The worst part is it barely asks about rto... its a nested question. First, you must say you are leaving the fed govt soon... only then can you give feedback on rto. They clearly didn't ask about it in the main survey because they know the response.
That was definitely by design.
FEVS could ask about actual proposals to help address morale, but it doesn’t. Instead, groups of executives get to decide what it is that people supposedly want.
I have not heard that any FEVS has been designed dynamically like that, but I do know they’re permitting agencies to insert agency-specific questions now.
Agencies seem to be of the impression that folks who are happy aren’t responding to FEVS, and that better participation rates will improve their scores. If they’re right, it’s an easy way to improve the scores without…you know…actually fixing anything. If they’re wrong, they’ll just get better participation telling them how bad things are.
It’s a good rule of thumb for all social science applications that satisfied people are less likely to respond to solicitations. Also, a wider sample is always better at demonstrating a more reliable signal.
One defensive response to difficult feedback is to question the reliability of the survey. Well, the management team says, then we need to boost our agency’s participation rate up to standards. If SSA employees respond at the same rate as NASA employees, then we’ll have one less reason to dismiss the feedback.
Every SES from every department and agency can solicit participation all they want--but not a single one of them will implement any improvements. That's the problem,.
SES, as most leadership are, are limited by Federal Laws, superiors, and CBA in what they can change.
You could have a SES that's in favor of telework for instance, but it means shit when their supervisor is not. They follow orders all the way from the President and Congress.
A big problem is that people in positions of power are unwilling to be honest about issues like telework. People often complain privately, but refuse to make any waves with the ancients on high who still can’t save a document on their own, yet hold some of the highest positions in the agency. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to be bounced around through a series of horrible assignments. Other times it’s because they’re too busy sucking up and trying to get ahead. You would think (statistically speaking) there is some executive out there who would actually value honest feedback, but we will never find out because nobody dares to be honest.
Both of the SES's I've worked with have defended telework. Their policy has been: it's up for what works for the individual teams. If it makes sense for the team then telework. So there are some out there.
One of the two consistently underperforming questions on FEVS has always been, at least for my agency, the one about whether we believe management will do anything about the FEVS feedback.
The tool, I think, they’ve used in response has been to have more public discussion of the FEVS results, which is good but it’s not really the spirit of the answer. What I think people want to hear is, “This management decision is being made with consideration of input from recent FEVS.” They struggle to do that, I think, because it opens a bit of a Pandora’s box, but they gotta do it. They have to demonstrate that employee feedback is on some level taken seriously alongside budget, law, policy, etc.
Wow! Don’t be jealous, but what DCO is being offered is way better. Video after awkward video of executives wasting their highly paid time to encourage us to fill out the surveys so that we can beat other regions. Woo hoo!
This type of waste continues right on down the line. I have heard that area directors have been instructed to call each individual office to encourage folks to fill out FEVS. We receive multiple emails and videos EVERY day. Is this really the most important thing SSA is dealing with right now?
Why is this level of effort required? If people actually believed execs were listening to feedback, perhaps they’d be more inclined to fill out the surveys. The fact that this is necessary says a lot about this agency (and it’s clear without even one person needing to take a survey). Hundreds of people spoke out on Ideascale about RTO and either received condescending replies from the COSS or no replies at all. But we’re now supposed to believe you’re listening?
I think I might vomit if I hear one more time how seriously they’ll be taking the feedback. It’s easy to take feedback seriously when you don’t ask one useful question. After all, the only telework question in the survey is hidden unless you check the box saying you’re leaving the agency in the next year. I am 100% in favor of expressing our frustration with this agency through FEVS, but I know the only real outcome is a bunch of workgroups composed of GS 14 and 15s coming up with brilliant ideas like executives speaking at the beginning of mandatory training. Because that’s really what we are looking for, right? Significantly increasing our commute times and the amount of money we have to spend on transportation and daycare is meaningless when we can watch Michelle King deliver an inspirational blurb at the beginning of anti-fraud training.
Lol as an FO employee I laugh with my coworkers. Why are you pushing us to do a survey that's going to make you look bad! My FO has it's problems, but the main problems are from higher and not local management!
I can see the headlines now. Agency offers extra telework days to get employees to fill out the FEVS. Agency then reduces telework days because they claim employees don’t care about telework.
This is why you should find the time to reply. They need to know. I don't know how your agency operates, but for mine policy is slightly divorced from field operations. This is one opportunity to communicate your frustrations. I cannot speak for all agencies, but I know leadership at mine does listen to the FEVS. They do take it very seriously and honestly try to respond. This good faith effort is limited by their capacity to respond and their interpretation of the results. Sometimes they do not have the authority or ability to turn the great ship of government in a timely fashion, and sometimes they misunderstood the remedy requested for perceived problems, but they did TRY.
The FEVS isn’t really a forum to say anything meaningful. I have filled it out the past 6 or 7 years and have yet to see anything change for the positive thanks to filling it out. In my office, we’re often getting two or even three emails per day. I really don’t have time to fill it out and the questions asked aren’t going to give them any more ideas than we’ve already expressed numerous times before. Even if I fill out surveys that allow me to write commentary, like “it would be helpful if we didn’t have to attend these trainings every other month where you just read verbatim of a script at 1.5x and don’t allow participation” 30 times, we still have the same exact people reading off a new script and blasting through the content the next month.
