, the more truth comes out. We see that they want to work from home to tend to the needs of pets, or kids, or for some reason holidays are big, and over and over they say they are more productive, but oddly have time when being so productive to be doing these other, very time and attention draining tasks at home. A coworker at the cube is a distraction, but a sick child is not and makes you more productive? The big threat in nearly every single defense is the same, i guess i will do less. Very telling.
ReplyDeleteI guess it is like everyone expecting interest rates to go back to zero and mortgages to less than 3%. Wishful thinking.
You are completely misinterpreting this statement. When people work from home there is no commute. That means that there are more hours for work and it is less taxing mentally and physically when there is no commute. As for sick children, when a child is sick and there is no telework option, the parent often had to take off the entire day. But a sick child at home usually means the child is in bed sleeping or watching video and you may check on them and of course feed them. Nothing major going on and less time wasted than with in office distractions. When an employee is sick it usually means an entire day off without telework but maybe only a partial day off with telework. Also scheduled appointments are easier because you usually live closer to your medical providers. Happy people are productive people and telework provides a very good work/life balance, which makes people happy and more productive.
DeleteI’m curious for all the FO people who are saying RO and HQ work is done best in person. Does that mean you should have zero telework days? You are referred to as public contact positions. You are “frontline “ workers. Your job requires constant public contact in one form or another. If we follow your logic, shouldn’t everyone in the RO say FO workers should have zero telework days to better collaborate with the public? Should we say maybe this will decrease wait times and this is a PSI ignoring all the other work you do?
ReplyDeleteAre you asking were we better equipped to deal with SSA customers prior to the pandemic and telework? Yes, the FO was better equipped before telework. That's the only correct answer. Do staff LIKE to be at home? Yes, they do.
ReplyDeleteEverything that can be said on this topic has been said and repeated endlessly. It's time to shut down this discussion.
ReplyDelete