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FrontLine |
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The Online Newsletter of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations, Inc. |
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| August 2002 - Issue 8 | |||||||||
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Sneak peek at what's in this issue:
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President’s
Message By Tony Pezza NCSSMA President The Survey Last December (2001) the NCSSMA conducted a Survey of Management. The survey was undertaken as a follow-up to NCSSMA's Staffing Survey that was released in early 2001. The Staffing Survey of early 2001 identified the wholesale reduction of frontline management and inadequate staffing as the prime reasons for SSA's service delivery problems. These findings essentially confirmed what the Social Security Advisory Board was reporting. The SSAB report of September 1999 entitled "How the Social Security Administration Can Improve Its Service to the Public" reported on core service delivery problems that could be traced back to a lack of adequate public service staff and frontline supervisors. The Survey of Management was intended to focus on the impact of reduced frontline management and inadequate staffing on the ability of SSA's field managers to manage effectively. The Findings of the Survey of Management were dramatic, to say the least. The fact that nearly 2200 management people responded and that their responses were so unequivocal and their comments so passionate compelled serious attention. We know that the survey has been the subject of debate and consideration in various venues and at all levels within the Agency. Ultimately we hoped that the survey's findings would result in the revaluation and reinforcement of SSA's frontline management. This we believe is critical to improving service delivery. There is no question in my mind that the survey results bespoke a culture that values speed over accuracy, form over substance and myth over reality. That culture must change. But it will only change if the circumstances and imperatives that compelled it change first. The change must start from the top down and it is essential that those in the middle get the message loud and clear. I recently read an anecdote about a field office manager who gets mail at a PO box to get a 1/2 day jump on processing time. The implication was that the manager was doing something wrong i.e. chasing numbers. The simple fact is that the manager is, in all likelihood, reacting to the pressure he or she has been getting for years from those higher in the food chain to achieve and over achieve designated performance goals. At this time the jury is still out. We think there are some positive signs, yet it is really too early to make a definitive assessment. Suffice it to say it is our fervent wish that if we were to conduct a follow-up survey the answer to question #1, "Are you better off today than you were a year ago?," would be a resounding yes! |
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Editor’s
Corner "The ‘BS Content’ in a firm’s communication system is proportional to the number of layers in the organization." Richard S. Sloma, Author Some seven years ago an individual field manager identified a need within SSA. He saw that there were several tiers of communication of technical information within SSA. The first tier was national which consisted of instructions issued out of headquarters to everyone. This class of communication ensured homogeneity but paid for it with glacial speed. The next tier of communication was regional. With ten regional offices, each was issuing general instruction supplementing the national with some tailoring for specific regional concerns. The speed of communication was better at this level, but not ideal. Then we get to the third tier, area and local FO communication which while also not ideal in velocity, did come much closer to real time reaction than either the central or regional levels. The regions and the local communications often hit upon subjects of interest to all, but if you did not work within that jurisdiction, it was not issued to you. Of course, a technician could go surfing on all ten regional Intranet sites regularly, but the time such an effort would take would be prohibitive. Then again a technician could use the search facility of our Intranet, but if you do not know what’s been issued, it’s roughly akin to looking for a black cat in a dark room. So this manager took on a personal project that grew into what many on the frontlines of SSA feel was one of the most effective communication initiatives ever seen in SSA. This initiative grew into what came to be known as the National Exchange Network (NEN). The NEN was a voluntary subscription service that most recently had 1300 subscribers. Bear in mind many of those subscribers were not individuals, but offices, and you see the tremendous number of SSA employees who validated the screaming need for this service. Many Area Directors were subscribers and forwarded every message they received to all of the offices in their area. Literally thousands of employees were on the network. The manager who took on this volunteer job was Rick Warsinskey, DM, Cleveland (Downtown), OH. What Rick did was collect and collate various issuances from all of the ten regions, as well as other material and share it with people who asked for it. Rick was culling material from many sources. If each individual recipient on NEN had pulled this material down personally, it would have taken thousands and thousands of hours. These hours were saved by Rick’s willingness to put forth a tremendous effort to support technicians all over the country. If you look back at much of Rick’s work on the NEN, you will see an inordinate number of items put together and sent out long after business hours. Saturday and Sunday issue dates were not uncommon. Rick issued materials while in travel status at 11:00 p.m. He worked on sharing material while he was on leave. No one on the NEN’s distribution list doubted Rick’s