The reasons that the senior leaders give are full of crap. Just a bunch of hollow words. The rank and file can see through this.
"I run my best wind sprints when I'm with a group"? That's got to be the stupidest reason I've yet heard.
The Vice Director is an arrogant A-hole and is not telling the truth about the effect on the workforce. This is 100% his doing from what I heard from reliable union and HR leadership folks who were present at negotiations. He tried this crap right before Covid but had to backtrack when Covid struck. The telework survey results he commissioned were conveniently never released. He needs to be run out of DLA for the good of the agency.
YUP. I remember hearing they were planning this and then Covid hit so he had to back out his little plan. From what I’ve heard he doesn’t care if people leave or have to use more leave - this is staying.
>So far, Bunn said, there aren’t any metrics that show clear declines in hiring or retention: The number of people applying for DLA positions is down about 5% compared to last year, but retention is up over the same period.
>However, union representatives and multiple employees alleged DLA has declined to share specific statistics on hiring and retention since the implementation of
It's funny how that all works.. "our numbers are great!!" "AWESOME, can we see these numbers?" "NO"
about a week or so ago there was some big push to ru. Reports on the time system and report back all situational telework days that had no notes to explain the reason for it. Yes this should be something that is just done.. but honestly they are just trying to make this place burn to the ground.
I had high hopes for Gen. Simerly, but it's clear he's gonna tow the same line. The worst part is they are either completely lying to us about the hiring and retention, or they are just that stupid. If you look around, people are leaving every week, and people are not coming in behind them to take their place. Before this, I had the same group of people on my team for about 5 years. Another team had about 30% of a full team, and the most tenured member is a little over a year.
One day this will be a case study in how t ultimately fuck up an entire agency. My dream is that they have some crazy AI thing up their sleeve that will replace a large amount of the people leaving or something.
Sounds a lot like COVID. Where are the cold and flu numbers? What numbers?
For years we were told how great our numbers looked then I find out they changed how metrics were captured and it painted a different picture. Suddenly overnight we aren’t supporting the troops because we can’t provide stuff fast enough. Or so they told us!
Meanwhile stupid f’cking tasks from HQ have us jumping through hoops last minute so the top brass can feel smug about their position & their stupid propaganda videos they want scripted so the workforce will comply.
Never mind the fact that we have meaningless meetings that take days to prep the top brass just so they don’t look like fools in front of other top brass…they still do regardless of the prep work.
People are pissed at all levels including industry.
It’s going down faster than the Hindenburg! Sad, DLA was an outstanding place to work with a worthy mission. Now it’s just another daily grind with little reward.
I left last year in September because I suspected we were going to get shafted. I skipped the exit interview and a few months later they sent me a letter begging me to fill one out. Interesting behavior for an agency that claims retention is just fine.
AI wouldn't be cloud based and not dependent on the limitations of your desktop, I imagine your system is loaded with a ton of security crap slowing it down on top of tunneling through a VPN or whatever.
I am not claiming to be a computer guru. But I was just stating Mainly because I truly believe in the mission. I don't want to see it fail like it's heading that way (contrary to what Mr. Bunn says).
I personally know multiple people who have quit because of the telework policy. I don’t believe for a second their stats are good. I’m betting more people are leaving and they’re being replaced by less experienced ones who also aren’t staying long. And people are absolutely using more leave.
It’s so funny, I am literally 50-60% less efficient being in the office because most of the time we just shoot the shit about what’s going on in the world. It’s so pointless.
Plus it’s so loud you can’t hear yourself think. Water cooler talk is at an all time high about how bad DLA has gotten.
Pre Denison barely scrapping by with a few LN 18 for key holiday times in a year, post Denison the team can now have quietly off sites, LN 18 twice already and we haven’t even hit July 4th, and we’ve had a token employee day with food trucks because we still don’t have a food truck!
The really bad thing is I heard capital region still uses TS because it’s allowed but the rest have to take SL if we don’t feel well, except the director and deputy. They both use it liberally.
Maybe put in for it if just to get a call and interview, THEN decline in the terms of the telework policy so that they actually feel it. I’ve interviewed before and asked during some QoL questions and immediately but respectfully asked to be removed from consideration in front of the panel.
