I'm tired of deleting comments from readers who try to post their views about telework in response to every post I make, whether telework is relevant to what I posted or not. So, here is a post about telework. I don't have anything to say about it. Unlike most of my readers I don't have strong feelings about it. I just want to let readers speak their minds about telework. Have at it. Make endless, tedious, pointless comments if you want and let the comments on the other posts be about those posts.
Nov 22, 2024
Telework Thread
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54 comments:
Telework is great for employees but not so much for the agency and public that SSA serves. It's amazing that a pandemic emergency measure is now held by many employees as a basic right in their employment. Public service be damned. I speak only regarding telework in field offices. No experience at TSCs, payment centers or regional offices. Public service has declined since the advent of telework in March 2020. It's not all due to telework as staffing has declined and new hires haven't stuck nearly as well as previously. Staffing is difficult for the agency to fix but the decline in service due to field offices telework is fixable.
Has anyone heard any rumblings about SSA offering early out in the near future?
I plead guilty to making a recent comment on remote work that was only tangentially related to the posted topic. However, my comment was not addressed to the merits of remote work but rather to the fact that the Republicans are about to make a huge effort to eliminate it for federal employees.
Here is a quote from an NBC news story:
"Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk's new effort to increase government efficiency could initially target the nearly two-thirds of federal workers who are still approved to work from home 18 months after the pandemic ended. "
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ramaswamys-jackhammer-chain-saw-plan-force-federal-workers-back-office-rcna180732
So the fictional Department of Government Efficiency, which is so efficient it needs two people to run it, is coming for federal employees remote work. Based on what I have seen in the media, I think the Republicans don't have any interest in debating the pros and cons of remote work but rather want to promote their goals of reducing the size of government and replacing current government employees with their own people.
So the real debate is what effect that will have on the federal workforce and particularly on the Social Security workforce.
Musk and Ramaswamy are heading Trump's Dept of Gov Efficiency. They are planning a big push for an end to remote work across federal agencies, including SSA.
I don't think it will happen at SSA, at least not for another year or so.
Existing union/management contracts with AFGE, protect current levels of telework for the remainder of the contract, which runs to late 2025.
Under this contract, Operations employees such as Benefit Authorizers and Claims Specialists, only have to come in 1 day per week. It makes sense because those jobs are easily portable, do not require public contact, and the work can be done just as well from home.
What might be instructive is whether the disability community has an opinion on whether telework for SSA employees (and the rep community) is a net positive or negative in terms of customer service, from initial filing to appeals at OHO. With threats that the incoming administration will gut telework for fed employees, this could return SSA to pre-COVID telework levels. Does the rep community find claimants are better served by SSA employees under the current telework situation or was it better when the staff were primarily at the office?
My understanding is when SSA was authorized for Direct Hire Authority (through 2026 I believe), that gives up the ability to also offer early out. Agency can't say they have a need to streamline hiring and also say they want to let employees walk...
I have a simple thought. Those just answering phones, sure, working from home is fine. If one is NEEDED in the office, then they need to be there. As far as telephone service, hire MORE to work from home with access to SSA's computer systems. Saves a bit (probably not a ton) of money, and those in the offices can concentrate on those that will now have to have appointments (ugh..like the DMV... yuck). Sure tho, just to answer a phone? Working from home would be great as long as they have the support they need from a main office if needed. That's just my opinion, take it for what it's worth. I don't usually comment on tele-work, but yes, those that need to be in the office that are still tele-working, they need to return to the office.
Jumping ship like O’Malley? No early out talk but much misery for federal employees.
Union contracts will be thrown out the window with executive orders.
Is there any thought about the cost associated with ending telework? My office downsized when the decision writers started teleworking most of the time and our lease was up. We physically don’t have the space for them to come back full time. We don’t have offices for half of them. Or chairs. Or docking stations. We’ll need more office supplies. Where is the money for all of that going to come from? I’d love to telework more like they do but my job deals with the public. They don’t so I don’t know why we’d spend money to bring them back to the office. Same with the paralegals. And they all have quotas so if they aren’t working the managers know. Some big executive order that tries to end telework across all government ignores that some jobs like mine (working the front desk) involves working with the public and some (like the decision writers and paralegals) don’t.
