civilians – Running on Fumes

I can’t tell you what prompted this train of thought, but I do know it left the station long before I fully considered the message. I recall thinking about how numbers related to government actions are ineffectively quantifiable and potentially misleading.

For example, I researched how much money the government intended to make (or save) through the recent DRP (delayed resignation program) and subsequent personnel downsizing. Some estimates indicate $11 billion while others point to a maximum of $15 billion. I guess the difference of $4 billion is peanuts. The problem with these numbers is calculating the cost of salary + benefits for those leaving the workforce through DRP versus the ones who were let go without a severance package, to speak of. Very wide fluctuations.

More importantly, there is no way to determine the experience, knowledge, wisdom, and manpower of the decline. I don’t know how to place a value on someone’s experience that left with them when they were laid off. Sure, I can count a body in a chair, but what about the restructuring of their workload? Inevitably, some jobs are never reassigned. The position, the work, the value, and the benefit die with the absence. How does an organization recover from this loss?

The dominant analysis states a decline of 12% of the federal civilian workforce. The alleged goal was 10%, with an estimated $350 billion savings over 10 years. Currently, the government states they have saved about $55 billion. Yet the cuts cost $71 billion in economic and administrative costs associated with the rehiring of some of the workforce necessary to comply with legal obligations. So we spent money to make the cuts.

I believe my issue is what happens when a new congressional, senatorial, and executive branch of leadership must address these issues? How easy, cost effective, and (bottom line) possible is it to recover from a RIF (reduction in force)? How long does it take to rebuild experience?

Seems like an appropriate topic on this Labor Day.

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I ask you –

Have you experienced the issue of valuable knowledge leaving the workplace in favor of budget cuts/RIF?

(The post Government Strategy first appeared here at Running on Fumes.)