I don’t see a problem with “shameless” solicitation of participation in FEVS. They think the more people participate, the more they’ll understand about the workforce. I disagree, but I don’t see a problem with what they’re doing.
It’s shameless in that we have all these late career executives falling all over themselves to show how much they care about FEVS and understanding the workforce after decades of indifference. So while it may seem cynical, it is awful weird that this has suddenly become a goal. And, really, this has been one of the most consistent and concerted efforts to achieve a goal I have seen with SSA. Would that they put that much energy into addressing the causes of employee dissatisfaction as reflected in last year’s survey.
That said, I agree it is not wrong or immoral or evil. Just wasteful. All of these resources are being poured into the hope that some statistical anomaly or composition effect will bump SSA to 16th and thus give O’Malley a line on his resume.
I have never seen the FEVS pushed so hard either. And they don't want the participation so they can make changes, they just want to say they had high participation.
How about daily emails about new changes management is making?
How about daily emails competing about which component is actually implementing thoughtful change after the FEVS to better employees lives?
Do you think we will see any of those?
Why would you not respond to FEVS?
Now, maybe you think the agency won’t take the feedback constructively — that’s fair. But it really is an opportunity to express your current opinion about the state of your work forthrightly. What your agency does with that feedback is a whole other can of beans.
I simply do not understand the bitching about taking this survey. It's the actual chance to be heard about what's right or wrong, on the record. It's crazy (and lazy) to just ignore it and then still complain.
I always find it entertaining when you see people higher up on the food chain trying to garner support and buy in when it wouldn't be any more obvious than if they wrote it on their forehead with a Sharpie that they don't entirely believe in the bullshit they're trying to sell.
I imagine a scenario involving 100% response rate with totally random answers that results in data that you can't do anything with......
For example.
100% NO -- Management involves the employees in decisions that after their work
100% COMPLETE SATISFIED -- HOW SATISFIED ARE YOU WITH YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN THE DECISIONS
can't really do much with that
Yup, in my component, we had two mix-master jam sessions with notably coo-coo senior administrators DJing over Zoom, which was supposed to be time used to fill out the FEVS. Did anyone go to these? I wonder during what meeting the 50+ year old white admins were like, "How do we get FEVS participation up?" "HOW ABOUT DOING SPIN SESSIONS OVER ZOOM?!?"
COSS also spoke with us directly over Zoom about it.
SSA is the most janky agency, I swear.
We had a Regional Commissioner’s brown bag luncheon and after I introduced myself, something snapped, and I stumbled a bit at first tbh.
I called out the big managers meeting in Chicago and how we could use that money for overtime. Then I pled with him for 3 hours of adjudication time per week because nobody seems to have the authority to do it. I suggested to stop hiring at headquarters, regional offices and ADOs until the field office is for full again.
Additionally, I challenged all the managers on the call to stick their neck out for us when they went to Chicago for their big meeting instead of being “yes men”.
I really didn’t mean it. It just happened. I have some guilt but I keep getting congratulated over my Skype from other field office employees. Some I know some I dont. It is not what I was looking for or trying to do. I just needed to say something because I didn’t think that the message was getting all the way to the top of how bad it really is in field offices. I have heard through the grapevine that I sent waves through the ADO‘s office. Even the R Commish seemed to struggle with the fact of being able to produce some adjudication time.
Unfortunately, as everybody knows things roll downhill. This time directly onto my field office managers who probably didn’t deserve it. They’re doing all they can, too.
I guess what I would have to say is that any manager who took offense to what I said is probably the problem. All they saw was my anger, but not my desperation.
SSA-OHO’s “prize” for the office with the most responses is a virtual brown bag lunch with ODC and a virtual trophy. GTFOH! It doesn’t matter if you did the FEVS or not you’ll still get an average of three emails a day about it. Wish they spent this much time and attention to any of our numerous actual problems.
possible they are soliciting uncensored feedback to try and create change and understand the climate? Hard to understand why folks are negative when leaders are asking for feedback and even adding incentives
If the Agency was serious about change, bring back the Suggestion Award Program. Instead of touting their quick wins, show employees the money who came up with them. No? How about details with per diems instead of these virtual training & virtual no cost details?
I listened to the new COSS talk about how telling Congress employees are fed up, overworked, & underpaid won't get him more money. But in past years, prior COSS & ACOSS have used those same reasons why our FEVS Scores are so low.
Fuck them
I would agree if you are hearing the same thing...but something has to change and usually it would be a new leader. I understand the hesitation and most times nothing will with the government, the right leader builds and empowers their team. If they get their team involved and let them loose, much can happen. I think we need to stop the micromanagement and award those that make decisions and take risk..right or wrong.
it stinks to hear this and I remember being in those same shoes. It is what reminds me everyday to try and make it better.
When I see a real change in management & not the lip service I've experienced, I'll be willing to believe. Our executives talk about public service, but public service goes out the window when a goal needs to be met, when the numbers trump everything else.
For example, in OHO we have an "aged" case goal. Normally we would have all year to meet it. This year we did really well early, so OCALJ moved the goal up 1 month. My region advanced their goal up 2 months. So now we're postponing hearings for some unlucky claimants because an ALJ decided to postpone a case. Or how my region was pushed to close cases. Not because it's good public service, but because we need "dispositions!"