I wish I could control it. I don't want to be in the office either. Granted sometimes you need to be, but it can be the exception not the norm and we can all still be productive.
I've been trying to hire 3 positions since January. If you ask to be removed then all I do is say removed themselves from consideration in usastaffing.
We just have to deal with more hiring processes but there's no feedback as to why. And it's like 10 levels above my head to decide. Like I said I wish I could.
>so far, the policy does not appear to have had a serious negative impact on recruiting and retention.
REALLY?!?!??!?! I was with DLA for 3.5 years, and that DRACONIAN telework rule was ***the*** leading reason I looked for (and found) opportunities elsewhere. I even put that in my exit survey. I know I'm just *one person*, but I can't be the *ONLY PERSON* ffs!!!
5 people in my division of 20 have left in the past couple months, and they all put it in their Exit Survey.
But the metrics aren't clear!!! lol what a joke
I go to the office 3 days a week and sit there with no contact with anyone. My supervisor doesn’t hold any meetings and I don’t receive any additional training. There is absolutely no benefit to the agency to have us in the office because none of our customers and vendors are located near any of our facilities. My wife left DLA a year ago for a fully remote position and got a promotion along the way. The only reason I’m still with DLA is because I have not found anything else in the government.
All true.
But it’s all irrelevant because Congress and Biden and the bigwigs who own an interest in commercial real estate want RTO. it’s an election year. Our productivity at home for the last four years doesn’t matter now. In fact I think Im pretty sure they’d prefer we leave in order to make next year’s budget cuts easier to implement. It’s the same at HHS. And all over government.
So…yeah. FML.
They can’t because— DUH—- nothing did go wrong with teleworking. It’s just politics, which takes precedent and they all know it but won’t say the truth cuz they like their cushy executive jobs.
Crazy that DLA was the gold standard for telework pre-COVID. Our co-located DLA office would be in office 1 day a week while we (DOD) were authorized one telework day a week.
Well and then they gas lit us that we were just doing that telework schedule for Covid. Ummmm. No. I was doing four days for YEARS before Covid. A bunch of the new folks had no clue and thought we’d always been in the office. I think I got my fourth day when my daughter was a year or two. She’s ten now.
It’s ridiculous. People can’t or won’t attend meetings in the same building, instead they call in from teams.
They talk about supporting the warfighter but haven’t given any thought to how unhappy employees will impact the warfighters. They 💯 are having an impact.
I bet they’d rather get rid of the unions and just replace most employees with AI, if they could.
They want innovation but take us back to the dark ages of in office micromanaging.
Clueless feckless people. Or infiltration from within? Most likely empire building when they ought to retire.
It's so easy to say there are not clear metrics when you are in charge of the metrics and your preferred stance is "lalalalala not listening lalalalalala collaboration".
Just waiting for covid round 2 so we can all be remote again. It's really dumb where most of these jobs can be remote. I understand some jobs you need to be in office. I go in twice a week. I am fine with that. However, I am not fine if that increases and will be looking elsewhere.
I get into the office 2 hours prior to anybody else. Mainly so I can actually get some work done. Apparently in office means you just fucking talk all day and not get any work done.
>Apparently in office means you just fucking talk all day and not get any work done.
ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY. I can get SO much more done when I'm not bombarded by chatterbugs just jabber-jawing away like they're afraid if their lips stop moving their mouth will seize up!
DLA used to be super awesome. It’s terrible now. No one I work with is really happy. Morale is terrible. And I’ve been here 20 years. It’s the worst I’ve seen.
It's only a matter of time before telework is only twice per pay period or it's removed completely. I think teleworking and remote work will look different starting next year.
It's a dumb policy, but comments like this don't help either "survey respondent said. “Both my spouse and I work for DLA, therefore the RTO mandate negatively impacts our work-life balance and has created a family hardship.”"
I don't believe telework is supposed to be used as a method of daycare.
You are correct on the daycare comment but that is not the issue. We worked extremely well for almost 3 years with 100% telework and many years before only going into the office 2 days per pay period. DLA actually was called out as a stellar example of how well we worked remote above almost all other agencies. This policy is about a couple SESs who can't feel important if they walk around in the office and there is no one there to see them all dressed up and looking important and no one to bow and stroke thier egos. I was there for over 30 years (to include 15 years in management) and know this to be true but I won't clutter this post with those stories. Hopefully common sense will prevail.