@248 Not a bad idea if it would work. In my field office SRs answer the phones for the most part in addition to handling the front desk. If those who were to work front desk were depleted by illness, normally the phone SRs would take over front desk work and phones would be juggled between claims specialists. If some workers are out of the office assigned to telework (currently 40%) it limits how in office work can be assigned. When everyone was in the office, pre covid, if there was a big rush sometimes everyone who wasn't in an interview was sent up front, something difficult to do when 40% aren't there.
Do people not realize we teleworked prior to COVID and SAUL? We had telework in the FO prior to 2019 and it had worked just fine.
An obvious problem with your notion is that SSA’s labor force doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are alternative employers that would love to snap up a lot of their talent, and many of those offer much more telework than they did prior to the pandemic.
It really feels like those here who are averse to telework, measure “good public service” by the public’s ability to wander into the FO at their own will for whatever reason they deem necessary. As a technician, I do not personally feel we do serve the public best this way. Why allow the public to dictate the priority in which we handle work when it can be better managed by the agency? Someone referenced being able to “send everyone up front” during a rush. This is a perfect example of letting the public dictate our priorities. If I am back at my desk or at home trying to pay claims, get initial claims to DDS or handle an appeal where an adverse action on our part incorrectly lowered someone’s payment, why should I (and my coworkers be pulled away) every.single.day. to handle many many things that don’t have a pressing need of being addressed? I fully understand there are absolutely items that need to be handled immediately for the good of the public we serve, but we are not an emergency room. I cannot think of one agency or business that allows a free-flow of traffic to determine what gets accomplished each day. We are long overdue for controlling this flow. My understanding is that areas/regions who have been piloting appt-only service have seen great success in reduced waiting times. I believe this will also reduce in-person service overall. Happy SSA is moving into the future. We actually process claims and reviews faster over the phone. I’m confident there’s much less distraction and there absolutely more employee satisfaction. With the right decision-making we’d see reduced building and guard costs. We just need our systems and policy updated to actually enable us to take this transition even further.
We will just come into the office and do telephone hearings from there. The target is to get people back into office As far as reps and claimants will not be affected one bit
Nothing will change for reps or claimants. ALJs will come into office five days a week to do phone ms teams or in person hearings
“ the decline in service due to field offices telework is fixable.”
What metrics/data are you using to state that telework is the cause of decline in service?
According to the current AFGE contract on The Office of Labor-Management and Employee Relations (OLMER) SSA intranet site, the AFGE contract was extended until October 2029. The telework provision states the number of telework days is determined by Deputy Commissioner of each component. The current contract calls it SSA Telework Program. The prior contract called it a "pilot". When Saul ended it, he called telework a "failed pilot" program. A Trump crony will end it again by forcing deputy commissioners to revoke telework.
FOs had telework long before covid. There has been no decline in service that can be attributed to telework, in fact every bit of actual research that's been done shows the opposite.
But you people won't believe it because you can't imagine the anyone having the work ethic you apparently lack, which allows them to be productive without being micromanaged.
So yeah, end telework. Then when there's an office closure, the office will just close instead of shifting to remote. The people who work from home when they're sick will just take the day off. The people who stuck around because of telework will leave and not be replaced.
Then you and congress can complain and whine about service delivery issues and figure out some other reason why it's the employees fault, and not the legislature that can't do the most basic function of their job and pass a budget on time, and do most of their "work" on a golf course.
Do SSA employees believe that the new administration cares about telework?
Office of Management and Budget, the agency through which budgetary, regulatory and, in many cases, federal workforce policy runs. Vought served as OMB’s deputy director from early in the first Trump administration and then took over as acting OMB head in January 2019. He was confirmed by the Senate for that post in July 2020. During his tenure, Vought repeatedly submitted budgets that would have gutted non-defense agencies and spearheaded efforts to remove civil service protections for much of the federal workforce.
Past history addresses the issue of Union contracts.
When Trump, Grace Kim, and Andrew Saul ended telework in Operations in 2019, they had to wait until the new AFGE-management contract started.
Then they immediately ended telework. The next day, after the new contract.
But not one minute before the new contract started. The old contract stands until then and protects employees from having telework pulled.
I find it kind of funny that people who don’t sit in an office every day from 8-6 are the ones pointing fingers at everyone else saying they should. And as federal employees, we are also taxpayers so enough with the comments about taxpayers paying our salaries. The insults are enough already. We are working very hard and doing our best with limited staff and resources. Pick on someone else.
We live in different times with Project 2025. All bets are off.
