I think the BLS JOLTS data (Job Openings and Labor Turnover) is the more current data you're looking for, and it confirms what you've written in the post. Other than an outlier in 2020, private layoff/discharge rate ranges from 1.1%-1.3%, with federal government ranging from 0.2-0.4% and state government ranging from 0.3%-0.5%.
Funny coincidence, I was just chatting to a colleague about underperforming and less skilled juniors this morning. Implicit in our entire conversation is that we work with the employees we have and not the ones we want or even need. Both of us also actually preferred working with a less skilled but more enthusiastic employee over a skilled but unwilling employee, because the default is to train up what we needed.
One idea I've had but haven't fleshed out or researched is to model internal employment like independent contractors where employees use agency or federal-wide job boards to connect to organizations. My idea is that if every employee "contracts" with their organization (while still being full employees), then organizations who don't want that employee can just let their contract lapse, and the employee must sign on to another office in their agency. If the employee cannot find a position because not a single office considers them skilled enough, then after a certain number of months they are excessed and employment comes to an end. I think this is much more passive and palatable way to fire employees because the assumption is if they were actually skilled enough, it would not be hard at all to find *some* office that could utilize them.
We use exempted COMSEL in my DoD organization so internal mobility is fairly high but we have issues with not just underperformers who don't want to budge, but also we're unable to easily re-align skills when priorities change. I suspect reorganizations happen mostly to try shaking loose unwanted employees, both high and low skilled, to the detriment of all. Our organizations also struggle with internally retaining talent to positions that require stability. My parent organization floated the idea of increasing the time before anyone can re-apply through COMSEL from one year to two, which caused significant outcry. A contract approach may help both probation and retention needs.
"My idea is that if every employee "contracts" with their organization (while still being full employees), then organizations who don't want that employee can just let their contract lapse, and the employee must sign on to another office in their agency."
Clara, I work in a MD state agency, and this is basically how we hire everyone below manager level. It is expensive: we pay $200K/year to get an employee paid $85K/year. However, we are much more flexible in hiring and firing.
Thanks Robert, to be clear I am not advocating actually converting employees to contractors. I'm no stranger to exorbitant defence staffing contracts. I am thinking more along the lines of regular GOV employees creating time-based agreements with their gaining office, while their overall employment is with the parent agency. If this is the model your agency uses, I'd be very curious what is driving up that cost since the point of the idea is to keep GOV employees in-house.
Yes, exactly, so for example, a software developer is hired on to ACME agency, they are considered a GOV employee of that agency for benefits and legal purposes. Inside ACME Agency, there's 10 divisions. Our software engineer could "contract" to any one of those 10 divisions, and if for any reason that division decides they no longer want that specific developer, they just have to let the "contract" lapse. In that situation, the developer needs to find an open position in one of the other 9 divisions. If, after some period of time, they cannot find a single job, ACME eventually terminates the overall employment agreement.
We actually do a model like this for intern, co-op, and development programs, where the employee is formally inside their educational program's office, and they do tours with production offices. I have yet to see a situation where nobody wants to take on a program graduate or the student refuses to graduate, but many of these programs do have eviction-like stipulations if they don't find a full-time placement.
When an organization doesn’t fire underperformers the culture slowly spoils over time. Let’s say every year, 1% of the employees would be fired in the public sector, but aren’t. Each year the amount of underperformers increases. Some teams just fill up with these people. The best employees don’t want to work with these coworkers, and leave. Good managers get frustrated because they can’t build a good team. Good workers get frustrated when they’re paid less than the guy who does nothing.
It feels like you are being “the nice guy” when you keep around someone who’s bad at their job, but you are also being unfair to their hard working teammates.
I think what I experienced as a government worker is that they often use temporary hire contracts to "test" an employee before doing a permanent hire.
I was able to work for the Mayor's Office after my time at Code for America but after a year they said my position wasn't needed anymore so I was let go. (Still on good terms with them, it wasn't personal.)
I've moved on since and don't really have an issue of how things went down (I enjoyed my time there and got along with my co-workers pretty well), but sometimes I do wonder what would've happened if they took the time to make another position available for me instead of letting me go. The gist of it was that they weren't willing to train me on the skills they felt I needed so they decided to go with someone else.
Course, this doesn't do anything about underperforming employees who are already in the system who are basically impossible to get rid of - I worked at a place once where someone was *deliberately sabotaging* the work going on there - and it wasn't subtle. It still took them 3 years to finally get rid of him, which ended in him actually quitting after being "transferred" from department to department before doing so.
Having just completed the process to terminate a civil service employee, it's bewilderingly complicated and I'm not really sure it even benefits employees, some of whom stay in a role where they are clearly unhappy or unqualified, long after it was time to move on, because of this perceived sense of "safety".
When you pair this with how hard it is to do a merit-based increase or promotion, you have a system where there is no carrot or stick. It's hard.
In my experience working in multiple state and local governments, the issue with low performers is really an issue with managerial competence and HR processes. For example, I have never worked in an environment where staff had clearly written job descriptions, and where those JDs were used as the basis for a meaningful performance management process. I have never worked in an environment where the institution set high-level objectives, and where individual performance was managed to those objectives. Without these sorts of institutional processes, it is very difficult to manage low performers.
I agree that those conditions are pre-requisites for managing performance. How sad that you've never had that environment. It does exist in government, though!
I think the BLS JOLTS data (Job Openings and Labor Turnover) is the more current data you're looking for, and it confirms what you've written in the post. Other than an outlier in 2020, private layoff/discharge rate ranges from 1.1%-1.3%, with federal government ranging from 0.2-0.4% and state government ranging from 0.3%-0.5%.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/jolts_03062024.pdf (Table 24, p. 35)
Oooh thank you!