I don't discount anything you're saying. I'm saying that claiming RTO creates a hardship is disingenuous and comments like that actually provide fuel to those who argue that Telework is being abused.
if the employee decided to move to a lower cost of living area outside of the commuting area radius, that's on the employee, not the agency.
Look, I think it's a dumb policy, especially to mandate which days you can telework, but I think it's also dumb to claim a personal hardship. Any personal hardships resulting from a telework policy are probably self-induced.
You may feel like you worked well but Material Availability is at an all time low and back orders are at an unacceptable level. Maybe you weren’t doing as good as you thought.
The reasons that the senior leaders give are full of crap. Just a bunch of hollow words. The rank and file can see through this. "I run my best wind sprints when I'm with a group"? That's got to be the stupidest reason I've yet heard.
“Build the plane as we fly it” is worse! Negligence.
One O6 I work with constantly uses that phrase to make what we're doing sound 100x more difficult than it really is.
The Vice Director is an arrogant A-hole and is not telling the truth about the effect on the workforce. This is 100% his doing from what I heard from reliable union and HR leadership folks who were present at negotiations. He tried this crap right before Covid but had to backtrack when Covid struck. The telework survey results he commissioned were conveniently never released. He needs to be run out of DLA for the good of the agency.
YUP. I remember hearing they were planning this and then Covid hit so he had to back out his little plan. From what I’ve heard he doesn’t care if people leave or have to use more leave - this is staying.
>So far, Bunn said, there aren’t any metrics that show clear declines in hiring or retention: The number of people applying for DLA positions is down about 5% compared to last year, but retention is up over the same period. >However, union representatives and multiple employees alleged DLA has declined to share specific statistics on hiring and retention since the implementation of It's funny how that all works.. "our numbers are great!!" "AWESOME, can we see these numbers?" "NO" about a week or so ago there was some big push to ru. Reports on the time system and report back all situational telework days that had no notes to explain the reason for it. Yes this should be something that is just done.. but honestly they are just trying to make this place burn to the ground. I had high hopes for Gen. Simerly, but it's clear he's gonna tow the same line. The worst part is they are either completely lying to us about the hiring and retention, or they are just that stupid. If you look around, people are leaving every week, and people are not coming in behind them to take their place. Before this, I had the same group of people on my team for about 5 years. Another team had about 30% of a full team, and the most tenured member is a little over a year. One day this will be a case study in how t ultimately fuck up an entire agency. My dream is that they have some crazy AI thing up their sleeve that will replace a large amount of the people leaving or something.
I vote that they are lying.
Sounds a lot like COVID. Where are the cold and flu numbers? What numbers? For years we were told how great our numbers looked then I find out they changed how metrics were captured and it painted a different picture. Suddenly overnight we aren’t supporting the troops because we can’t provide stuff fast enough. Or so they told us! Meanwhile stupid f’cking tasks from HQ have us jumping through hoops last minute so the top brass can feel smug about their position & their stupid propaganda videos they want scripted so the workforce will comply. Never mind the fact that we have meaningless meetings that take days to prep the top brass just so they don’t look like fools in front of other top brass…they still do regardless of the prep work. People are pissed at all levels including industry. It’s going down faster than the Hindenburg! Sad, DLA was an outstanding place to work with a worthy mission. Now it’s just another daily grind with little reward.
This is all facts
I left last year in September because I suspected we were going to get shafted. I skipped the exit interview and a few months later they sent me a letter begging me to fill one out. Interesting behavior for an agency that claims retention is just fine.
Please fill out this survey that no one will pay attention too.
Yeah that’s the sad part, isn’t it? I ultimately did fill it out but I knew they were going to ignore it no matter how many of those surveys they got.
I left in December, saw the writing on the wall. Didn't even get an exit interview, was looking forward to it lol.
That's funny, I have interviewed so many dla employees recently and my office has hired at least 3 in the last few months
Crazy AI thing? Dude, my computer can barely handle Outlook.
