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Federal Shutdown May Send Millennial Workers To Exits (techtarget.com)
dcblogs writes: The federal government measures the "engagement" of its federal workforce once a year with a massive survey of 1.5 million employees. And what it has found is that most federal workers are very dedicated to their work. Its most recent survey -- the 2018 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey -- asked employees if they are "willing to put in extra effort to get their job done," 96% of the survey takers responded affirmatively. Moreover, 91% agreed with the statement that they "look for ways to do their jobs better," and 90% "believe their work is important." But this job dedication is being tested by the U.S. government shutdown, and most at risk of leaving are Millennial-age workers. Less than 6% of federal employees are under the age of 30 and represent half of all people who leave an agency within the first two years. The best employees have options, and "a major concern is that the brightest, hardest-working, and most capable, dedicated government employees may opt out of government service and take jobs in the private sector," Talya Bauer, professor of management at Portland State University in Oregon and president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, said. The shutdown could hurt the reputation of the government as a good place to work, she said.
Didn't Trump say he wanted a smaller government? Seems like a quick way to achieve that.
Yes, this. I bet most of the Republican party are on cloud 9 right now, dreaming about their libertarian, small gubbermint ideologies. Meanwhile, millions of not so ideological people suffer from a lack of government services. In practice, Libertarians are just a bunch of sadistic perverts.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
The Republicans win by getting a smaller gubbermint. They win again by dragging the gubbermint through the mud thus tainting it for the future as a place to do good work. And they'll win again after they've fucked up the gubbermint operations by campaigning under the slogan that the gubbermint doesn't work well, so elect them to fix it.
What's going to happen when the TSA, which has to work without pay, quits?
Travelling by air will become a somewhat smooth process again.
The longer the government shutdown lasts, the more this sounds like slavery. I mean not quite, because ostensibly air traffic controllers could quit and become baristas at Starbucks or whatever (assuming the government does not compel them to not do so), but pretty close.
Particularly appalling is the fact that during the shutdown, all vacations are cancelled, and anyone on vacation is required to immediately terminate that vacation and return to work (because after all, otherwise everyone essential would take vacations), creating pretty significant hardship, particularly given that it happened during the Christmas holiday. I'm pretty sure if I worked for the federal government, I'd have said, "Screw you. I quit," and I'm not even a millennial. I can't imagine how they didn't have an absolute exodus.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The 2018 report has historical results for the same survey questions from 2014-2018, and 2013 report show results from 2010-2013 (it appears the questions in the summary were introduced in 2010).
"willing to put in extra effort" has remained consistent at 96%. "look for ways to do job better" consistently between 90%-91%. "work is important" consistently between 90%-91%. Basically, government employees' attitudes about these factors has not changed in 8 years (which takes us through one change in President's party, control of the House, and control of the Senate). And there is no evidence to indicate they are changing.
The survey questions whose results did change are:
These are the survey questions which indicate changes in government employee attitude (apparently there was more doom and gloom around 2014). That TFA focuses instead on three survey questions whose results have not changed, and discussed them with respect to a current event which could not yet have influenced the survey results, suggests the authors of TFA were just looking for an excuse to write an opinion piece, not report the news.
I think that may be the best reason I've ever heard for "losing" your official cell phone.
You: Whoops. Sorry, I didn't get your voice mail. My phone went crazy in Paris.
Boss: Crazy?
You: In Seine.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
What I find interesting is that it seems the worst impacts of the shutdown are being felt by demographics that tend to vote Republican. That makes the political fallout for this shutdown potentially disastrous for Republicans.
Maybe they'll forget come 2020. But we'll see. The Republican party's behavior has been pretty uniformly reprehensible, and there's a chance that these events will cause a few Republican voters to open their eyes and see the party for what it is: a party for the rich, by the rich, who only panders to non-rich voters by promising to harm "those people". When they find that they're often in the crosshairs, maybe they'll start expanding their news sources beyond the conservative bubble and actually learn something.
Not many, of course. It's rare for people to change their minds like this. But it does happen. And it could be the beginning of the end for the Republican party (aside: if the Republican party ends, it will be replaced by another party: our system is only stable with two parties in power; hopefully that other party will be less terrible so that we can actually have a reasonable national political discussion for once).