Re: unmaking the marginal government employee

The attitude in this comment spawns the saying "good enough for government work."

Re: unmaking the marginal government employee

Typical reply from a non performing gov't employee.

Re: unmaking the marginal government employee

I'm sorry you feel that it is employee bashing, but I've also worked for Private Industry and they would never put up with the inefficiency of many Govt. workers. Sorry, but you are way off course on this one !

Re: unmaking the marginal government employee

A D in college is a "polite F" ask any admissions officer or instructor. Would you like to have the patients in the VHA health system being taken care of in that manner, considering it might be life and death? Get a grip!

Re: unmaking the marginal government employee

I respectfully disagree with HR Asst. of ARS. I worked far longer in the private sector than I have for the Fed. Gov't. Too many employees with whom I dealt would have had to work up to "marginal," yet they were given a free ride. The supervisors bear the ultimate responsibility for performance.

Re: unmaking the marginal government employee

H.R. Asst. you are just feeding a sterotype. You could not have worked at a variety of companies in private industry. Ever work in a small privately held company with relatives on the payroll? Relatives can justify ratings far below F, but oh I forgot the rules are not for family members.

Re: unmaking the marginal government employee

Hr ----You did not understand what I said. My attitude is not the attitude which you decided that it is ------"good enough for government work" nor do I subscribe to that adage. I am saying that in any workforce you will have D performers, C performers, B performers, and A performers. The goal should be to improve the D performers as much as possible. It is up to the supervisor whether the supervisor chooses to determine that the employee is so close to failure that the employee is then rated as non-performing, failing. Prior to an employee being rated as failing or nonperforming a PIP should be instituted for the employee. Should the employee fail to rise above failing--whatever that is established to be then of course he should be removed from the work force. The manager certainly must determine what is failing and what is not. What are the rules? You are the expert. Can a Federal manager fire a marginal performer? Can a Federal manager fire a performer he continually stays just above the line of failure? An employee can be marginal but not failing. Question is what does the manager want to improved the employees performance and what does the manager do? Does the manager accept marginal performance or does the manager strive to improve the performance? The performance standards should determine what constitutes failure. The performance standards should be very specific i.e. Employee must file all loose-leaf documents daily with five exceptions per rating period and so. There should be a standard for every critical task. If the employee does not file all the documents more that 5 times from April 1 through March 31 then he should fail that standard and should be placed on PIP at sometime during the rating period. A and B performers and a few of the C performers should move up--that is be promoted. The writing that I see done on the Federal employee is simply "bashing". If the private sector had all A employees the unemployment rate would be very high. If the private sector had all A employees there would not be 87,000 deaths in the US per year from wrong medication or wrong dosing every year. If the private sector had all A employees you would not have lemon cars and other lemon products. If the private sector had all A employees they would not be firing people. If the private sector had all A employees you wouldn't have to wait for 25 minutes to find a clerk to help you or a clerk who had knowledge of the product. The very best performers are usually at the top wherever they are at but all organizations have the Bs, Cs, Ds and even Fs performers. It is all about what do they with them. It costs lots of money to train an employee --only to fire him or her so the private sector just like the government has to find an effective way to manage their employees.

I am sick of the bashing of the Federal employee. It is time that we stand up and be proud of our work group. It is time that we acknowledge the good performers because they do exist in great numbers within the Federal work force. Hr aren't you a Federal employee? Aren't you a good performer? Well why are you bashing yourself? More pride in ourselves will generate better fellow employees.

I say stop bellyaching. Get on the wagon or get off. I consider myself and high B or and A employee. My boss considers me a very high A. I do my job and do other work too in other areas. There are people around me that can use my help and I provide it. People are always talking in the work place. Gossip mostly. I try say the right things at the right times that might help staff around me improve in their performance. Sometimes I see improvement. Sometimes I don't. I never use the uppity attitude on no one. Uppity gets exactly what uppity asks for. Nothing! I say if you are too damn good for government work---high tail it to the private sector. I know you will find very similar problems. I have worked for the Federal Government most of my adult life but my husband has not. At company where my husband worked some years ago the managers skimmed money every day. It was expected. My husband quite that job which was a good paying job because he could not accept the thieving and would not participate. The company is a national company and is still in business and I am sure that the managers are still skimming money. Talk about "good enough for government work"! The grass always looks greener somewhere else.

