Comments (18)

1. 

   Community Member

   This is so important!! I have reported cases of fraud waste and abuse and the hoops that needed to be jumped through were numerous. In the end the people causing these acts are never disciplined.

   2 years ago

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2. 

   Community Member

   This gets into Constitutional legal issues. The Constitution says that there must be Due Process before depriving someone of property. The Supreme Court ruled that government benefits (social security, welfare benefits) and government employement are property that deserve increased Due Process (extra procedures) before depriving anyone of either. This makes it really hard to stop government benefits and government employment as a result.

   2 years ago

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3. 

   Community Member

   I agree 100%. There is little or no accountability when it comes to performance standards.

   2 years ago

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4. 

   Community Member

   we have to stop being politically correct. If someone is a good employee promote them where they desire, if not try to give them training, and if that fails, get rid of them. I see so many promotions based on who you are, what group you belong to. Promote hire, and fire based on what you do.

   2 years ago

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5. 

   Community Member

   If government employment is property, why is private sector employment not? Government employment does not carry some sort of special aura, and should not be protected more than any other type. If it is, that just creates the environment for it to become a refuge for patronage jobs and low-quality employees.

   2 years ago

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6. 

   Community Member

   Government employees need at least some protection from capricious firing to prevent their subjection to political pressure. There is a process in place to remove unproductive employees. Perhaps this is more a problem of management than of process.

   2 years ago

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7. 

   Community Member

   Having been in government for 29 years, I've seen my share of good and bad workers. The problem is, upper management is afraid to push the envelope and terminate someone who has been a sorry employee for the past 18 years. They won't even get rid of new hires that cannot do the job they said they could because they have many years in the system. That affects the moral of each and every employee who is taking up the slack and watching their "co-worker" hid, do shoddy work, and spend hours goofing off, while the boss is chasing down the good worker and assigning him the jobs. The unions also need to police themselves rather than be a "momma's skirt" for the bad employee to hid behind every time he gets in trouble. (We are talking 5 - 10 times)

   2 years ago

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8. 

   Community Member

   Yep, its called "retiring on the job".

   2 years ago

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9. 

   Community Member

   Oh my goodness. I could not agree more. We have a number of employees in my agency who have retired on the job, and it greatly affects the morale of those of us who do work hard and take pride in our work. After 24 years of government service, I don't believe it will ever change, and it makes me alternately mad, sad, and demoralized.

   2 years ago

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10. 

    Community Member

    Make the Goverment an "At-will" employer. There's no reason in this day and age for the Government to have to jump through hoops to get rid of unproductive employees. Unions are on the way out, which is good. This is the 21st century, you negiotiate for your own benefits, not have someone else bargain for the lower 20%.

    2 years ago

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11. 

    Community Member

    It really makes the rest of the office/department less productive if one or a few of their co-workers are able to keep their jobs despite bad behavior or general laziness. It makes us all feel like "why should we even strive to achieve when this person is getting away with being useless?" Don't get me wrong, I still do my job well, but I think I'd try even harder if good employees were rewarded and bad employees were punished. We are all treated the same.

    2 years ago

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12. 

    Community Member

    Since the originator asked for comments, see my personal experience down below.

    I agree with this, and really agree with the statement made in this thread about management not willing to push the issue. I've been with the federal government for over 20 years, and have seen more often than not a supervisor's inaction on a bad performer. Then, they write a rave evalution only months later to pass that bad performer on to someone else after the bad performer applied for another job. "As the world turns....", we all probably have those kind of stories.

    I must preface the rest of this (for my own benefit!) with it's not enjoyable to terminate someone; it really is a conflict sometimes due to circumstances. It's not great being in that spot; on the flip side, we're all here to do a job and not to make friends. Friends are benefits of the job, but the friends won't pay the mortgage either. The latter should overrule the former.

    It was easiest to terminate someone in their probabtionary period; if the supervisor reduces everything to writing and does THEIR job in re offering performance/technical improvement assistance. Mostly, supervisors lack in this period, and then it's too late to do something at the 11th hour because there's no supporting docs. The probe is converted to career and then it's too late.

    For a career person, it took about one year (two six-month periods due to furloughs) at my previous agency. I was, however, fortunate to have someone in the Union (in a different office) who was really able to assist me with proper language in the counseling sessions. If you have a union, work with them, read that contract, and if something is unclear, ask: "I want to do this by the contract, but I'm having a problem..." It at least worked for me in both offices. Everything, really, EVERYTHING was reduced to writing, performance plans set and documented, errors made by the employee were documented and explained where to find the proper procedure or insturction and even that was reduced to writing. It was tiring work because I felt more like a baby sitter some times; however, as it progressed, once that offer of 'you have the option to resign before termination' was made, the employee resigned. The employees file was reviewed, and there were no grounds for a grievance...following that union contract and documentation was key.

    It really can be done if the supervisor or management does their work, documents, (follows the contract if there is one), and, most importantly, treats EVERYONE equally but on an indiviual basis. Yes, it's more difficult once past the probationary period, but it still can be done.

    2 years ago

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13. 

    Community Member

    I just wanted to say: all the comments above are extremely good, and should be listened to attentively and taken very seriously.

    2 years ago

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14. 

    Community Member

    I agree. I think we need to get rid of tenure altogether. When a non-performer is not dealt with and consistently receives satisfactory ratings it lowers moral within the organization.

    2 years ago

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15. 

    Community Member

    We also need to address poor leadership/managment. From my experience, often the problem stems from poor management and weak or non-existent leadership. Managers protect managers and managers protect weak employees who are their friends.

    2 years ago

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16. 

    Community Member

    Actually the problem is that in trying to terminate a bad employee it is the supervisor who is put on trial. It's not the employee having to prove why their work is valuable, but the supervisor defending themselves having to prove why he/she is not a racist, sexist, incompetent etc. My experience is the supervisor has almost no rights, is soiled by any attempt to remove poor perfromers and is usually not supported by the system since everyone want "to smooth things over". To win this battle against poor performers the system has to accept there will be mistakes and a few bad supervisors, but overall the vast majority of supervisors are competent and when they say this person has to go they should be sent on the street immediately - no differently than the private sector. Until we accept some risk of an occasional "bad call" for the good of all then there is no real solution to the poor performer issue.

    2 years ago

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17. 

    Community Member

    To the member who said "managers protect weak employees who are their friends," I could not agree more.

    Although I have known workers who were genuinely "retired on the job," most of the people labeled problems are actually conscientious public servants who had stepped on the toes of someone in a well-connected in-group of mutual promoters who were heavily endowed with social skills but relatively poor on rational and practical thinking.

    The offenders do not even seem to recognize that what they are doing is status degradation, a form of relational aggression that disguises social "mobbing" behavior as professional concerns about performance or attitude.

    The government would be far more efficient and effective if, instead of opening manpower reduction to a socially biased free-for-all, we institute a civil service requirement that federal employees have to earn a certain score on an objective cognitive test like the LSAT. Getting rid of the social-networking coasters and providing better opportunities and a better working environment for people with demonstrated practical and rational ability, we could reduce manpower and increase productivity simultaneously.

    2 years ago

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18. 

    Community Member

    I believe this really depends on what kind of job you are working at. I remember when my dad was a construction foreman in Florida, he would "layoff" people who were not performing. He would simply go into the office, have admin write them a check for hours performed up to the time they are laid off and then hand them the check and say "have a nice day." Now managers are afraid to get rid of people who are under performing or as with my old job, they would get vetoed by their bosses.

    If this would to happen once again, the majority of under performing employees will straighten themselves up.

    2 years ago

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