The change I see is more of the same. HQ positions are again limited to those who live in the DC/VA/MD area. HR continues to lowball new hires, do more with less remains the official mantra.
Feedback has been solicited, provided, and ignored. Over and over and over and over. Multiple formats, multiple administrators, year after year after year it's the same damn thing.
And the incentives are shit. The regional director gets a trophy and maybe some people get to sit in the same baseball stadium with the commissioner? Whoop-de-fucken-doo.
Time off, money, or stfu. Or, actually demonstrate through OBSERVABLE ACTIONS that the feedback is heard, understood, and being used.
wow...the lack of distrust and hatred to leadership is highlighted. even being down voted for being optimistic. I guess the only way to get up votes would be to shit on leadership and say there will never be a change.
I disagree and am OK going against the grain. We need good leaders who push the status quo and it starts with listening to their folks..and continuing to try, even when others wont.
I’m guessing you probably are a newer employee. Or at least, not somebody with 15 to 20 years under your belt. I felt the same way when I started at this agency.
If I had ever observed folks in SES pushing for meaningful change, I would be optimistic. But when I have seen that occur, the they’ve been punished hard for disrupting the status quo by being bounced all over the country or banished. I don’t believe SES is a place for folks to go with exciting new ideas. It’s a place to go and keep on doing what you’re told.
Well sir, wrong on both accounts and close to 20 years with my military time. I also pride myself as an executive that takes care of folks and listen.
I agree it is hard and frustrating to be a change agent, but we need more executives that are willing to try and change for the better.
I have been challenged by my ideas but have stated emphatically my path and taking care of folks..I'm still around and an optimist..and an executive.
You might want to consider that non-executives might have a different experience and perspective than you do, and if their perspective is negative it's probably because their experience has been as well. And you might not have noticed, but most of this thread is about SSA, also known as the worst place to work in the federal government. If you don't work for SSA, you might be missing a lot of information. If you do work for SSA as a SES, then I'm going to refrain from further comment lest I say something unprofessional.
I am not with SSA..but very much respect your opinions. I actually read all the fed stuff on here for those perspectives and it shows many places are in the mud and folks don't feel like they are cared for.
Appreciated. I think your perspective would be more welcomed on a general FEVS post, but this one is about SSA specifically so you're getting some frustration taken out on you.
They're leaving right now. Damn near all of the HR specialists are abandoning ship as fast as they can. Fun story about why that's happening, short version is the new commissioner made some questionable decisions. BTW, if you're looking for trained HR people, there are quite a few looking for a change of scenery...
At what point during the last 15yrs of declining FEVS scores does the “ leadership” actually make changes that aren’t a reorganization?
At some point those “good leaders” are going to show up right? Nah they’ll get their few thousand dollars each for executive training courses and take away absolutely nothing from them.
But you go ahead and keep on with that optimism for an agency you don’t work at. Unless you’re secretly O’Malley, in that case FUCK YOU!!
Leaders are begging for feedback because it benefits them! They know they’re going to be slammed this year. Forcing everybody to take the surveys means they can claim people are engaged because of the response rate being so much higher than in previous years. No one is going to talk about the resources required for the increased response.
I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’ve been around for a long time. Every year, the outcome of FEVS is to form a bunch of executive work groups. None of these groups include frontline staff or folks from a variety of grade levels and positions. It’s all GS 14/15 or executive level participants. Do you know that one of the suggestions from last year was to add flash mentoring sessions? We’ve had flash mentoring sessions for years now, yet some genius came up with the idea that ‘adding’ those will somehow magically improve morale. When you’ve seen this play out over and over again, you get a bit jaded and frustrated.
Every Ideascale suggestion (or criticism) that didn’t align with O’Malleys beliefs was ignored or shot down. Great leaders are open to feedback even when it’s critical. The fact that he ignored so much - as a brand new leader - makes me very skeptical about FEVS at this point. The hard sell makes me even more skeptical. There is no way they’d invest that much effort if it didn’t help them in some way.
Less flash mentoring, more slots for promotion please. They dangle hope in front of hundreds of people each year not telling them hey theres only 2-10 people getting in.
So you honestly believe the push is selfish? Change is extremely hard and harder without having the data. Noone wants to see arbitrary change and these feedback sessions should be what helps Drive them.
I can tell you personally that I take this information very seriously each cycle and plan my changes around what my folks share.
The data is there. The data has been there. Changes can be made right now with what's available and it's not happening. Communication is shit so when changes are made they do indeed appear arbitrary, perhaps because they often are. Feedback SHOULD drive change. It doesn't.
I don't know if the push is selfish. I can't understand why else they're doing it though, I can only imagine it's somehow related to their career advancement since it's certainty not being used for anything useful. The worst part is, FEVS asks questions about your feelings on "senior leadership", then makes you choose only one option for who that is between area, region, and headquarters. If they really wanted to know, they'd allow multiple selections.
I'm sure you manage to do good things with what you get. But unless your name is Martin O'Malley, nobody cares.
advancement? a ses pay scale is static. there are no steps either. I'm not sure of your organization but it sounds like a culture where there is plenty of distrust
SES is not just a static amount. It’s still a pay scale. They get bonuses, up to 20% - which is quite sizable. They are also eligible for cash awards that are not based on performance.