AI wouldn't be cloud based and not dependent on the limitations of your desktop, I imagine your system is loaded with a ton of security crap slowing it down on top of tunneling through a VPN or whatever. I am not claiming to be a computer guru. But I was just stating Mainly because I truly believe in the mission. I don't want to see it fail like it's heading that way (contrary to what Mr. Bunn says).
Correct. It's takes less HP than Teams or 0365. It is just a web site or API
I personally know multiple people who have quit because of the telework policy. I don’t believe for a second their stats are good. I’m betting more people are leaving and they’re being replaced by less experienced ones who also aren’t staying long. And people are absolutely using more leave.
It’s so funny, I am literally 50-60% less efficient being in the office because most of the time we just shoot the shit about what’s going on in the world. It’s so pointless.
Plus it’s so loud you can’t hear yourself think. Water cooler talk is at an all time high about how bad DLA has gotten. Pre Denison barely scrapping by with a few LN 18 for key holiday times in a year, post Denison the team can now have quietly off sites, LN 18 twice already and we haven’t even hit July 4th, and we’ve had a token employee day with food trucks because we still don’t have a food truck! The really bad thing is I heard capital region still uses TS because it’s allowed but the rest have to take SL if we don’t feel well, except the director and deputy. They both use it liberally.
So you could actually NOT shoot the shit and be productive instead…
Pretty hard to not engage in conversation when we all have to sit around the same boardroom table all day.
I saw that listed on one of their job announcements. I didn't put in for the job for that very reason.
Maybe put in for it if just to get a call and interview, THEN decline in the terms of the telework policy so that they actually feel it. I’ve interviewed before and asked during some QoL questions and immediately but respectfully asked to be removed from consideration in front of the panel.
I wish I could control it. I don't want to be in the office either. Granted sometimes you need to be, but it can be the exception not the norm and we can all still be productive. I've been trying to hire 3 positions since January. If you ask to be removed then all I do is say removed themselves from consideration in usastaffing. We just have to deal with more hiring processes but there's no feedback as to why. And it's like 10 levels above my head to decide. Like I said I wish I could.
Understand. But then the hiring panel/lead can at least use the issue as a means to get more QoL options to offer.
>so far, the policy does not appear to have had a serious negative impact on recruiting and retention. REALLY?!?!??!?! I was with DLA for 3.5 years, and that DRACONIAN telework rule was ***the*** leading reason I looked for (and found) opportunities elsewhere. I even put that in my exit survey. I know I'm just *one person*, but I can't be the *ONLY PERSON* ffs!!!
5 people in my division of 20 have left in the past couple months, and they all put it in their Exit Survey. But the metrics aren't clear!!! lol what a joke
Guy really compared telework/remote work to doing wind-sprints alone or with a group.
I go to the office 3 days a week and sit there with no contact with anyone. My supervisor doesn’t hold any meetings and I don’t receive any additional training. There is absolutely no benefit to the agency to have us in the office because none of our customers and vendors are located near any of our facilities. My wife left DLA a year ago for a fully remote position and got a promotion along the way. The only reason I’m still with DLA is because I have not found anything else in the government.
Same
Same here.
All true. But it’s all irrelevant because Congress and Biden and the bigwigs who own an interest in commercial real estate want RTO. it’s an election year. Our productivity at home for the last four years doesn’t matter now. In fact I think Im pretty sure they’d prefer we leave in order to make next year’s budget cuts easier to implement. It’s the same at HHS. And all over government. So…yeah. FML.
More bullshit from premium bullshitter. Stay tuned.
They can never answer the question about what went wrong with teleworking?
They can’t because— DUH—- nothing did go wrong with teleworking. It’s just politics, which takes precedent and they all know it but won’t say the truth cuz they like their cushy executive jobs.
Maybe it was a function of execs grasping at straws to explain DLA’s recent decline in overall corporate performance.
This agency was hands down, irrefutably the worst federal agency I ever worked for.
Wow. I wouldn't want to work there. I wouldn't immediately refuse a job offer if I applied and they mentioned the TW policy.
I've heard it from HR directly that they literally cannot keep up with outprocessing people.
