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Anadarko

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  Reward good work

  Everyone says go above and beyond, to buck the status quo, but the reality is that the system in place encourages you to fall in line. I could come in as a temp, outwork every person in the building, and maybe I'll get put on as a 4, maybe. I know the yearly wait time on raises and grade increases is mandatory and you wouldn't want an ultra competitive atmosphere of everyone looking over their shoulder, but someone in ...more »

  Everyone says go above and beyond, to buck the status quo, but the reality is that the system in place encourages you to fall in line. I could come in as a temp, outwork every person in the building, and maybe I'll get put on as a 4, maybe.

  I know the yearly wait time on raises and grade increases is mandatory and you wouldn't want an ultra competitive atmosphere of everyone looking over their shoulder, but someone in the building needs to be looking at productivity and reward it. Maybe have employees who can move up to a grade just below the supervisor, rather than being such a difference between the two. And dangle the carrot of pay increases more quickly as a reward - I know I would work extra fast if I could even have a slight pay increase.

  As I can tell, the ones working the hardest are the lowest level employees. Upper management gets to delegate, respond to emails, and sign papers, as well as get full credit for the work of their underlings.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Recycling?

  I'm not sure if this is the place to say this, but set up government policies to recycle aluminum cans, paper, plastics, cardboard, and metals (binder clips and paper clips and maybe even staples). Aluminum is the easiest to recycle because it's worth the most. In my town the schools have a fund-raising program to recycle paper, otherwise our tons of shredded paper would be heading to a trash heap near you. Our Wal-Mart ...more »

  I'm not sure if this is the place to say this, but set up government policies to recycle aluminum cans, paper, plastics, cardboard, and metals (binder clips and paper clips and maybe even staples).

  Aluminum is the easiest to recycle because it's worth the most.

  In my town the schools have a fund-raising program to recycle paper, otherwise our tons of shredded paper would be heading to a trash heap near you.

  Our Wal-Mart accepts plastics, but not much at a time.

  My office gets tons of cardboard, and as far as I know the only place to put cardboard around here is in a dumpster.

  It seems like such a waste to get rid of bits of metal, and I know people recycle this kind of stuff, but not in my area.

  Lastly and most difficult would be to avoid having to trash old equipment, such as calculators, automatic staplers, and any other kinds of electronics or bigger items. I don't want to hoard this stuff, but it's not exactly going to a bottomless pit. This kind of stuff is destined to maybe fall down the rungs of the ladder, but will eventually be tossed in the trash. Can't this stuff be scrapped or sold to the public? Government agency yard sale anyone? Pool together a region of agencies and you could probably make some money... Hey there we go! There's a money-making idea.

  Anyway, I know recycling anything but aluminum is not a lucrative venture, but even if each agency had to drive their materials to one location, at least we'd be doing our part to go green. A central recycling hub for a region of a state (possibly open to the public) would be a good start.

  Besides, the trash service in my town shrunk their dumpsters and trucks. So without my crazy recycling we would have over-flowing dumpsters.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Going green with productivity

  Imagine if you took all of your processes, guidelines, and steps to get something done and applied a color scale that went from red (loss of productivity) to green (an excellent use of time and effort). I would bet that almost all of your processes are in the red, possibly a dark, blood red. We also have the tendency to turn mole hills into mountains. A simple procedural error or a minor incident will turn into several ...more »

  Imagine if you took all of your processes, guidelines, and steps to get something done and applied a color scale that went from red (loss of productivity) to green (an excellent use of time and effort). I would bet that almost all of your processes are in the red, possibly a dark, blood red.

  We also have the tendency to turn mole hills into mountains. A simple procedural error or a minor incident will turn into several meetings, tons of emails with CC's out the wazoo, and eventually someone higher up sending out a department-wide email "setting the rules" on such a situation in the future.

  We could avoid a lot of headaches and lost time if the people in charge would just say "STOP" and make the decision that is most efficient. Usually, due to not wanting to rock the boat, petty attitudes against others, and not having people at the very top that want efficiency, those decisions turn out to be bad or worse than what was happening before. No one wants to admit they are wrong or even admit a process they oversee is nothing but in the red.

  We should appoint people who are able to both receive and enforce ideas that save time. People whose sole job is to cut away any fat from any process in the government. I'm thinking of the small wrinkles in work or in someone's guidelines of how to work, not to fire people. And have checks and balances against these new efficiency officers so that their orders don't make things worse. Compromise is better than nothing.

  I was told that in order to change a form that is half a century old it would have to go through Congress.... come on. Currently, if I have a brilliant idea that will increase productivity or improve customer service, I have only deaf ears to speak to. It takes at least 20 meetings before something new can be implemented around here, and who knows how many emails are exchanged. And the example I'm thinking of caused more problems than it fixed. This brilliant idea addressed the old problems, but now we need something else to fix the new problems....

  The mindset is "that's the way we do things; we're not sure why we do it that way, but that's how it's done." Monkey see, monkey do. How much longer do we reinforce the idea that the government is slow? Forever?

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  The Broken Chain

  At least in my experience, the workers at the lowest end of the totem pole are the ones required to do the most work. Seemingly the chain of command operates in a fashion that the higher up you are, the less your workload, it's just that you are responsible for those under you. It would be a good scheme if the ones at the top were actually in danger of losing their job based on performance or could be demoted, but the ...more »

  At least in my experience, the workers at the lowest end of the totem pole are the ones required to do the most work. Seemingly the chain of command operates in a fashion that the higher up you are, the less your workload, it's just that you are responsible for those under you. It would be a good scheme if the ones at the top were actually in danger of losing their job based on performance or could be demoted, but the truth is that once you get high up the chain of command you can do as you wish and no one can do anything.

  The result is bitter, spiteful, lazy people in control of operations and dictating down. Usually they will require work to be done by a certain time, but not know how to do it themselves. There are no checks and balances in the chain of command, and the people at the bottom are the most likely to be fired, even though they are the least responsible for their work. And of course if they do outstanding work, the supervisor and beyond can take all the credit because it's their signatures on everything.

  For one, it should not be harder to fire those in positions of power, otherwise they can take all the nasty emails they can handle and all they really have to do is sign stuff. Secondly, have the higher parts of the chain be able to continue the work, not stop it and send it back down to the low man. Third and least likely to happen, hire and promote those with common sense, not the people who follow the status quo and are creatures of habit.

  My final statement is that it may be time to have set terms of service. For the most part people do move up and move on, but a lot of people get in a job and stay there for a long, long time. The President doesn't keep his job forever, people who sign up for Census work aren't permanent, and up until recently we had temporary positions at my place of work. Set terms of service are nothing new, and though this may fall on deaf ears, it might be time to bring in 21st Century minds, not keep people who are stuck in the 90's as the ones running the show.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Conserving Energy

  Very simple and basic ideas that are easy to do, but hard to make a habit for most. 1. Unplug unused electronics 2. Power down computers 3. Turn off lights when not in use I know the current policy is to keep computers on for patches and updates, but I'm not sure this is entirely necessary. I know more recent versions of Windows does not take long to update, and surely anything our IT is doing can adjust to a sign-in ...more »

  Very simple and basic ideas that are easy to do, but hard to make a habit for most.

  1. Unplug unused electronics

  2. Power down computers

  3. Turn off lights when not in use

  I know the current policy is to keep computers on for patches and updates, but I'm not sure this is entirely necessary. I know more recent versions of Windows does not take long to update, and surely anything our IT is doing can adjust to a sign-in update. A few extra minutes waiting to update will save a ton over a year.

  Plus, computers do have lifespans, and having them on all the time certainly doesn't extend them.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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