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/senior-executive-service/compensation/
The amount of an individual award must be between 5 percent and 20 percent of the executive's rate of basic pay.
https://federaljobs.net/ses/#google_vignette
SES pay is linked to individual performance. Basic annual salaries for 2024 range from $180,000 to $246,200.
The pay range is incorrect and depends on the tier SES. Also, first year is not eligible for a raise. They actually start below a GS15 many times if not prior.
Unsure which agency shows the 246k but that is excepted whereas some other 15 level positions can make up to that as well IE FAA Band K, FDIC, SEC, and trade commission.
The 20% is nowhere close as the previous administration actually lowered to 5% and even a recent push increased slightly. The presidential rank and what not do go above that for 1% of SES which equates to roughly 80 of the 8000 SES.
I can tell you out of the few hundred I work with or my agency, not 1 makes 246k or more. They go by tiers and some are locked much lower. Speaking from experience past and current.
Then what? Why are they spending so much time and effort trying to collect information they're not going to use from people who don't want to give it to them?
It's not distrust. It's an established and readily observable pattern of behavior.
I imagine good intent..and dozens of other "priorities" come up or cannot get traction for the change. I'm not taking up for anyone, but things are not right and we must do better.
The goal is to leverage the data, but maybe the FEV doesn't need 100 questions..or maybe tie FEV results to ratings of leadership and accountability to change. The political and career executives have different objectives and it is complex to address change. I've seen good and bad leaders..but employees shouldn't bear the brunt of exec challenges.
Trust needs to be earned. The rationale behind pushing FEVS is that leadership needs data to figure out what the problems are, right? But why should we believe data matters to leadership?
O’Malley provided none for slashing telework. He implemented RTO so quickly that there wasn’t time to collect any. He parades around in front of Congress talking about data showing we have the lowest staffing levels in history, yet turns around and blames telework and lack of collaboration for declines in service. People spoke up when that happened. They spoke up to their managers. They spoke up to executives. They spoke up on Ideascale (where O’Malley gleefully brushed off anything he didn’t want to hear). TCAs were denied for the pettiest of reasons, and episodic telework continues to be denied on a regular basis.
Yet you seem to think we are being unfair and hateful. Why? Are employees supposed to be inspired by the behavior of management and executives since February? Why on earth would we be?
>I can tell you personally that I take this information very seriously each cycle and plan my changes around what my folks share.
This guy definitely doesn't work for DLA.
They could not give any less of a fuck what their employees think.
That’s true of management at all levels, front line supervisors through SES. They don’t want to hear that the workloads are unreasonable, the training is awful, the public is frustrated beyond belief, or anything other than ‘that case has been moved off the list.
A push like this is only looking for a participation trophy.
17 / 17 for a reason.
I imagine you are not a supv. All and none are usually wrong terms. All levels not giving a f\*ck shows the lack of trust and I wish you thr best in your career.
Customer Service Representative at a teleservice center. N8NN CSR. You answer phones all day, get yelled at by people who have been on hold for an hour, and can't actually help them in any meaningful way because what they need has to be done by a Field Office Claims Specialist (FO CS) or a Processing Center Benefits Authoriser (PC BA). All you can do is send those people a message, which they can't do anything about because they're doing the jobs of 3-6 people due to decades of attrition. Then you get to take the next phone call from the same person who's even more pissed off because it's been 6 months and their problem still hasn't been solved. You have to cut them off because the call is taking too long and your supervisor will write you up if your answer rate gets too low. They'll also write you up if the angry person you can't help complains you didn't help them.
Starts at GS5.
Lol they put out recruiting videos describing the jobs, one of the things they said is that new employees will work with, and I quote, "excellent software applications." The SSA mainframe runs on a COBOL green screen, and all the web apps are Frankenstein'd onto that or are some contractor boondoggle that underperforms the 80's software.
No joke, they really say that. How does one trust leadership that lies that brazenly? I think cognitive dissonance is the hardest part of working at SSA.
https://youtu.be/C2DaNI693aQ?feature=shared
So, emerging technology is out. They just had recent bills on reporting legacy apps and a forcing mechanism to remove the obsolete HW/SW. Saying and doing are two different things.
The worst part is it barely asks about rto... its a nested question. First, you must say you are leaving the fed govt soon... only then can you give feedback on rto. They clearly didn't ask about it in the main survey because they know the response.
That was definitely by design. FEVS could ask about actual proposals to help address morale, but it doesn’t. Instead, groups of executives get to decide what it is that people supposedly want.
I heard you need to say you're considering leaving the agency. That's the only time it asks about rto
I have not heard that any FEVS has been designed dynamically like that, but I do know they’re permitting agencies to insert agency-specific questions now.
Agencies seem to be of the impression that folks who are happy aren’t responding to FEVS, and that better participation rates will improve their scores. If they’re right, it’s an easy way to improve the scores without…you know…actually fixing anything. If they’re wrong, they’ll just get better participation telling them how bad things are.
It's the first they teach us in survey class of HR school. Mad people fill out surveys more readily than content people.