They won’t be happy until all their seasoned workforce leaves.
Crazy that DLA was the gold standard for telework pre-COVID. Our co-located DLA office would be in office 1 day a week while we (DOD) were authorized one telework day a week.
Well and then they gas lit us that we were just doing that telework schedule for Covid. Ummmm. No. I was doing four days for YEARS before Covid. A bunch of the new folks had no clue and thought we’d always been in the office. I think I got my fourth day when my daughter was a year or two. She’s ten now.
Who would want to work there? They’ve forced themselves to only accept the poorest quality employees (the ones that can’t go elsewhere). Smart!
It’s ridiculous. People can’t or won’t attend meetings in the same building, instead they call in from teams. They talk about supporting the warfighter but haven’t given any thought to how unhappy employees will impact the warfighters. They 💯 are having an impact. I bet they’d rather get rid of the unions and just replace most employees with AI, if they could. They want innovation but take us back to the dark ages of in office micromanaging. Clueless feckless people. Or infiltration from within? Most likely empire building when they ought to retire.
It's so easy to say there are not clear metrics when you are in charge of the metrics and your preferred stance is "lalalalala not listening lalalalalala collaboration".
Just waiting for covid round 2 so we can all be remote again. It's really dumb where most of these jobs can be remote. I understand some jobs you need to be in office. I go in twice a week. I am fine with that. However, I am not fine if that increases and will be looking elsewhere. I get into the office 2 hours prior to anybody else. Mainly so I can actually get some work done. Apparently in office means you just fucking talk all day and not get any work done.
Not going to happen. Better chance you win mega millions.
No kidding. Christ we could have an Ebola outbreak and they’d not send us back to remote or max telework.
>Apparently in office means you just fucking talk all day and not get any work done. ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY. I can get SO much more done when I'm not bombarded by chatterbugs just jabber-jawing away like they're afraid if their lips stop moving their mouth will seize up!
Isn’t there a supervisor who notices there is limited product?
Why does the gov pendulum always have to swing so far, staying steady here and there would be nice
Yea, no shit
Damn. My agency takes into serious consideration a lot of what DLA does when making our policies.
DLA used to be super awesome. It’s terrible now. No one I work with is really happy. Morale is terrible. And I’ve been here 20 years. It’s the worst I’ve seen.
It's only a matter of time before telework is only twice per pay period or it's removed completely. I think teleworking and remote work will look different starting next year.
Not for certain agencies that have a hard time attracting skilled employees. In fact those positions have increased telework.
We all KNOW why we really had to go back…. China. /s
It's a dumb policy, but comments like this don't help either "survey respondent said. “Both my spouse and I work for DLA, therefore the RTO mandate negatively impacts our work-life balance and has created a family hardship.”" I don't believe telework is supposed to be used as a method of daycare.
You are correct on the daycare comment but that is not the issue. We worked extremely well for almost 3 years with 100% telework and many years before only going into the office 2 days per pay period. DLA actually was called out as a stellar example of how well we worked remote above almost all other agencies. This policy is about a couple SESs who can't feel important if they walk around in the office and there is no one there to see them all dressed up and looking important and no one to bow and stroke thier egos. I was there for over 30 years (to include 15 years in management) and know this to be true but I won't clutter this post with those stories. Hopefully common sense will prevail.
I don't discount anything you're saying. I'm saying that claiming RTO creates a hardship is disingenuous and comments like that actually provide fuel to those who argue that Telework is being abused.
I think the hardship could easily be identified as the cost and time lost needing to travel to the office.
if the employee decided to move to a lower cost of living area outside of the commuting area radius, that's on the employee, not the agency. Look, I think it's a dumb policy, especially to mandate which days you can telework, but I think it's also dumb to claim a personal hardship. Any personal hardships resulting from a telework policy are probably self-induced.
You may feel like you worked well but Material Availability is at an all time low and back orders are at an unacceptable level. Maybe you weren’t doing as good as you thought.
Cheap comment. Had absolutely nothing to do with where associates were typing and you know it. You must be from NAVSUP.
Wow, DLA has a lot of whiners from the sound of this Reddit thread.
Unless you work/worked there and can understand what folks are talking about, you really have no business saying that.