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Welcome to government jobs, where it's way easier to squeeze those who do the work than fire those that won't.

gonzo41 5y ago
It's actually pretty easy to fire people in government jobs. The problem is its uncomfortable to have hard conversations. Most government jobs are so far away form service delivery that they are very abstract. This makes the impact of lazy people seem insignificant. However, if you look at government with more of a service delivery focus, think FEMA. You wouldn't see many people who just laze about because the work is right there in front of them and they can link their work with outcomes in the real world. When you write policy or work in some meat grinder paperwork mill or even do just regular ICT sys admins corporate services stuff everything starts to get blurry. Anyway, the rules and processes exists. Essentially PIP someone, explain and document expectations, and follow up. And you know what, most of the time, people can improve.
- is_true 5y ago
  Not all government are the same. Where I live is almost imposible to get fired from a government job.
- prepend 5y ago
  > It's actually pretty easy to fire people in government jobs I suppose it depends on the government, but my experience is that it’s extremely difficult to fire people. I spoke with HR at a US federal organization that said their termination rate is .1% of employees and half of those are during the 1-year probation period. That’s extremely low and I think an indicator of how hard it is to fire people in government. I do have people say funny things like “It’s easy to fire people, you just fill out this paperwork and spend 20% of your time tracking a performance plan for two years.” Even though theyve never successfully fired anyone. While pointing to their group’s lack of firing as an example of their great management. I think this is an example where theoretically it is possible, but practically it is very difficult. As evidenced by very few being fired.
  - acdha 5y ago
    What do you think the termination rate should be, and why? One big confound to remember is that it’s generally hard to get US government jobs because a lot of work has been outsourced to contractors, so the federal workforce trends older and more experienced. That pool of people is less likely to be fired for cause in general. When thinking about why you believe more people should be fired, consider the politics — both the general managerial class tendency to shift accountability to workers and the specific culture war points favored by people who oppose government regulation – and ask whether what you’re basing that on is fully in the worker’s responsibility. I’ve seen plenty of .gov inefficiency but an awful lot of that has been required by policy (not just agency, often by Congress) and underfunding. The latter often isn’t just a simple number being too low but also things like having money budgeted to contract out work but not to hire people to adequately supervise them. Very, very few situations have been as simple as “Fred chose not to do his job” without significant other factors contributing to the problem. I’d also note that while I have seen a couple of cases like that, that’s less than I saw in .com or .edu and for exactly the same reason: they were high enough up the org chart and a buddy even higher up sheltered them. HR could have fired them if they weren’t being told not to.
    - prepend 5y ago
      I don’t know what the rate is, but for comparison, a similarly sized organization, but private sector had a 1% firing rate or 10x. But my point is more about contrasting people who say firing is east without and experience or data to back it up. It’s like saying “Batting .500 is easy” when their own at bat it .200 or not even measured.
      - acdha 5y ago
        > I don’t know what the rate is, but for comparison, a similarly sized organization, but private sector had a 1% firing rate or 10x. What was the relative breakdown of their workforce by seniority? What did that look like on the .gov side if you include the contractors who've been the majority of the workforce growth since the 90s? I've seen a lot more churn in the latter and suspect that if you combined the two that gap would close considerably. > But my point is more about contrasting people who say firing is east without and experience or data to back it up. On the subject of data, you have one anonymous anecdote of unknown size or completeness.
acdha 5y ago
It’s not hard to fire people for non-performance. You have to document it and give them time to improve (or find something clear it - thinking of a guy whose timesheet included leaving early for happy hour, who was out pronto) but it’s mostly a question of whether the managers feel like they can back up their claims.

It's actually pretty easy to fire people in government jobs. The problem is its uncomfortable to have hard conversations. Most government jobs are so far away form service delivery that they are very abstract. This makes the impact of lazy people seem insignificant. However, if you look at government with more of a service delivery focus, think FEMA. You wouldn't see many people who just laze about because the work is right there in front of them and they can link their work with outcomes in the real world. When you write policy or work in some meat grinder paperwork mill or even do just regular ICT sys admins corporate services stuff everything starts to get blurry. Anyway, the rules and processes exists. Essentially PIP someone, explain and document expectations, and follow up. And you know what, most of the time, people can improve.

is_true 5y ago
Not all government are the same. Where I live is almost imposible to get fired from a government job.
prepend 5y ago
> It's actually pretty easy to fire people in government jobs I suppose it depends on the government, but my experience is that it’s extremely difficult to fire people. I spoke with HR at a US federal organization that said their termination rate is .1% of employees and half of those are during the 1-year probation period. That’s extremely low and I think an indicator of how hard it is to fire people in government. I do have people say funny things like “It’s easy to fire people, you just fill out this paperwork and spend 20% of your time tracking a performance plan for two years.” Even though theyve never successfully fired anyone. While pointing to their group’s lack of firing as an example of their great management. I think this is an example where theoretically it is possible, but practically it is very difficult. As evidenced by very few being fired.
- acdha 5y ago
  What do you think the termination rate should be, and why? One big confound to remember is that it’s generally hard to get US government jobs because a lot of work has been outsourced to contractors, so the federal workforce trends older and more experienced. That pool of people is less likely to be fired for cause in general. When thinking about why you believe more people should be fired, consider the politics — both the general managerial class tendency to shift accountability to workers and the specific culture war points favored by people who oppose government regulation – and ask whether what you’re basing that on is fully in the worker’s responsibility. I’ve seen plenty of .gov inefficiency but an awful lot of that has been required by policy (not just agency, often by Congress) and underfunding. The latter often isn’t just a simple number being too low but also things like having money budgeted to contract out work but not to hire people to adequately supervise them. Very, very few situations have been as simple as “Fred chose not to do his job” without significant other factors contributing to the problem. I’d also note that while I have seen a couple of cases like that, that’s less than I saw in .com or .edu and for exactly the same reason: they were high enough up the org chart and a buddy even higher up sheltered them. HR could have fired them if they weren’t being told not to.
  - prepend 5y ago
    I don’t know what the rate is, but for comparison, a similarly sized organization, but private sector had a 1% firing rate or 10x. But my point is more about contrasting people who say firing is east without and experience or data to back it up. It’s like saying “Batting .500 is easy” when their own at bat it .200 or not even measured.
    - acdha 5y ago
      > I don’t know what the rate is, but for comparison, a similarly sized organization, but private sector had a 1% firing rate or 10x. What was the relative breakdown of their workforce by seniority? What did that look like on the .gov side if you include the contractors who've been the majority of the workforce growth since the 90s? I've seen a lot more churn in the latter and suspect that if you combined the two that gap would close considerably. > But my point is more about contrasting people who say firing is east without and experience or data to back it up. On the subject of data, you have one anonymous anecdote of unknown size or completeness.

acdha 5y ago

It’s not hard to fire people for non-performance. You have to document it and give them time to improve (or find something clear it - thinking of a guy whose timesheet included leaving early for happy hour, who was out pronto) but it’s mostly a question of whether the managers feel like they can back up their claims.