Herculean effort. Many wondered when he slept. He did the work of several staffers in addition to managing Cleveland Downtown. So, you may wonder, is he on the short list for canonization? How about a Commissioner’s Citation? Not that we know of, though the phone was busy at the Vatican. Instead, Rick got the word on June 28 to cease and desist immediately. Apparently, he was ruffling too many feathers by sharing information. The ruffled feathers belonged to the birds who live in the tallest trees, not the species that occupy the bushes at the front lines. The rationale for this cease and desist order is worth examining: Rationale: The NEN distributes inaccurate and inappropriate material. Reality: Virtually all of the material on the NEN was created and distributed by regional offices within their own region. So if there is an issue of accuracy or propriety (and we don’t believe for one minute that there is), the culpability does not lie with the NEN. The NEN is a conduit for collaboration, not an 11th region. Rationale: The NEN issues duplicate information. Reality: FO employees work in one region and receive that region’s circulars, etc. There is no redundancy in receiving operational information from the other nine regions as well. Had the decision-makers asked the end-users of the NEN about this duplication issue, they would have known this is a non-issue. Rationale: The NEN retards employees learning to use the Intranet search tools by spoon feeding them information. Reality: The allegation that the NEN has fostered a generation of Luddites is patently false. In fact, employees have been introduced to other regional sites by the NEN. The notion that frontline employees have the leisure time to individually check all the regional sites regularly betrays an upper echelon out of touch with life on the frontline. And we can think of much worse things than "spoon feeding" employees information needed to do their jobs. If efficient distribution of operational material is spoon feeding, then something is awry. Since the NEN was shut down by fiat on June 28 hundreds of messages have come in from subscribers. Here’s a sampling: "Whatever the reasons for discontinuing the NEN, it’s SSA’s loss" Area/State Director "I can only guess that this is being discontinued because it shared information outside of regions. There is so much good information out there that never makes it to us because of the levels it has to go through to get to us. We are one agency on a mission, not several different companies, and we should freely share the best that is available." District Manager, Boston Region "I can honestly say the information I received from the NEN enabled our office to provide a level of customer service that was dramatically improved. We have been meeting virtually all of the service delivery objectives for 2 years, in large part due to the software applications I learned about from the NEN." District Manager, Philadelphia Region "The NEN had a huge, immeasurable and invaluable impact on the field" Area/State Director "Boy, this looks like the bad old days again, just when it looked like we might be turning the corner…." District Manager, Atlanta Region There is a very strong general sense that the shut down order flowed from a control and command hierarchy uncomfortable with a collaborative, participatory work environment. Beyond that, the large following the NEN garnered was clearly resented in some quarters. A significant number of RO staffers in many regions were on the NEN and many favorably commented on the NEN’s usefulness. It gave the Regional Offices an opportunity to incorporate NEN material and this frequently happened. However, In sharing material from all regions, the NEN was also viewed as stiff competition from some because of the speed and extent of the network. Some raised the question of whether the NEN should be able to share program information directly with FO’s in another region without clearance of that region. In this way, perhaps the NEN engendered resentment from some RO managers and that resentment percolated up to their RCs. We are given to understand that the cease and desist order came from pressure by a few of those RC’s. In the end the demise of the NEN flies in the face of SSA’s executive rhetoric. If we are "all one agency" this decision is a vote for regional parochialism. If we are truly interested in open communications, this decision will have a chilling effect. If we really believe that quality is a priority, this decision removes critical operational information from the hands of technicians. If we were truly promoting productivity, why would we abolish the most efficient communication tool to come down the pike in years? If we are committed to a participatory workplace, why weren’t the NEN end-users, frontline employees, asked their opinion before issuing a unilateral decree? The ultimate irony of this situation is that the Social Security Advisory Board in its September, 1999 report entitled "How The Social Security Administration Can Improves Its Service To The Public" urged "the agency's leadership to address longstanding institutional problems." The Board went on to say that to address these problems "… will require changing the culture of the agency…" and that "These problems include a culture that discourages open discussion and timely resolution of problems, weaknesses in communication between SSA's headquarters and operations in the field, and inadequate teamwork." Unfortunately, this incident leads to the conclusion that nothing has changed at SSA. SSA needs to revisit this abrupt and wrong-headed decision before any more harm is done. |
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Networking
Looking for a different perspective on SSA program issues? Check out http://www.nade.org. The website is produced by the National Association of Disability Examiners and contains a wide array of issue papers and other materials to give you a different slant on our programs. |
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Phil Walton, FrontLine
Editor |
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