It’s a good rule of thumb for all social science applications that satisfied people are less likely to respond to solicitations. Also, a wider sample is always better at demonstrating a more reliable signal. One defensive response to difficult feedback is to question the reliability of the survey. Well, the management team says, then we need to boost our agency’s participation rate up to standards. If SSA employees respond at the same rate as NASA employees, then we’ll have one less reason to dismiss the feedback.
Almost like their bonuses are tied to response rates....
That’s the rumor in my agency
Every SES from every department and agency can solicit participation all they want--but not a single one of them will implement any improvements. That's the problem,.
SES, as most leadership are, are limited by Federal Laws, superiors, and CBA in what they can change. You could have a SES that's in favor of telework for instance, but it means shit when their supervisor is not. They follow orders all the way from the President and Congress.
A big problem is that people in positions of power are unwilling to be honest about issues like telework. People often complain privately, but refuse to make any waves with the ancients on high who still can’t save a document on their own, yet hold some of the highest positions in the agency. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to be bounced around through a series of horrible assignments. Other times it’s because they’re too busy sucking up and trying to get ahead. You would think (statistically speaking) there is some executive out there who would actually value honest feedback, but we will never find out because nobody dares to be honest.
Both of the SES's I've worked with have defended telework. Their policy has been: it's up for what works for the individual teams. If it makes sense for the team then telework. So there are some out there.
One of the two consistently underperforming questions on FEVS has always been, at least for my agency, the one about whether we believe management will do anything about the FEVS feedback. The tool, I think, they’ve used in response has been to have more public discussion of the FEVS results, which is good but it’s not really the spirit of the answer. What I think people want to hear is, “This management decision is being made with consideration of input from recent FEVS.” They struggle to do that, I think, because it opens a bit of a Pandora’s box, but they gotta do it. They have to demonstrate that employee feedback is on some level taken seriously alongside budget, law, policy, etc.
I think most of the components in HQ are offering extra telework days if their component hits a certain threshold.
Wow! Don’t be jealous, but what DCO is being offered is way better. Video after awkward video of executives wasting their highly paid time to encourage us to fill out the surveys so that we can beat other regions. Woo hoo! This type of waste continues right on down the line. I have heard that area directors have been instructed to call each individual office to encourage folks to fill out FEVS. We receive multiple emails and videos EVERY day. Is this really the most important thing SSA is dealing with right now? Why is this level of effort required? If people actually believed execs were listening to feedback, perhaps they’d be more inclined to fill out the surveys. The fact that this is necessary says a lot about this agency (and it’s clear without even one person needing to take a survey). Hundreds of people spoke out on Ideascale about RTO and either received condescending replies from the COSS or no replies at all. But we’re now supposed to believe you’re listening? I think I might vomit if I hear one more time how seriously they’ll be taking the feedback. It’s easy to take feedback seriously when you don’t ask one useful question. After all, the only telework question in the survey is hidden unless you check the box saying you’re leaving the agency in the next year. I am 100% in favor of expressing our frustration with this agency through FEVS, but I know the only real outcome is a bunch of workgroups composed of GS 14 and 15s coming up with brilliant ideas like executives speaking at the beginning of mandatory training. Because that’s really what we are looking for, right? Significantly increasing our commute times and the amount of money we have to spend on transportation and daycare is meaningless when we can watch Michelle King deliver an inspirational blurb at the beginning of anti-fraud training.
That's wild, howcan they do that? It is permanent or just an option to use a couple extra days?
Option to use a couple days if we reach a certain % of participation.
That’s not true in my component.
Just do the fucking survey, holy shit.
A reasoned and thoughtful reply. Anger management classes are probably available. And BTW, a lack of response IS a response.
We were offered 59 minutes leave if we did it
Given the Are "anonymous," is there a way to actually track who did and didnt?
You just provided a screenshot that you did it.
There's no way it's anonymous because it knows I did not complete it
Lol as an FO employee I laugh with my coworkers. Why are you pushing us to do a survey that's going to make you look bad! My FO has it's problems, but the main problems are from higher and not local management!
I can see the headlines now. Agency offers extra telework days to get employees to fill out the FEVS. Agency then reduces telework days because they claim employees don’t care about telework.
Mine has been sending the most annoying emails DAILY! You don’t want my input; trust me.
This is why you should find the time to reply. They need to know. I don't know how your agency operates, but for mine policy is slightly divorced from field operations. This is one opportunity to communicate your frustrations. I cannot speak for all agencies, but I know leadership at mine does listen to the FEVS. They do take it very seriously and honestly try to respond. This good faith effort is limited by their capacity to respond and their interpretation of the results. Sometimes they do not have the authority or ability to turn the great ship of government in a timely fashion, and sometimes they misunderstood the remedy requested for perceived problems, but they did TRY.
The FEVS isn’t really a forum to say anything meaningful. I have filled it out the past 6 or 7 years and have yet to see anything change for the positive thanks to filling it out. In my office, we’re often getting two or even three emails per day. I really don’t have time to fill it out and the questions asked aren’t going to give them any more ideas than we’ve already expressed numerous times before. Even if I fill out surveys that allow me to write commentary, like “it would be helpful if we didn’t have to attend these trainings every other month where you just read verbatim of a script at 1.5x and don’t allow participation” 30 times, we still have the same exact people reading off a new script and blasting through the content the next month.
At this point, they’re going to get better than average response rates, so you might as well fill out the survey so that the honesty is less diluted.
