What the percentage of Fed workers who have been laid off?

[Anonymous]

Based on my agency and acquaintances it seemed to be around 20%. But we paid them all through the summer (even the rifs - because of lawsuits) so it didn’t save us any money yet. Maybe in the long run it will save some amount, depends on if they stick to the no hiring ‘diet.’ I genuinely hope Elon is in rehab getting the help he needs though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The RIFs haven’t made it yet to our agency. Best guess is cuts in October.

This. We have an upcoming reorg, agencies are moving; this is not over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine didn’t even get rid of people who were on pips or had conduct warnings over the past year. I feel personally victimized by this because I have one person and it’s consuming my life having to document her and work with HR nonstop. She’s done no work for months and months. She’s not even showing up to the office.

It was easier under the last administration to fire someone. I didn’t have to do pre PIP warnings. I placed them on a PIP, they still did no work, and then we immediately fired.

We’ve had no RIFs or firings, just DRP

If you have someone that isn't showing up and isn't doing any work, you should be able to fire them for behavior issues and not based on performance without doing the whole PIP business. The PIP is for performance issues. You should talk to your agency lawyers, not your HR. The lawyers are better versed in the options available to you than HR is. In my experience, no one in HR had ever actually fired anyone and didn't know how to do it.

I’m working both performance and conduct sides and still can’t fire. Every time we issue something new, the employee claims a new health issue which starts a long process. I’m incredibly sympathetic to health issues but it’s gone on way too long.

I’m working with the same HR I worked with in the prior admin. There are more stringent rules on firing now. HR is very much on my side. It’s really impacting my own work too since it’s all so time consuming.

When are federal supervisors finally going to be fired? This excuse is so common across agencies that it's evidence of widespread incompetence and receiving a paycheck for doing minor administrative tasks. There are no roadblocks to firing employees, in fact you can send a request to OPM to fire an employee based only on an allegation and they will be fired within 5 days. There's no union to block firings (they never really were that powerful) and all HR has to do is file paperwork.

And please, any claim about being worried about litigation is preposterous given the D.D.C. is a federal MAGA court. Give it a rest and get to work.

As someone in the know- this is completely fake. My agency didn’t have a union before even.

I also don’t know any Fed supervisors who are purely administrative. Most Fed supervisors have less than 10% admin tasks (mine is far less). At my agency, supervisors do the exact same tasks as their subordinates but also have the hardest tasks assigned to them. All supervisors know more about the job than their subordinates.

I think defense agencies are different though. I’m shocked when I hear people talk about supervisors who only assign tasks and sign time sheets. That’s just not what is done at any agency I’ve worked at.

The people who think their supervisors only "assign tasks and sign time sheets" just don't know what else their manager is doing. They don't have the visibility.

If you have 10 people reporting to you, then you have 10 people's work to keep track of, their tricky questions to answer or decisions to approve, and you have to know enough about their work that you can answer after-hours call about it (you are absolutely on the hook for any emergencies or errors involving your staff's work). You probably meet with each of them weekly. You know their strengths and weaknesses and whether they have time to pick up more work, and you know their comings and goings such that you can sign a timecard without endangering your own job. Then you have a bunch of peers in other offices to coordinate with, plus reporting up to your own managers, several planning workgroups, budgeting, responding to data calls, hiring, training, nominating your people for a limited pool of bonuses or awards, and doing performance reviews (with meetings) at least twice a year for each of those 10 people and yourself. And in most offices of that size, you have at least one problem employee to counsel / document, or one interpersonal issue that requires a lot of babysitting.

The worst managers are the ones who treat all that as just "administrative" and unimportant. Leading people and managing a large office is its own skillset and it has to be learned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine didn’t even get rid of people who were on pips or had conduct warnings over the past year. I feel personally victimized by this because I have one person and it’s consuming my life having to document her and work with HR nonstop. She’s done no work for months and months. She’s not even showing up to the office.

It was easier under the last administration to fire someone. I didn’t have to do pre PIP warnings. I placed them on a PIP, they still did no work, and then we immediately fired.

We’ve had no RIFs or firings, just DRP

If you have someone that isn't showing up and isn't doing any work, you should be able to fire them for behavior issues and not based on performance without doing the whole PIP business. The PIP is for performance issues. You should talk to your agency lawyers, not your HR. The lawyers are better versed in the options available to you than HR is. In my experience, no one in HR had ever actually fired anyone and didn't know how to do it.

I’m working both performance and conduct sides and still can’t fire. Every time we issue something new, the employee claims a new health issue which starts a long process. I’m incredibly sympathetic to health issues but it’s gone on way too long.

I’m working with the same HR I worked with in the prior admin. There are more stringent rules on firing now. HR is very much on my side. It’s really impacting my own work too since it’s all so time consuming.

When are federal supervisors finally going to be fired? This excuse is so common across agencies that it's evidence of widespread incompetence and receiving a paycheck for doing minor administrative tasks. There are no roadblocks to firing employees, in fact you can send a request to OPM to fire an employee based only on an allegation and they will be fired within 5 days. There's no union to block firings (they never really were that powerful) and all HR has to do is file paperwork.

