Okay, This Might Be Too Much Transparency
It seems to be Whoops Day today. Bullet point one:
The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked "highly confidential," that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation's civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.The article seems to imply that the information released isn't hugely more detailed than what's already public knowledge. Reading the back-and-forth about who might be responsible for the leak, however, is a non-confidence-inspiring experience.
Then, there's this:
Nearly a fifth of the equipment -- including computers -- assigned to Lawrence Livermore Laboratory workers laid off in 2008 could not be immediately accounted for after their departure, according to a report released Tuesday by a U.S. Energy Department inspection office. In addition, nine laptops were reported stolen from the lab's employees between July and January -- four of them having been left in plain view inside cars, the report noted.Don't worry, though, it's not like LLNL is home to any incredibly sensitive technologies or anything like that. This incident, however, actually has an interesting management dimension. Ed O'Keefe, covering the latest incident, makes the point that this is in some ways a human capital and transition management issue:
Amid budget cuts, Livermore laid off more than 2,000 staffers last year, with roughly 750 receiving termination notices on the same day they were asked to leave. "All of these terminations potentially necessitated updates to the property database, but the involuntary terminations had the potential to pose particular challenges because of the immediacy of individuals' departures." (Departing workers may have been more focused on stunned good-byes than mundane paperwork related to the disposition of government computers. Shocker.)A solid reminder that procedures are important, but they don't mean much unless you've got a workforce with the training and morale to carry them out.
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The big problem here? Training. The lab didn't provide adequate guidance to employees about keeping tabs on equipment, relying instead on an informal training process. Chalk this up as another example of a government agency trimming training costs from tight budgets. But also add this to a long list of incidents involving the loss of government property at the hands of employees who fail to follow the rules.
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Government Executive Editor in Chief Tom Shoop, along with other editors and staff correspondents, take a fresh look at news affecting the management and operations of the federal bureaucracy.
It is unfortunately typical in personnel administration matters to act first and think second.
When I was in Germany in the mid 80s, there was an order for an across the board cut in manpower. Which organization should have been the most efficient in processing its cuts? Right, Personnel. So the Personnel office was one of the first to comply with the order. Which office needed to keep its workforce to deal with processing all the manpower cuts? Right again, Personnel. So for being efficient, Personnel was rewarded with having fewer people on board to handle the huge workload increase caused by the manpower cuts. Who needs to think when you can order across the board solutions?
wallyp Posted Thursday, June 4, 2009 8:16 AMThe agency knew about the layoffs before they occurred and should have updated their property logs so that when the layoffs came they could check off returned or missing assigned property with each out-processing individual. Doesn't OPM have a checklist of things for managers to do in the event of a RIF?
Ted Bean Posted Thursday, June 4, 2009 10:37 AMToo much transparency? From the folks that brought us the postal service and social security? Go figure.
The transparency part is always thought-out in advance for the advantage of those pushing the current agenda. Sadly, the part about "You can't fix stupid." doesn't seem to enter into their plans.
Case in point - Mr. Obama issued a condemnation statement Sunday over the killing of a late-term abortionist, but is still silent on the shooting of two of our soldiers in Little Rock by a Muslim convert.
Bud Posted Thursday, June 4, 2009 11:05 AMIn any other business people that are let go are escorted out of the building so stuff doesn't just "disappear". Unfortunately sensitive stuff just happens to walk away all the time and the standard answer is "oh well"
dan m ketter Posted Friday, June 5, 2009 8:51 AM"750 receiving termination notices on the same day they were asked (told) to leave" and they wonder why they can't find anything. Just goes to show you when you treat people like "Human Capital", it will cost you some capital. And, gee Dan, I thought I missed you, NOT!
W D Jackson Posted Friday, June 5, 2009 12:27 PM