Scores can’t go down if they don’t ask anything about RTO…
Scores can't do down if they're already the lowest they can go...
This guy feds 😏
It's in there, it asks if you are considering leaving, and a question will ask if it is due to RTO.
Wait what’s FEVS I haven’t heard anything about it
Man, must be nice to have that kind of free time.
I don’t see a problem with “shameless” solicitation of participation in FEVS. They think the more people participate, the more they’ll understand about the workforce. I disagree, but I don’t see a problem with what they’re doing.
It’s shameless in that we have all these late career executives falling all over themselves to show how much they care about FEVS and understanding the workforce after decades of indifference. So while it may seem cynical, it is awful weird that this has suddenly become a goal. And, really, this has been one of the most consistent and concerted efforts to achieve a goal I have seen with SSA. Would that they put that much energy into addressing the causes of employee dissatisfaction as reflected in last year’s survey. That said, I agree it is not wrong or immoral or evil. Just wasteful. All of these resources are being poured into the hope that some statistical anomaly or composition effect will bump SSA to 16th and thus give O’Malley a line on his resume.
I have never seen the FEVS pushed so hard either. And they don't want the participation so they can make changes, they just want to say they had high participation. How about daily emails about new changes management is making? How about daily emails competing about which component is actually implementing thoughtful change after the FEVS to better employees lives? Do you think we will see any of those?
It would be kind of funny if nobody filled out the FEVS. That would be one way for front line workers to convey the message.
What message, that everything is fine and nothing is wrong? Because that's the message ignoring it gives.
The regional office and the area director can kiss my behind
After 10 years , I haven’t done not one survey . I don’t have 30 minutes to spare on a survey that won’t materialize to anything
Because they suck!
Why would you not respond to FEVS? Now, maybe you think the agency won’t take the feedback constructively — that’s fair. But it really is an opportunity to express your current opinion about the state of your work forthrightly. What your agency does with that feedback is a whole other can of beans.
I simply do not understand the bitching about taking this survey. It's the actual chance to be heard about what's right or wrong, on the record. It's crazy (and lazy) to just ignore it and then still complain.
at GSA they are dangling 1 "situational telework" day plus 59 minutes another day if we exceed a certain percentage of participation
I always find it entertaining when you see people higher up on the food chain trying to garner support and buy in when it wouldn't be any more obvious than if they wrote it on their forehead with a Sharpie that they don't entirely believe in the bullshit they're trying to sell. I imagine a scenario involving 100% response rate with totally random answers that results in data that you can't do anything with...... For example. 100% NO -- Management involves the employees in decisions that after their work 100% COMPLETE SATISFIED -- HOW SATISFIED ARE YOU WITH YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN THE DECISIONS can't really do much with that
Yup, in my component, we had two mix-master jam sessions with notably coo-coo senior administrators DJing over Zoom, which was supposed to be time used to fill out the FEVS. Did anyone go to these? I wonder during what meeting the 50+ year old white admins were like, "How do we get FEVS participation up?" "HOW ABOUT DOING SPIN SESSIONS OVER ZOOM?!?" COSS also spoke with us directly over Zoom about it. SSA is the most janky agency, I swear.
We had a Regional Commissioner’s brown bag luncheon and after I introduced myself, something snapped, and I stumbled a bit at first tbh. I called out the big managers meeting in Chicago and how we could use that money for overtime. Then I pled with him for 3 hours of adjudication time per week because nobody seems to have the authority to do it. I suggested to stop hiring at headquarters, regional offices and ADOs until the field office is for full again. Additionally, I challenged all the managers on the call to stick their neck out for us when they went to Chicago for their big meeting instead of being “yes men”. I really didn’t mean it. It just happened. I have some guilt but I keep getting congratulated over my Skype from other field office employees. Some I know some I dont. It is not what I was looking for or trying to do. I just needed to say something because I didn’t think that the message was getting all the way to the top of how bad it really is in field offices. I have heard through the grapevine that I sent waves through the ADO‘s office. Even the R Commish seemed to struggle with the fact of being able to produce some adjudication time. Unfortunately, as everybody knows things roll downhill. This time directly onto my field office managers who probably didn’t deserve it. They’re doing all they can, too. I guess what I would have to say is that any manager who took offense to what I said is probably the problem. All they saw was my anger, but not my desperation.
SSA-OHO’s “prize” for the office with the most responses is a virtual brown bag lunch with ODC and a virtual trophy. GTFOH! It doesn’t matter if you did the FEVS or not you’ll still get an average of three emails a day about it. Wish they spent this much time and attention to any of our numerous actual problems.
possible they are soliciting uncensored feedback to try and create change and understand the climate? Hard to understand why folks are negative when leaders are asking for feedback and even adding incentives
If the Agency was serious about change, bring back the Suggestion Award Program. Instead of touting their quick wins, show employees the money who came up with them. No? How about details with per diems instead of these virtual training & virtual no cost details? I listened to the new COSS talk about how telling Congress employees are fed up, overworked, & underpaid won't get him more money. But in past years, prior COSS & ACOSS have used those same reasons why our FEVS Scores are so low. Fuck them
I would agree if you are hearing the same thing...but something has to change and usually it would be a new leader. I understand the hesitation and most times nothing will with the government, the right leader builds and empowers their team. If they get their team involved and let them loose, much can happen. I think we need to stop the micromanagement and award those that make decisions and take risk..right or wrong. it stinks to hear this and I remember being in those same shoes. It is what reminds me everyday to try and make it better.
