social security administration
Report Reveals Most Satisfied SES Federal Employees
A recent report has tried to find out that the SES federal employees are happy in which agencies and which of the agencies offer the least satisfaction. The report also digs up the reasons why SES employees leave their jobs. The report highlighted the need for hiring more SES employees as a huge chunk of them would retire in the next few years.
Satisfied and Dissatisfied SES Federal Employees
The report was offered by McKinsey & Co. consulting firm and the Partnership for Public Service. It listed the agencies where the SES federal employees have the best and worst satisfaction levels. The highest level of satisfaction was present in NASA, OPM, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Labor. The maximum numbers of dissatisfied SES employees were present in the Defense Department, Social Security Administration, and the VA.
The Reasons for Leaving the Jobs
The report also found out the main reasons why the SES employees quit their jobs. The biggest reasons were organizational culture, political environment, and senior leadership. It is pertinent to add here that salaries or dissatisfaction with the current pay structure was further down on the list.
Boosting Morale
One of the respondents pointed out that recognition and culture were key aspects to boost employee morale. The respondent highlighted the fact that President Obama’s meeting with SES employees that was held in November 2014 was a huge plus. The respondent meant that it motivated the SES employees a lot.
SES in Jeopardy
The report also pointed out the sad fact that the SES is currently in jeopardy as most of the SES members would be retiring in the next 10 years. The report also mentioned that just around half of federal employees who have GS 14 and 15 ranks have expressed interest in filling up the SES ranks that are soon to be vacant. Hence, there is a need to fill up a lot of empty SES posts in the near future.
The Corrective Measures
The report was not only focused on finding out the problems, it also offered solutions. It demonstrated that how agencies are doing well in culture, performance management, and recruitment. It pointed out which agencies were lacking in these areas and how they can improve their performance so that the overall health of the SES and satisfaction of federal employees can be improved government-wide.
Social Security Defenses to be probed
The Social Security Administration has the personal data of so many people that it can’t be left vulnerable to cyber attacks. A committee will be evaluating the cyber security practices of the agency and reporting the vulnerabilities. This step is taken as a precaution that saves the agency from a breach like the one happened at OPM last year.
Who reported the Social Security Cyber Weaknesses?
An audit conducted in November last year reported that there were several deficiencies in the agency’s cyber security. After the crucial report, a House Oversight Committee decided to evaluate and examine the cyber security practices followed by the agency.
The Evaluation Process
A key part of the process would be to evaluate and study the results of a penetration testing that was done on the agency recently. As a part of the penetration testing process, the computer systems at the agency were intentionally hacked. The hacking was done to find out the most vulnerable areas in the cyber security so that they can be fixed.
The Letter
The Acting Commissioner Carolyn Colvin received a letter from Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). The letter requested the required information and the deadline for providing the information was set to be May 10, 2016. The letter highlighted the fact that the report offered by the independent auditor, The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report would play a key role in assisting the committee to examine the current security situation for SSA’s information systems.
No Breach
A major relief for the Social Security Administration is that the OIG report has not found any cyber breach as of now. The report did point out that if the breach was existent, it would have had a catastrophic impact.
Highlights of the Report
The OIG report also mentioned that as the Social Security Administration has details of the sensitive information of nearly every person living in the U.S. The unauthorized access and theft of the information can harm millions of Americans. The sensitivity of the information can be found out by remembering the fact that SSA contains details of the medical as well as financial records of nearly every U.S. citizen, dead or alive.
The report also highlighted that the Social Security Administration needs to make protection of information and networks a top priority as it has become imperative now.
Social Security Navigation and Optimizing Benefits
Social security is one of the most important fund and it plays a really vital role in how Americans decide on funding their retirement accounts today. Many researches indicate that more than half of the American population rely on Social security as a huge retirement income source.
How to navigate social security and earn benefits:
In the past few months, there were some alterations made to the process of married people earning retirement benefits. The “Restricted application” and “File and suspend” strategies that were used by some of the federal employees who also happened to have spouses working in the government are soon to become a matter of the past.
The “File and suspend strategy” allows a married couple to maximize the Social security benefits. This will be applicable when both of the spouses have reached their full retirement age and one has been the main bread runner. Let’s say that the primary earner is eligible to earn a specific Social security amount then their spouse would ideally be liable to get half of that amount too. The real magic happens when the primary earner goes on and suspends their benefits till they reach 70 and thus gets advantage in the form of added suspended retirement benefits. This strategy will die on May 1st.
The restricted application strategy is still going to be available for another 4 years. It’s when you are at your full retirement age and have not applied to receive any benefits previously and you file solely for the spousal benefit that is pertaining to the record of your spouse.
These two strategies have been in practice for quite a long time now and while they are exploitable (till they expire) if you manage your contributions throughout your career properly, you can end up having substantial social security when you need it.