It is high time that we stop bashing Federal Employees. Most are very, very good employees. Deadwood can be found in any organization. I think the problem in the government it is that it takes longer to get rid of the deadwood. Still we have a very good work force--stop bashing it.

Sup cct -- this is not a typical reply from a non-performing employee. I come to work 30 or 40 minutes early and I leave 1 to two hours after the end of my shift. I work on a few weekends every year. I don't ask for nor expect overtime. I don't take breaks because I am working. I don't eat lunch all of the time because I have work that needs to be done. I often do extra things that I could simply turn my head to. I do things for others in my organization ---things that people don't know how to do---they don't have the skills to do or the time to do. I don't rattle my brains about what ought to be I just do what needs to be done. I take offense about your comment that I am just an other non-performer. You do not know me. How dare you make such a statement? It is that same kind of arrogance that I am speaking of! It is plain and simple rudeness and arrogance and it can be found everywhere---in the government and in the private sector. Sup ct maybe you should look around you and notice the employees such as myself. Stop bashing. Sup ct maybe you are the non-performer---I don't know and no one else does either. Sup ct look around you --- there are some very good performers.

Tech writer, Dept of Army - a D is not a polite F. Someone who can answer 75% of the questions correctly has done better that someone who answered on 69% of the questions correctly. There is a dividing line! 69 and below is failing. 70 and to 78 is a D. The line has to be somewhere. Grant it a D is close to failing. Grant it a D has plenty of room to improve. Failing it is not! A D person who is getting the work done that is better than the A person who is not getting the work done. There are all kinds of A people who do an A job on a task or two and spend the rest of the day fiddling around. What exactly do A people do generally? A people are as bad as D people. The people you want in you workforce are the C people. The C people are dependable, reliable, hardworking and are not fussing about who is and who isn't getting their work accomplished. . C people get the job done. C people help other people who aren't doing so good. C people teach other people who need help learning to do a better job. A people stand around and look pretty and spend a good portion of the day trying to let everyone know just how pretty he or she are. A people are fluff and puff. A people do a lot of strutting. Give me C people any day of the week. By the way A people get very good performance ratings. Very good ratings for fluffing and puffing and working exceptionally well on a few projects! Don't misconstrue my thoughts there are some very darn good A performers in the workforce but on the other hand there are some A people in the workforce who are acting. It's all about perspective.

I work at the VA and I see very little difference between the health care here and the health care in the private sector. The biggest difference I see is that we have more clients and therefore it is a major task to manage the load. The physicians, nurses, PAs, NAs and others must be credentialed in the same manner as in the private sector. The VA medical facilities must adhere to JCAHO standards, as do all other medical facilities. The VA strives for excellence and I am proud of the agency. I enjoy working for the VA. At the VA we strive for performance improvement. We are always looking to see how we can improve what we do.

I go to the private sector for my health care. I encounter lazy employees there as well. I look around and see employees standing in corners gossiping. I encounter employees who haven't got a clue as to what they are doing. I encounter employees who want me to find my own lab results. The employees who tell me to call the lab to get my results! I have to ask myself --- what happens when labs are critical. I encounter employees who want me to make another appointment with my doctor to so that the he can find the labs. God forbid that the clerk gets up and looks for my labs, looks into my record or that she calls the lab. So my insurance has to pay for another visit. I have to pay another co-pay. It is little wonder why our health insurance climbing and climbing? It is climbing as much do to poor performance as it is because of new technology and malpractice litigations. The private sector has coders who refuse to ever, ever; ever talk to the doctors to verify codes. I have waited 5 years for my private sector health care provider's office to fix my bill for a lab billed incorrectly, billed incorrectly because it was coded incorrectly. Every time I call they understand and they always say that they will talk to the doctor but they never do. The bill will never be corrected because no one is ever going to ask the physician. The persons to whom I have talked to about it probably figure "oh well she has insurance." Sounds like "good enough for government work"! And you may ask why are you still with that health care provider ---well I am not any longer. The question now is --- will it be better at the new location. I am hoping.