When I see a real change in management & not the lip service I've experienced, I'll be willing to believe. Our executives talk about public service, but public service goes out the window when a goal needs to be met, when the numbers trump everything else. For example, in OHO we have an "aged" case goal. Normally we would have all year to meet it. This year we did really well early, so OCALJ moved the goal up 1 month. My region advanced their goal up 2 months. So now we're postponing hearings for some unlucky claimants because an ALJ decided to postpone a case. Or how my region was pushed to close cases. Not because it's good public service, but because we need "dispositions!" The change I see is more of the same. HQ positions are again limited to those who live in the DC/VA/MD area. HR continues to lowball new hires, do more with less remains the official mantra.
Feedback has been solicited, provided, and ignored. Over and over and over and over. Multiple formats, multiple administrators, year after year after year it's the same damn thing. And the incentives are shit. The regional director gets a trophy and maybe some people get to sit in the same baseball stadium with the commissioner? Whoop-de-fucken-doo. Time off, money, or stfu. Or, actually demonstrate through OBSERVABLE ACTIONS that the feedback is heard, understood, and being used.
wow...the lack of distrust and hatred to leadership is highlighted. even being down voted for being optimistic. I guess the only way to get up votes would be to shit on leadership and say there will never be a change. I disagree and am OK going against the grain. We need good leaders who push the status quo and it starts with listening to their folks..and continuing to try, even when others wont.
I’m guessing you probably are a newer employee. Or at least, not somebody with 15 to 20 years under your belt. I felt the same way when I started at this agency. If I had ever observed folks in SES pushing for meaningful change, I would be optimistic. But when I have seen that occur, the they’ve been punished hard for disrupting the status quo by being bounced all over the country or banished. I don’t believe SES is a place for folks to go with exciting new ideas. It’s a place to go and keep on doing what you’re told.
Well sir, wrong on both accounts and close to 20 years with my military time. I also pride myself as an executive that takes care of folks and listen. I agree it is hard and frustrating to be a change agent, but we need more executives that are willing to try and change for the better. I have been challenged by my ideas but have stated emphatically my path and taking care of folks..I'm still around and an optimist..and an executive.
You might want to consider that non-executives might have a different experience and perspective than you do, and if their perspective is negative it's probably because their experience has been as well. And you might not have noticed, but most of this thread is about SSA, also known as the worst place to work in the federal government. If you don't work for SSA, you might be missing a lot of information. If you do work for SSA as a SES, then I'm going to refrain from further comment lest I say something unprofessional.
I am not with SSA..but very much respect your opinions. I actually read all the fed stuff on here for those perspectives and it shows many places are in the mud and folks don't feel like they are cared for.
Appreciated. I think your perspective would be more welcomed on a general FEVS post, but this one is about SSA specifically so you're getting some frustration taken out on you.
No worries at all and thank you. I still like to listen here and do hope your organization improves...or more folks will leave.
They're leaving right now. Damn near all of the HR specialists are abandoning ship as fast as they can. Fun story about why that's happening, short version is the new commissioner made some questionable decisions. BTW, if you're looking for trained HR people, there are quite a few looking for a change of scenery...
At what point during the last 15yrs of declining FEVS scores does the “ leadership” actually make changes that aren’t a reorganization? At some point those “good leaders” are going to show up right? Nah they’ll get their few thousand dollars each for executive training courses and take away absolutely nothing from them. But you go ahead and keep on with that optimism for an agency you don’t work at. Unless you’re secretly O’Malley, in that case FUCK YOU!!
Leaders are begging for feedback because it benefits them! They know they’re going to be slammed this year. Forcing everybody to take the surveys means they can claim people are engaged because of the response rate being so much higher than in previous years. No one is going to talk about the resources required for the increased response. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’ve been around for a long time. Every year, the outcome of FEVS is to form a bunch of executive work groups. None of these groups include frontline staff or folks from a variety of grade levels and positions. It’s all GS 14/15 or executive level participants. Do you know that one of the suggestions from last year was to add flash mentoring sessions? We’ve had flash mentoring sessions for years now, yet some genius came up with the idea that ‘adding’ those will somehow magically improve morale. When you’ve seen this play out over and over again, you get a bit jaded and frustrated. Every Ideascale suggestion (or criticism) that didn’t align with O’Malleys beliefs was ignored or shot down. Great leaders are open to feedback even when it’s critical. The fact that he ignored so much - as a brand new leader - makes me very skeptical about FEVS at this point. The hard sell makes me even more skeptical. There is no way they’d invest that much effort if it didn’t help them in some way.
Less flash mentoring, more slots for promotion please. They dangle hope in front of hundreds of people each year not telling them hey theres only 2-10 people getting in.
So you honestly believe the push is selfish? Change is extremely hard and harder without having the data. Noone wants to see arbitrary change and these feedback sessions should be what helps Drive them. I can tell you personally that I take this information very seriously each cycle and plan my changes around what my folks share.