Funny coincidence, I was just chatting to a colleague about underperforming and less skilled juniors this morning. Implicit in our entire conversation is that we work with the employees we have and not the ones we want or even need. Both of us also actually preferred working with a less skilled but more enthusiastic employee over a skilled but unwilling employee, because the default is to train up what we needed.
One idea I've had but haven't fleshed out or researched is to model internal employment like independent contractors where employees use agency or federal-wide job boards to connect to organizations. My idea is that if every employee "contracts" with their organization (while still being full employees), then organizations who don't want that employee can just let their contract lapse, and the employee must sign on to another office in their agency. If the employee cannot find a position because not a single office considers them skilled enough, then after a certain number of months they are excessed and employment comes to an end. I think this is much more passive and palatable way to fire employees because the assumption is if they were actually skilled enough, it would not be hard at all to find *some* office that could utilize them.
We use exempted COMSEL in my DoD organization so internal mobility is fairly high but we have issues with not just underperformers who don't want to budge, but also we're unable to easily re-align skills when priorities change. I suspect reorganizations happen mostly to try shaking loose unwanted employees, both high and low skilled, to the detriment of all. Our organizations also struggle with internally retaining talent to positions that require stability. My parent organization floated the idea of increasing the time before anyone can re-apply through COMSEL from one year to two, which caused significant outcry. A contract approach may help both probation and retention needs.
"My idea is that if every employee "contracts" with their organization (while still being full employees), then organizations who don't want that employee can just let their contract lapse, and the employee must sign on to another office in their agency."
Clara, I work in a MD state agency, and this is basically how we hire everyone below manager level. It is expensive: we pay $200K/year to get an employee paid $85K/year. However, we are much more flexible in hiring and firing.
Thanks Robert, to be clear I am not advocating actually converting employees to contractors. I'm no stranger to exorbitant defence staffing contracts. I am thinking more along the lines of regular GOV employees creating time-based agreements with their gaining office, while their overall employment is with the parent agency. If this is the model your agency uses, I'd be very curious what is driving up that cost since the point of the idea is to keep GOV employees in-house.
I see. That is not the model we use. In essence, employees are like consultants to sub-agencies employed by parent agencies?
Yes, exactly, so for example, a software developer is hired on to ACME agency, they are considered a GOV employee of that agency for benefits and legal purposes. Inside ACME Agency, there's 10 divisions. Our software engineer could "contract" to any one of those 10 divisions, and if for any reason that division decides they no longer want that specific developer, they just have to let the "contract" lapse. In that situation, the developer needs to find an open position in one of the other 9 divisions. If, after some period of time, they cannot find a single job, ACME eventually terminates the overall employment agreement.
We actually do a model like this for intern, co-op, and development programs, where the employee is formally inside their educational program's office, and they do tours with production offices. I have yet to see a situation where nobody wants to take on a program graduate or the student refuses to graduate, but many of these programs do have eviction-like stipulations if they don't find a full-time placement.
When an organization doesn’t fire underperformers the culture slowly spoils over time. Let’s say every year, 1% of the employees would be fired in the public sector, but aren’t. Each year the amount of underperformers increases. Some teams just fill up with these people. The best employees don’t want to work with these coworkers, and leave. Good managers get frustrated because they can’t build a good team. Good workers get frustrated when they’re paid less than the guy who does nothing.
It feels like you are being “the nice guy” when you keep around someone who’s bad at their job, but you are also being unfair to their hard working teammates.
I think what I experienced as a government worker is that they often use temporary hire contracts to "test" an employee before doing a permanent hire.
I was able to work for the Mayor's Office after my time at Code for America but after a year they said my position wasn't needed anymore so I was let go. (Still on good terms with them, it wasn't personal.)
I've moved on since and don't really have an issue of how things went down (I enjoyed my time there and got along with my co-workers pretty well), but sometimes I do wonder what would've happened if they took the time to make another position available for me instead of letting me go. The gist of it was that they weren't willing to train me on the skills they felt I needed so they decided to go with someone else.
Course, this doesn't do anything about underperforming employees who are already in the system who are basically impossible to get rid of - I worked at a place once where someone was *deliberately sabotaging* the work going on there - and it wasn't subtle. It still took them 3 years to finally get rid of him, which ended in him actually quitting after being "transferred" from department to department before doing so.
Government's unwillingness, or sometimes unfortunate constraints, about training and investing in people are another huge problem.
Having just completed the process to terminate a civil service employee, it's bewilderingly complicated and I'm not really sure it even benefits employees, some of whom stay in a role where they are clearly unhappy or unqualified, long after it was time to move on, because of this perceived sense of "safety".
When you pair this with how hard it is to do a merit-based increase or promotion, you have a system where there is no carrot or stick. It's hard.
In my experience working in multiple state and local governments, the issue with low performers is really an issue with managerial competence and HR processes. For example, I have never worked in an environment where staff had clearly written job descriptions, and where those JDs were used as the basis for a meaningful performance management process. I have never worked in an environment where the institution set high-level objectives, and where individual performance was managed to those objectives. Without these sorts of institutional processes, it is very difficult to manage low performers.
I agree that those conditions are pre-requisites for managing performance. How sad that you've never had that environment. It does exist in government, though!
Yep, I'm a former fed, and back in 2015 I calculated that only .15% of feds were fired: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/magazine/1136281/the-common-perception-is-true/.