SSA is an emergency room for some. Survivor claims, some disability claims, incorrect death terminations , SSN applications for those needing them for a job, some Medicare issues, change in direct deposit if account is closed, etc. Appointments a week or month away are fine for many things SSA handles. Is it good public service to not timely help the more urgent cases so employees can work from home under an appointment only system?
When all SSA employees, including ALJs, are forced to come into the office 5 days a week, then a disability claimants and their representatives should be required to come to an in-person hearing for their disability case.
All Senators and Representatives in Congress should also be required to work in their office 5 days a week.
Now that's public service!!!!!
Attention young SSA telework supporters…
Isn’t telework similar to trying to be a doctor by taking a biology class? One needs hands on training in order to succeed. The worst kept secret among young employees is that mentors are hard to find if they are teleworking especially in field offices.
So tired of people downplaying the importance of telework. Telework IS the future. Quit denying it. If your job can be fully done remotely it should. Want to cut government expenses? Telework. Want better service? Telework. Want DOGE-level efficiency? Telework. SSA could have a minimal building footprint with smaller but more robust offices open to the public, and have the back-office staff churning claims around the clock from home.
These are absolutely not akin to emergency room services. NONE. Yes- people need survivor benefits and Social Security Numbers and all the things you mentioned. But almost none of them require immediate, in-person, walk-in service. This is the truth. It’s just that you would prefer it that way. We need to modernize. And in an ideal world, we’d have immediate claims-taking over the phone for such services but this isn’t the world we live in. Talk to your Congressional representatives because it’s only going to get worse. We don’t even have the bodies to maintain walk-in claims. But it continues to be “blood from a stone”. Something has to give. And we also need to stop our antiquated ways—modernize.
After Trump's election victory, Ramaswamy told Tucker Carlson that he wanted to take a “jackhammer and a chain saw” to the federal government, starting by forcing civil servants to return to work.
“They don’t go to work,” he said. “You don’t even have to talk about you’re in a mass firing, a mass exodus. Just tell them they have to come back five days a week from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.”
Ramaswamy predicted that would lead to a “25% thinning out of the federal bureaucracy right there.”
If the Trump Administration is going to curtail telework, they need to let people know exactly when this will happen. Federal employees need to have time , to prepare for this life changing event.
Many will retire, rather than commute every day. SSA management needs to be prepared for this exodus and know when it will happen. Also management needs time to arrange new seating and other logistics, in bringing people back to the office.
Many SSA employees will have to arrange to pick up, or drop off their children at different times. Some will have to relocate closer to their offices.
This uncertainty about when this RTO will happen, with rumors swirling everywhere, is wrong. This uncertainty combined with Musk's and Ramaswamy's insulting and ill informed rants about forcing federal employees back to the office: it is all so disrespectful to federal employees and SSA workers.
We deserve better, after doing a difficult and demanding job to serve the public. They should be thanking us.
You are right that none of the above require same day service. But they aren't dissimilar to having access to one's bank account/credit cards cut off while on vacation. Survivable? Yes. Horrible service if delayed that used to be done for the public in the past? Yes. Social Security is a public service job. The main goal is not to have employees work from home, although that was great for me during Covid and now 2 days a week. But it's not the best service and that's our job.
8:08 PM. You hit all valid and good points. I am productive in or out of the office but from home I can get A LOT more accomplished. I am not bothered by the office noise and I normally work longer days from home to catch up. Our office is small and we do not have SRs so as a TE I and my fellow co workers take our turn doing reception every week and we all answer phones. The days I am recept all I do as SS5, never and schedule apts. Rarely do I get a situation that merits being handled by a TE. Instead of taking and paying claims, which is my core job, I am handling clerical work better handled by SRs. I am also a true Generalist TE. I have an alpha in each title and very little time to work my RZs and do PERCS. But by golly I can do recept and answer phones! I have three more years and I am done. If I could work from home 4 days I would stay longer. I am sure TW will go away come 1/21/25 and I may consider leaving sooner. I can retire next month with my pension. I really do feel for more recent hires as they are getting a very diminished Agency, and I am trying to be kind.
I'm sure some notice will be given if telework is cancelled. We all adapted fairly quickly to telework back in March 2020.
Re the public giving thanks: most are thankful but our livelihood depends on giving them good service. I thank them for the opportunity to serve them.