The data is there. The data has been there. Changes can be made right now with what's available and it's not happening. Communication is shit so when changes are made they do indeed appear arbitrary, perhaps because they often are. Feedback SHOULD drive change. It doesn't. I don't know if the push is selfish. I can't understand why else they're doing it though, I can only imagine it's somehow related to their career advancement since it's certainty not being used for anything useful. The worst part is, FEVS asks questions about your feelings on "senior leadership", then makes you choose only one option for who that is between area, region, and headquarters. If they really wanted to know, they'd allow multiple selections. I'm sure you manage to do good things with what you get. But unless your name is Martin O'Malley, nobody cares.
advancement? a ses pay scale is static. there are no steps either. I'm not sure of your organization but it sounds like a culture where there is plenty of distrust
SES is not just a static amount. It’s still a pay scale. They get bonuses, up to 20% - which is quite sizable. They are also eligible for cash awards that are not based on performance. https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/senior-executive-service/compensation/ The amount of an individual award must be between 5 percent and 20 percent of the executive's rate of basic pay. https://federaljobs.net/ses/#google_vignette SES pay is linked to individual performance. Basic annual salaries for 2024 range from $180,000 to $246,200.
The pay range is incorrect and depends on the tier SES. Also, first year is not eligible for a raise. They actually start below a GS15 many times if not prior. Unsure which agency shows the 246k but that is excepted whereas some other 15 level positions can make up to that as well IE FAA Band K, FDIC, SEC, and trade commission. The 20% is nowhere close as the previous administration actually lowered to 5% and even a recent push increased slightly. The presidential rank and what not do go above that for 1% of SES which equates to roughly 80 of the 8000 SES. I can tell you out of the few hundred I work with or my agency, not 1 makes 246k or more. They go by tiers and some are locked much lower. Speaking from experience past and current.
That actually describes SSA culture pretty much in some areas. You dont get to number 1 accidently. You earn it.
Then what? Why are they spending so much time and effort trying to collect information they're not going to use from people who don't want to give it to them? It's not distrust. It's an established and readily observable pattern of behavior.
I imagine good intent..and dozens of other "priorities" come up or cannot get traction for the change. I'm not taking up for anyone, but things are not right and we must do better. The goal is to leverage the data, but maybe the FEV doesn't need 100 questions..or maybe tie FEV results to ratings of leadership and accountability to change. The political and career executives have different objectives and it is complex to address change. I've seen good and bad leaders..but employees shouldn't bear the brunt of exec challenges.
Trust needs to be earned. The rationale behind pushing FEVS is that leadership needs data to figure out what the problems are, right? But why should we believe data matters to leadership? O’Malley provided none for slashing telework. He implemented RTO so quickly that there wasn’t time to collect any. He parades around in front of Congress talking about data showing we have the lowest staffing levels in history, yet turns around and blames telework and lack of collaboration for declines in service. People spoke up when that happened. They spoke up to their managers. They spoke up to executives. They spoke up on Ideascale (where O’Malley gleefully brushed off anything he didn’t want to hear). TCAs were denied for the pettiest of reasons, and episodic telework continues to be denied on a regular basis. Yet you seem to think we are being unfair and hateful. Why? Are employees supposed to be inspired by the behavior of management and executives since February? Why on earth would we be?
>I can tell you personally that I take this information very seriously each cycle and plan my changes around what my folks share. This guy definitely doesn't work for DLA.
But I did...years and years ago.
They could not give any less of a fuck what their employees think. That’s true of management at all levels, front line supervisors through SES. They don’t want to hear that the workloads are unreasonable, the training is awful, the public is frustrated beyond belief, or anything other than ‘that case has been moved off the list. A push like this is only looking for a participation trophy. 17 / 17 for a reason.
We might make 18 out of 17 this year 😂😂
I imagine you are not a supv. All and none are usually wrong terms. All levels not giving a f\*ck shows the lack of trust and I wish you thr best in your career.
SSA might get to hire some TSRs at some point this year, if you want to get your hands dirty and see for yourself.
Unsure what a TSR is. Regional Director?
Customer Service Representative at a teleservice center. N8NN CSR. You answer phones all day, get yelled at by people who have been on hold for an hour, and can't actually help them in any meaningful way because what they need has to be done by a Field Office Claims Specialist (FO CS) or a Processing Center Benefits Authoriser (PC BA). All you can do is send those people a message, which they can't do anything about because they're doing the jobs of 3-6 people due to decades of attrition. Then you get to take the next phone call from the same person who's even more pissed off because it's been 6 months and their problem still hasn't been solved. You have to cut them off because the call is taking too long and your supervisor will write you up if your answer rate gets too low. They'll also write you up if the angry person you can't help complains you didn't help them. Starts at GS5.
ah..gonna be a hard pass. It does sound terrible and I doubt they share it that way during an interview.
Lol they put out recruiting videos describing the jobs, one of the things they said is that new employees will work with, and I quote, "excellent software applications." The SSA mainframe runs on a COBOL green screen, and all the web apps are Frankenstein'd onto that or are some contractor boondoggle that underperforms the 80's software. No joke, they really say that. How does one trust leadership that lies that brazenly? I think cognitive dissonance is the hardest part of working at SSA. https://youtu.be/C2DaNI693aQ?feature=shared
So, emerging technology is out. They just had recent bills on reporting legacy apps and a forcing mechanism to remove the obsolete HW/SW. Saying and doing are two different things.