I hope that the new Commissioner, Martin O'Malley, doesn't suffer from the illusion that his management skills will rescue the Social Security Administration. I'm not knocking his management skills which may be excellent. It's just that for literally decades Social Security's leadership labored under the belief that good management could overcome appropriations that declined in real dollars. They tried ever more desperately as service declined. The peak of this management hubris was former Commissioner Barnhart's ill-fated "plan" to overhaul the agency's hearing functions and make everything vastly better without additional funding. It sold well to Congressional committees who were happy to hear Barnhart promise to pull a rabbit out of a hat but her "plan" wasn't much of a plan to begin with -- more of a plan to develop a plan. Such as the "plan" was, it made no sense. All she was able to accomplish was to delay the complete collapse of her "plan" until after she left office. Let's not repeat that disaster.
Please, Commissioner O'Malley, don't fall into the trap of believing that your management abilities will make a world of difference. They won't.
However, there is something O'Malley can do that would help, and that's lobbying. I have read the book written by the first head of what is today the Social Security Administration, Arthur Altmeyer, on The Formative Years Of Social Security. I don't recommend the book. I was expecting accounts of how a huge agency was built from the ground up, creating systems that to some extent must still exist. How did they make sure everyone got a Social Security number? How did they handle data processing at a time when the finest data processing equipment available (and there was some) was at the caveman level? How did they hire all the people needed? How did they record all the wages? How did they compute benefits? There is almost none of that in the book. Instead, the book is mostly a dry account of how Altmeyer lobbied Congress for legislation needed to complete the Social Security Act with additional benefits. Altmeyer was quite successful at this, although not successful enough to get disability benefits, which were added after he left office. Altmeyer must have mostly delegated actual management of the new agency to others while he did what was most needed and what he was best at.
There is no law requiring that a Social Security Commisisoner spend his or her time tied down with day to day operations. Let others who know the agency better do that. O'Malley should spend most of his time lobbying within the Administration and with Congress for better operational funding. That's where he's needed and where his skills can make a difference.
27 comments:
The last thing the agency needs is the current egg-headed management to continue the same course they've been on for the past decade. Unless O'Malley overhauls SSA's current leadership, things will stay the course. Operations employees are sick and tired of constantly being asked to do more with less, while management just screeches commands from Regional Office/HQ with such disconnect that it's astonishing. Operations is burned out to the bone and this level of "do more with less" is an untenable position. Every day, more and more employees are fleeing the agency and the work they leave behind is just shifted onto the piles of work of employees who are unfortunately staying on the sinking ship.
“Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?” – Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I would be wonderful to see someone with the intestinal fortitude to lay the blame for the Agency's current problems at the feet of Congress for continually failing to appropriate sufficient funds. I doubt he would do it with the vigor needed to make a difference. Hold public forums in every Congressional district to advise the voters who is to blame for the long wait times or unanswered phones.
Charles, I respectfully disagree. The new Commish needs to slash and burn most if his management team. He can do so in a kind manner and just reassign them, but if there is going to be meaningful change, they have to go. Once he gets people in place that care about the claimants and the employees then he should lobby Congress by all means because that is how real change is given a solid foundation to take hold.
He unveiled a new portal today for frontline staff to provide feedback/suggestions for improving customer service. But predictably, the site doesn’t allow for anonymous submissions, virtually guaranteeing that he won’t receive much honest feedback, and that any feedback found objectionable by management will be met by swift retaliation. I think this provides a great example of just how serious and capable he is of reforming the agency….
I agree the agency needs more money in order to hire new staff. What is happening is terrible. People are dying because the staff is overworked and cannot process cases in a timely manner. I have been telling all my clients, when they call and complain about the waiting time, that they need to call their Senators and ask more funding for the agency.
I looked at the idea portal today. A lot of it IS surprisingly brutally honest. Lol.
Also, I want to make a distinction or at least see if I have a misunderstanding. A lot of people call for management to be gutted top down etc. Is this specifically operations management or everyone? Because as a non-operations employee, I am perfectly happy with my management. But I agree that operations is where the struggle and the morale issue is.
Saw a lot of comments about training and staffing. That seems to be the challenge.
I think OHO has some serious problems too. I can’t think of another agency whose decisions are remanded by the courts at even half the rate OHO’s are. If the current trend holds, OHO will be dealing with a ~100% court remand rate in less than a decade.
The last time there was a portal where employees could post their ideas I was shocked at how some so clearly hate the public. The vitriol and disdain exhibited showed some employees need new jobs, because the idea of public service was not on the agenda for them. So I can understand why anonymous commenting is not allowed.
@4:28pm
Eh, a very small few maybe, but the vast majority of those types at SSA are just beat down and burned out from being a punching bag from management and the public. Management throws employees to the wolves daily, and employees are punching bags from a screaming public for shit that is 99% out of the employees control. Nobody can sustain that day in and day out for years without eventually feeling some sort of resentment, no matter how hard you DO try to help the public, you just get shit on regardless of what you do for them. Those same people would 100% bitch about management if given the chance.
