The challenges and inconsistencies of implementing the accountability act has drawn the attention of several members of Congress, including Sen. Sad for the VA, because you will lose a lot of hardworking, capable employees that care.” I, along with many other employees, are currently working on our resumes because we don’t want to be blindsided. Most of us feel like we are being set up to fail so that eventually we can be fired as ‘bad’ employees in the next few years and our jobs can be given to private contractors. “We cannot make these unattainable standards. “I am burned out along with everyone else I have talked to,” another employee wrote. Sign up for our daily newsletters so you never miss a beat on all things federalĪccording to Frueh’s email, VA’s overall employee engagement fell in 2017, and he noticed “significant declines” in employees’ attitudes toward the workplace and leaders. “We are a numbers oriented system care about how hard employees work or the stress that is put on them.” “VA as a whole no longer cares about employees,” one comment read. 1 email from VBA Chief of Staff Michael Frueh, which Federal News Radio obtained, contains several reactions that “broadly represent” more than 87,000 survey comments from VA employees. Other employees say they feel the same way, according to comments compiled from VA’s 2017 All Employee Survey.Ī Feb. Everybody is so worried about the repercussions, it’s really hard to do the right thing sometimes.” -anonymous survey comment from a VA employee “The pay is pretty good, but people are very afraid for their jobs. “Everybody is afraid, scared,” the Milwaukee employee said.
“I felt like I was being targeted,” the employee said in an interview with Federal News Radio.įor another employee in Philadelphia, her 28-year career at VBA may come to an end after failing a performance rating by less than one point, said Jim Rihel, a VBA rating specialist and local representative for the American Federation of Government Employees in Philadelphia. Managers offered fewer opportunities to do work that generated more points toward a performance rating, the employee said. The employee, who requested anonymity to discuss the situation more freely, has been working for the agency for 10 years.
One VBA employee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, offered to accept a demotion to a lower General Schedule level - and an $11,000 pay cut - rather than risk removal.
anonymous survey comment from a VA employee One mistake, they say, may cost them their jobs.Īccording to a November 2017 memo from VA Deputy Undersecretary for Field Operations Willie Clark, which Federal News Radio obtained, VBA employees are entitled to one opportunity to correct a performance deficiency each year.
He called on Congress to empower every cabinet secretary to “remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”īut the agency’s employees say more than three years after the Phoenix scandal, VA management has the same penchant for the same numbers that got them into trouble in the first place. They continue to prize those goals over their employees’ well being, many of whom are veterans themselves. The new performance standards don’t give them enough time to improve, employees added. “My administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve,” Trump said. Since its June passage, the department has been quick to point to its success, and President Donald Trump touted the law in his most recent State of the Union address. Insight by Micro Focus Government Solutions: Learn from agency and industry executives as they explore why protecting data requires a comprehensive approach involving every part of the IT chain – people, policy, infrastructure and applications in this exclusive executive briefing.