And please, any claim about being worried about litigation is preposterous given the D.D.C. is a federal MAGA court. Give it a rest and get to work.

As someone in the know- this is completely fake. My agency didn’t have a union before even.

I also don’t know any Fed supervisors who are purely administrative. Most Fed supervisors have less than 10% admin tasks (mine is far less). At my agency, supervisors do the exact same tasks as their subordinates but also have the hardest tasks assigned to them. All supervisors know more about the job than their subordinates.

I think defense agencies are different though. I’m shocked when I hear people talk about supervisors who only assign tasks and sign time sheets. That’s just not what is done at any agency I’ve worked at.

The people who think their supervisors only "assign tasks and sign time sheets" just don't know what else their manager is doing. They don't have the visibility.

If you have 10 people reporting to you, then you have 10 people's work to keep track of, their tricky questions to answer or decisions to approve, and you have to know enough about their work that you can answer after-hours call about it (you are absolutely on the hook for any emergencies or errors involving your staff's work). You probably meet with each of them weekly. You know their strengths and weaknesses and whether they have time to pick up more work, and you know their comings and goings such that you can sign a timecard without endangering your own job. Then you have a bunch of peers in other offices to coordinate with, plus reporting up to your own managers, several planning workgroups, budgeting, responding to data calls, hiring, training, nominating your people for a limited pool of bonuses or awards, and doing performance reviews (with meetings) at least twice a year for each of those 10 people and yourself. And in most offices of that size, you have at least one problem employee to counsel / document, or one interpersonal issue that requires a lot of babysitting.

The worst managers are the ones who treat all that as just "administrative" and unimportant. Leading people and managing a large office is its own skillset and it has to be learned.

We do all of what you said, plus we have the same work product required of our employees. Most managers are also doing work (typically the most challenging work), not just answering staff questions. They can't afford to have the GS14s and 15s not doing the hardest work. They do limit us to 5 employees though.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's as much as everyone thinks it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it's as much as everyone thinks it is.

Yea, absolutely absurd how the supervisors here went from spending all day unable to fire a lazy employee to doing everyone's job plus SO much more and being accountable for their employees' work product. It would seem a lot of you would have been taken to task for failing to fire so many bad employees. Well, no worries, timesheets don't need certified for another week.

[Anonymous]

About 20% RIF. Another 10% have left to go to private industry; for a while there we had at least two people "retiring" or leaving voluntary every week to go work for pharma companies. Hiring seems to be slowing down now. Some agency labs still have no supplies and maybe one staff member, so we are falling behind.

Unfortunately some of the best people were RIFed or have left voluntarily, so we are trying to hang onto to anyone good.

The slackers seem to love being in the office as much as possible and are still here, since DOGE didn't bother to get supervisory input.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Based on my agency and acquaintances it seemed to be around 20%. But we paid them all through the summer (even the rifs - because of lawsuits) so it didn’t save us any money yet. Maybe in the long run it will save some amount, depends on if they stick to the no hiring ‘diet.’ I genuinely hope Elon is in rehab getting the help he needs though.

I doubt it. We have not lost that many people and are anticipating a significant decrease in workload..but somehow our supervisor was actually discussing at some point needing to hire more people. I am trusting that he knows way more than I do, but we were looking at him like he has 2 heads when he was going on about that...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About 20% RIF. Another 10% have left to go to private industry; for a while there we had at least two people "retiring" or leaving voluntary every week to go work for pharma companies. Hiring seems to be slowing down now. Some agency labs still have no supplies and maybe one staff member, so we are falling behind.

Unfortunately some of the best people were RIFed or have left voluntarily, so we are trying to hang onto to anyone good.

The slackers seem to love being in the office as much as possible and are still here, since DOGE didn't bother to get supervisory input.

Whhhhyyy didn’t doge bother to get supervisory input? We all knew who the slackers were (they’re not necessarily my own employees).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:About 20% RIF. Another 10% have left to go to private industry; for a while there we had at least two people "retiring" or leaving voluntary every week to go work for pharma companies. Hiring seems to be slowing down now. Some agency labs still have no supplies and maybe one staff member, so we are falling behind.

Unfortunately some of the best people were RIFed or have left voluntarily, so we are trying to hang onto to anyone good.

The slackers seem to love being in the office as much as possible and are still here, since DOGE didn't bother to get supervisory input.

Whhhhyyy didn’t doge bother to get supervisory input? We all knew who the slackers were (they’re not necessarily my own employees).

So cute, you don't even realize DOGE figured you were as lazy and useless as everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:About 20% RIF. Another 10% have left to go to private industry; for a while there we had at least two people "retiring" or leaving voluntary every week to go work for pharma companies. Hiring seems to be slowing down now. Some agency labs still have no supplies and maybe one staff member, so we are falling behind.

Unfortunately some of the best people were RIFed or have left voluntarily, so we are trying to hang onto to anyone good.

The slackers seem to love being in the office as much as possible and are still here, since DOGE didn't bother to get supervisory input.

Whhhhyyy didn’t doge bother to get supervisory input? We all knew who the slackers were (they’re not necessarily my own employees).

Dear lord, are you still thinking DOGE was trying to make the agencies better? What on earth…?