@428 pm. Employees that should not be in public service not being allowed to post anonymously at the portal doesn't benefit anyone.
There are local management policies that I think are counterproductive. If I could post the complaint/suggestion anonymously I would. But I'd rather not invite the possible wrath of management by using my name. The policy I would comment on is probably widespread.
I've nicely made suggestions to the FO management but they didn't see fit to take my suggestions. Someone higher up might think they are worth trying.
This is a response to the original post. What’s written here makes a lot of sense. But those of us working under current leadership feel like we are on a boat with no direction. For the time being, and until concrete change is made, my hope would be that he is very involved with operations. This would be, for the sake of the administration, the public, and the employees.
To the person asking about how Operations staff feels about management…I would say the vast majority have no confidence in top leadership in the agency. They have done nothing, NOTHING to move SSA through the pandemic and out of the pandemic in a meaningful way. We see ZERO responsiveness to current times. Policy is NOT getting updated in meaningful, timely ways. Tech is NOT getting updated in meaningful, timely ways. There was such a lack of communication from the top and outright misinformation as it related to the pandemic and during our almost-shutdowns. Guidance and communication was so poor that Operations management threw their hands up. The agency dragged its feet reopening the contract as mandated by the President. Dragged for YEARS. Staff notices. And the agency training has been a disaster. Our staffing is shattered in the field and it will take years to fix. We have crazy levels of attrition with new people. SSA field employees are treated like factory workers compared to other federal employees. We have no voice advocating for a better budget. And the only time we get attention is when the public yells loud enough about our deficiencies. Staff leave offices after calling number after number in lobbies with 2-3 hour waits. Offices don’t have enough people to answer phones. Staff have to “find” someone so they can go to the bathroom. And work piles up while local mgmt. can only seek blood from a stone. I understand why those higher up don’t experience what the field experiences. But we all need to care. We are only as strong as the field is weak.
7:17pm
SSA management are only out for their own careers and promotions and that's it. We just had an all hands regional meetings in our region about some changes happening real soon. They said nothing meaningful, took no questions, basically said "your local management will give you all the pertinent details later." The area directors (all three of them) literally just kissed the ass of the regional director..."I just want to say thank you to our regional director for their steadfast leadership blah blah blah." They said absolutely nothing about field employees struggles or anything appreciating the day in and day out grind that happens at field offices. They all kiss ass above them in hopes of climbing the ladder to their next promotion. The culture at SSA is toxic. They will pretend things are important under the guise of "customer service" but in reality, it's just about meeting some stupid spreadsheet metric so they can be promoted and that's it. If it were really about serving the public, MEANINGFUL changes would happen, but they never do.
If O’Malley hopes to effectuate any meaningful change at SSA, he is going to have to find some new Senior Executives and new leadership in the Chief Judge’s office. The current Senior Executives have been moved around from time to time, but obviously have no new ideas (look at the mess SSA is in). The chief judge appears burnt out and many speculated that he wanted to leave OHO when he ran for political office last year or year before - he doesn’t even live in DC and it is rumored that he spent a lot of money establishing an office for himself in Chicago rather than moving to DC - but they whine about budget. There are a lot of double standards in SSA and employees are sick of it - and field office and hearing office managers are tired of getting the blame for ridiculous policy and decision-making by leadership. It is hard to provide good public service when leadership implements new policy almost every week, changes old policy and introduces new systems that don’t work (HACPS - now NACPS or something like that, the failed centralized scheduling unit and now ERAP….stay tuned)…
As long as O'Malley allows me to continue to telework, I'm good. There's no reason for me to commute to a SSA office to do the same work I can accomplish at home.
O'Malley probably wouldn't want to start his tenure the way Saul started as Commissioner, by cutting telework for no good reason.
That ruined Saul's reputation from the beginning, and was an important factor in his eventually being fired.
As someone who was once a SS employee (Staff Attorney) and been representing claimant for 35 years, I have a lot of ideas as to how SS could manage operations in a way that benefits both claimants (and their representative for sure) but also makes the process easier to manage.
I have been to meetings with upper management and volunteered to meet with and talk about ideas. I have been contacted to be part of outside research groups employed by SS to gather information and provided as much information as possible.
There are people of good will outside of the Administration that will work, if asked, for ideas to help the Agency do better. It is not all about self interest of a representative although, for sure, a more efficient Agency would be for our benefit as well. I am only suggesting that if the new Commissioner is willing to reach out, to NOSSCR ,NADR, or individual representatives, we are here.
Hiring more people is one thing in operations but you need to pay them more. It’s an impossibly difficult job and if you want to attract better hires the money has to match.
Paying people more is great and should happen, but they also need to make the systems simpler (and ideally the policy too though most of that is up to Congress) so it doesn't take 2 years to learn the job. Or they need to divide up the workloads--I don't know if that's more card centers and other places that do specific jobs, or sending more stuff to PSCs (staffing them better obviously), or separating out the more public-facing aspects of the job and the more technical stuff--and I don't know how this works in rural areas where the whole FO is like 3 people so they cant specialize as much--but something needs to change. It's too hard to find and keep people who have the people skills AND can understand the policy AND who can make the computer systems carry out the policy.