No, it is not similar at all. Many, including me, have been onboarded virtually and excel over others, including those who had majority in-person training.
Elon Musk has big return-to-office plans for federal employees and he’s saying the quiet part out loud
Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home," they wrote.
In doing so, Musk and Ramaswamy seem to be openly announcing what some critics have long argued is a disguised impetus behind strict RTO mandates: Job cuts. One survey this year of more than 1,500 U.S. managers found that a quarter of C-suite executives were hoping that return-to-office policies would encourage employees to voluntarily quit. After all, it’s certainly cheaper than having to do layoffs and pay severance.
I am sure you will get 30 days notice before returning 5 days a week.
Because we just can’t afford to have an adequately sized federal workforce, says a pasty doughboy who’s richer than any human in history has ever been but probably hasn’t paid a cent in taxes since the 1990s. Nice job, rubes! I mean voters!
I wonder how many federal employees regret voting for Trump knowing that telework is gone and possibly losing their job.
Probably zero at the moment, because they’re all deluded and somehow convinced he doesn’t actually plan to do any of the things he has specifically said he plans to do. It’s a special sort of cognitive dissonance that seems to characterize the Trump (and modern GOP) voter. These are the same people who think having a president who acts like a dictator is somehow more likely to protect them from abusive government overreach than one who respects constitutional principles limiting executive overreach. It’s genuine idiocy all the way down.
4:27pm, agree with you. Further, our PC friends are so protected we cannot even know their names or talk to them via Skype message. All while our most technical people exist in the field working as SRs. Thanks for all the hard work and service you have put in over the years. Being a true generalist is no easy task. No matter when you choose to go, enjoy retirement and think of all of those who remain every once in awhile!
“ I wonder how many federal employees regret voting for Trump knowing that telework is gone and possibly losing their job.”
Very few of them, I’m sure. For lots of the employees who are reflected in that comment, their age is generally higher than their IQ.
Are early outs on the table?
Musk and Ramaswamy also suggested early retirement and severance packages to incentivize lower headcount but didn't provide further detail on the benefits they would offer impacted employees.
If telework is cut, the obvious immediate result will be many retirements or resignations of experienced employees. A disaster for the agency. It takes years to become proficient at the most important technical positions.
“ Are early outs on the table?”
Generally speaking, no. SSA was approved by OPM to use “direct hire authority” to hire new employees. Hard to screech “we need to circumvent current hiring processes, our situation is that dire!” And then turn around and say “welp, our situation isn’t THAT bad. If people want no penalty to retire early, we’ll let them do that!”
Of course, this could change with the incoming administration, but the silliness of the situation above would still stand.
Perhaps. But it seems we heard the same when field offices returned to the office 3 days a week 2.5 years ago.
Some employees can afford to retire or change jobs but the vast majority will grin and bear it and return to the office.
Correct. And if the same is true with other federal agencies, those desiring to jump ship for purposes of additional telework will be out of luck. We know most will not consider private sector.
The concern with SSA is with experienced employees retiring. More so than with people just quitting.
While some attrition is inevitable, a wave of retirements hitting all at once will be very disruptive and damaging to the agency.
Many of the best employees are past retirement age. They have years of job experience and knowledge. If they walk in large numbers, due to the termination of telework, it will take years before the agency recovers.
SSA had a Telework PILOT only. Most FOs could not telework and it wasn’t 2 days per week. TW is terrible for public service and the employees are much less happy with telework than they were with it.
There is already a external hiring freeze enacted at SSA. Soon the direct hiring will be terminated and a full on hiring freeze enacted.
Most of the experienced and best employees have worked the vast majority of their years with SSA in the office. Would it push some to retirement earlier than otherwise? A few no doubt. But being under FERS, waiting to at least age 62 and the 10% bump is worth putting up with a few more years of telework.
I think the largest sector that would leave SSA are those hired since about 2017 who have had telework for much of not all of their federal careers.
I somewhat disagree with 1:13pm. Generally speaking, early outs get rid of employees making some of the highest salaries as you need to have at least 20 years of service. This frees up additional money in the budget for newer, lesser paid employees.
I seriously doubt there will be a mass exodus of employees if telework is eliminated. Generally speaking, most people are somewhat broke and need to stay employed.
Somewhat broke? Who would continue to work in this high stress level job if one has better options. The job is going to only get worse next year. The new administration will do everything possible to reduce the headcount at SSA.
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