How many millions of dollars are billed incorrectly each year in this country at health care facilities---private sector health care facilities. I forgot what the figure is but it is staggering. Tech Writer please, look at the government employees honestly, fairly and justly. There are bad employees but I think there are far more good employees than bad. I observe that it is usually the most diligent workers in an organization are the least likely to be gossiping and talking about what others are or are not doing. Why? They are busy working. They are busy doing what they are supposed to be doing!

Again, I am sick of all of the bashing that is going on by the media, Federal employees, and others of the Federal workforce.

Re: Amen!

Hey Va,
I'm with you on that.

But what if I'm doing all the work like you do and the month before reviews are due, for some reason the manager finds everything that you do is wrong,although you've been excellent for the past eleven months and got your step. Then for some reason your review is marginal, never mind that you've met all goals, but this manage has
made up her. This has happened not just to me but a slew of people.
Yes, you can appeal, but management doesn't really do anything. The best step is to leave and go to another shop, which is what I did, where you time effort and skills are appreciated, without the kissing up that goes on. Some people do deserve marginal, I'm not saying they don't, but I worked years in private sector and busted my butt for commendables because raises were based on this. I did this in the governement and unfortunately worked with a poor manager. These are the people that need to be looked at!

Re: Dead Wood employees

I agree (and take some issue with the proposed new DoD sytstem) with you that Unacceptable performers deserve such an opportunity or "peformance improvement plan". My article is only concerned with eliminating the "D" -- not the PIP.

Moreover, many such employees were once valued. Changing missions, reorganizations, etc. are often as much at fault as the employee. The reason and fault, however, don't change the fact that such folks are in over their heads. Many are senior employees. They deserve the opportunity and consideration you suggest.

Re: Unmasking the Marginal Federal Employee

What you say is true, but as we continue to allow people to "skate," SOMEone has to do the work, due to our shrinking workforce. Why should anyone have to take up the slack for someone who can't be bothered/isn't trained properly? Good employees will get discouraged/angry enough to leave Government.

It's no wonder there's "federal employee" bashing when increasing numbers of employees are lazy/incompetent. This has to be addressed.......if not soon, then eventually. Why do we humans so often wait until it's crisis mode?

Re: Unmasking the Marginal Federal Employee

They allow the lazy, deadwood, because they don't want a grievance against them in their records when they look for promotional opportunities, it's easier for them to allow the "bad" employees and I know for a fact, that our agency has alot of deadwood. Not only that, but they reward them.

Re: Unmasking the Marginal Federal Employee

Unfortunately your accessment is absolutely correct. When Executive Staff fail to support mid level management the message is medicore performance is considered an acceptable level of proficiency. I've been in management 17 years and I must admit our incompentece is at an all time low.

Re: Marginal

Thanks for your insight. I have no need for "non-critical" elements. Grown-ups who work for Uncle Sam aren't performing non-critical work these days... or if they are, it's not worth rating. Making all elements critical is a wise idea for the entire perfomance apprasial system.

Re: Marginal

Could either of you explain the logic of your observations to our Department? We recently reverted to the 5-level system, and despite bureau HR comments advising not to do so, there is a "marginal rating" option for a plan with no non-critical elements.

Re: Marginal

I trust your request is merely an expression of futility. If not, they can find me at trainingfeds.com

Creating a four (rather than five) level system may require negotiations with labor unions... as would going from "pass/fail" to what you have now.