It’s funny that all the respondents here are under the illusion that management makes a lick of difference. Morale and respect for management would be higher if the agency had a budget appropriate to its work.
The most downvoted idea I saw was to extend hours at SSA. Charles would probably agree that it would be nice for 9-5 workers to be able to come in without taking as much time off. The most upvoted was to close early on Wed to catch up on backlogs. If SSA had the right sized staff, we could stay open longer hours and reduce the backlogs with our larger workforce. The backlog would be even smaller if we could get congress to pass laws like a lot of the other popular ideas, to make the program less complex and thus easier to administer. O’Malley should get us a budget to do what needs to be done and twist arms for better laws. We’d all like management better once we stop drowning in work.
“…they need to call their Senators and ask more funding for the agency.”
This is the way.
More money is not going to fix anything unless there is serious oversight on its use - oversight to stop ridiculous spending by upper management on new tech toys that fail or are not user friendly for staff to learn and use. The agency no longer provides in person training, but does provide money for executives to get together and have meetings that could be easily done over teams. Case in point regional chief judges, flying around with their regional management officers to Hearing offices where they see a few staff members because everyone is teleworking and have meetings that take place over TEAMS. What is the point in that other than a little free vacation for upper management? They could’ve had the meeting by teams without spending money for airfare, meals and hotels. Well these expenses seem minimal they add up when multiple people throughout the nation are incurring them. Social Security is also spending a lot of money on unneeded office space. Even if telework were to go away, staffing levels are down, and there does not appear to have been much adjustment in terms of downsizing the physical footprint. It will take some time for O’Malley to get his bearings, but hopefully he will be a good administrator who has the courage to make changes from the top down.
Et tu, Charles? You too have "consummed the kool-aid" and really think more funding will fix SSA's problems? One dodges accountability by focusing everyone's attention on what you don't have and then attribute all your problems to that one thing. You know it is never going to happen, so you are off the hook for not making progress. Real leadership stems from accepting what is and planning and implementing strategies that work. Yes, it is HARD!
I believe O’Malley can make a difference, but he has to know he has a long road ahead of him. He also has to decide: Is he going to let the politics drive him and fix something like DIB workloads or will he focus on agency morale? For most, the politics usually win since this allows them to put a “feather in their cap” about what they achieved as a COSS. The problem is that these are always short-term fixes. They will never sustain themselves because they are symptoms of much larger problems: SSA’s antiquated systems and employee moral. Addressing agency morale should be his top priority. It’s not sexy, but there really is no other way to move the agency forward. The people who have been put in charge for the last decade have done the agency a huge disservice. Some are gone now, but for the ones who remain, this is what happens when new leadership comes in: they are reassigned to another component or get set up as a “Senior Advisor;” they wait out the current political appointees while blocking any progress; and then they re-emerge when the new regime takes over. It is not hard to identify who these people are. O’Malley needs to make the hard decision – get rid of them! They are not assets. If they were, the agency would not be in its current state. And yes, they are going to use scare tactics. Operations leadership is reknowned for this. They paint a dire picture and use a lot of jargon that regular people don’t understand, all to maintain the status quo and sabotage any efforts that could have real impact. Don’t fall for it.
This guy only has a year. Nothing will get done.
He needs to fix morale. That’s the biggest barrier to recruitment and retention. And a lot of progress can be made without more money. For example, when your employees repeatedly explain that it’s impossible to do the work in the time allotted under the outdated productivity standards, you could relax the standards- Instead of the current strategy trying to improve morale increasing the punishment for not meeting the standards and sending out emails about make-believe vacations. (Wish I was kidding about that last bit, but that was actually management’s response to the morale disaster in my division. Management is well and truly f***ed up at SSA).
Given recent evidence, relying on Congress to provide additional funding to SSA is unlikely to be successful. Besides the fundamental lack of focus on governing, the Congress's recent actions around the budget makes it clear that the civilian side is unlikely to grow, and everyone will be competing for a larger piece of a smaller pie.
If you accept that assessment, you have a couple options. Morale is awful, and real attention has to be paid to respecting the workforce and providing them the with the information and tools they need.
In addition, the agency's work processes haven't changed substantially is many years. I was there from 2006 to 2020, and there were tweaks, but nothing that really streamlined the info gathering and decision process. I don't know the most recent data, but, for example, every time a DIB decision is reversed, we've done twice the work (or more) to make the final decision. Maybe we can do something there.
The agency spends lots and lots of time collection medical evidence, maybe there is a way to get better data faster to make speedier decisions.
Nothing is easy, but if more money is unlikely, maybe the agency can figure out how to get benefits to the public with less effort on everyone's part, without reducing accuracy and fairness substantially.
Just saying we may have to think differently to succeed.
He is bringing back Carolyn Colvin
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