From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications <Human.Resources.Internal.Communications@ssa.gov> Sent: Monday, October 5, 2026 3:48 PM
Subject: Ending Alternative Work Schedules
A Message to SSA Employees Subject: Ending Alternative Work Schedules
Effective Monday, November 16, 2026, SSA is ending alternative work schedules (AWS), including 4/10 and 5/4/9 schedules, agency wide. All employees will transition to a standard five-day workweek.
The American people depend on SSA to deliver on its mission every day, and that mission depends on a workforce that is present and available throughout the week. AWS, which allow employees to complete their work hours in fewer than five days, reduce staffing on the days employees are off. The cumulative effect across the agency is significant and impacts our service to the public. Every SSA employee, whether or not they work directly with the public, is part of how we deliver on our mission. A consistent five-day workweek strengthens our ability to deliver the service the public expects.
Employees currently on a 4/10 or 5/4/9 schedule may continue that schedule until Friday, November 13th. After that date, all employees will work a five-day schedule beginning November 16th.Instructions will be forthcoming on how to ensure employees are transitioned to the standard work schedule timely.
Thank you for your professionalism and your commitment to the public we serve.
Chief Human Capital Officer
16 comments:
Oh nice. So all these great numbers and service the touts about (fake) will essentially be wiped out? It's bad enough as it is. Sure, you can get through on the phone rather quick, but they don't know what they are doing, most have never worked the phones or are new and mess everything up. Just my experience is all....I don't see this helping anybody anywhere.
I'm sympathetic to the need for consistent staffing, but it seems to me that the agency could have handled this by making AWS contingent on managers' approval and spreading people's days off across the week (so they didn't have a bunch of folks out every Friday, for example). I would guess that there are a lot of field office and other managers who would rather have someone out every Tuesday and working 10 hours on the other 4 days of the week than have that person quit or retire and not be available at all, which may be what happens now.
Next up is flex bands…
My management had no warning this was coming, or so they claim. This affects me as now I have to rearrange my whole life outside of work for the fourth time since this godforsaken administration came in. Word on the street is that religious comp, credit hours, and the flex band are up next on the chopping block.
I was shocked that this corrupt administration did not do the scheduling change earlier. Just in time for holiday season. 🎅🏻
Flex band if removed will be catastrophic ... they dont realize the impact that specific flexibility will have on the entire agency staffing. I wont be surprised if many leave to other agencies .. they seem to have it much better than SSA!
AWS has always required supervisory approval and is approved based on staffing and workloads (or whatever new terms we are required to say now). This has nothing to do with availability of staff or work not being done.
SSA has had AWS and credit hours for decades, through both Republican and Democratic administrations. Suddenly ending AWS is pretty outrageous, Even worse will be if they terminate credit hours or flextime.
Where is AFGE, the union should get involved on this one.
When I was on AWS (no longer am anymore) Management informed me that your AWS day off was contingent on staffing needs. Basically not everyone on AWS can take the same day off so that they had appropriate staffing throughout the week.
If you had schedule conflict , then seniority comes into play after. If you were on lower end , then you were forced to choose a different day off as a result. This ensure staffing is met even when factoring in the people using leave. At least this was the case when I did have AWS. Unsure if it has changed since then.
So honestly this isn’t even about staffing needs , this is just leadership trying to find some BS reason to try to justify themselves
The agency has always hated it employees.
Whats next ? Think out of the box? No more chairs ?
What are managers saying? So weak.
Seattle TSC has been under this “temporary suspension” environment since July of 2025. They haven’t had the FWS OR the Flexband since last year. This is just new guidance for other components after others were the Guinea pigs first. No one listened to the canary in the coal mine for the last year. Coverage for the day off was made as part of who could ask for what day to be the non tour one. Settled by scd if there were conflicts of multiple people wanting a certain day that was similar. Newer employees had to wait for a Monday or a Friday opening to become available, sometimes for years. But it was fair. Flexband was taken away at the same time.
Flexband has been taken away from the TSCs for some time now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they take it away for everyone else.
This. 100%.
The SSA retirement or transferring band will be coming out of the woodwork. 🥁
Reality check… everything is more expensive and grass is always greener on the other side.
I’m an outlier. I think it makes scheduling unnecessarily complicated and not appropriate for direct service. I know it’s been around for a long time but that doesn’t make it right. It’s just easier to not let others have it if the majority cannot.
Flextime is likely next and I will miss that. Employees (and their kids) with child drop off and pick up duties are going to be incredibly affected. Getting in and out of HQ will be a nightmare with thousands of people arriving and departing at the same time. It’s chaos when we close HQ early, even with so-called staggered departure by building.
Question will be whether flextime or credit hours goes away first. Frank does not like employees earning time away because the agency “pays” for that later via future absence. He’d rather spend the overtime than let you earn the time.
Recruitment will admittedly suffer but then again Frank doesn’t really care about that.
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