About seven years ago Social Security started a pilot program for close to 12,000 Social Security employees that allowed these employees to work from home part of the time, which is known as telework. Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul recently announced that the practice of working from home would be coming to an end in an effort to improve customer service and to improve the employee performance evaluation.
According to a story in the Government Executive, a publication dedicated to covering daily government business, Social Security employees were informed of the news in an email from Grace Kim, Social Security’s deputy commissioner for operations. The employees were given until Nov. 8 to get their house in order to make the transition, but were recently given an extension of time until Nov. 23.
It is clear that Saul has suggested that the main objective of ending the telework program is to improve customer service at Social Security. The Government Executive reached out to Social Security to request data on wait times for service at Social Security field offices and wait times for service on Social Security’s national 800 number, but were rebuked in their efforts, only receiving the information that wait times for service on the phone were over 20 minutes. The publication wanted to examine whether wait times increased over the last seven years in a correlation to the telework pilot program, but it could not secure the necessary information to determine that.
It was reported, according to information from the Inspector General for Social Security, “that telework actually improved productivity for employees at teleservice centers, which administer the 800 number.”
Most experts have concluded that the extinction of the telework program is not going to do much to improve Social Security’s customer service, so time will tell.
