The Daily Caller reports on clandestine HR practices in the Federal civil service. Government agencies which wish to be rid of employees often put them on months (or years) of paid leave in return for their agreement to resign and not sue or appeal at the end of the leave. Another approach is to have the unwanted employee sue the agency which then negotiates a payment to settle the suit if the employee will resign upon its receipt.
Both approaches constitute bribing the unwanted employee to resign, done because OPM rules make firing an employee for cause a next-to-impossible process taking several years. I'll share with you what my boss John told me when, for a couple of years I was a visiting faculty fellow at USDA.
John, who'd spent his working life in various federal agencies, said every federal supervisor tries to fire one worker but nobody is ever masochistic enough to try it a second time. As you can imagine, as an on-leave B-school prof, I asked why that was so. You'll find his answer interesting.
John said the burden of proof required was very great, the bad employee had to first be coached on improving his performance, had to be given multiple chances to do better, and very likely would appeal repeatedly whatever action was taken against him or her. They'd be backed by their union which looked for opportunities to frustrate managerial action.
Often, John complained, a boss would go through the whole process and be told "no, you can't fire this individual." At which point the thoroughly angry individual still sat in your group doing little or nothing, fomenting unrest and flouting your demonstrated lack of authority. It was, he concluded, better not to antagonize losers, just ignore them and try to get the job done without their help.
We joked about bosses giving crappy workers glowing evaluations so they could apply for a higher-paid position in another agency. In the mid-1970s this was called "turkey outplacement."
My agency got stuck with a Director of Public Information (i.e., PR) from a smaller USDA agency who came with glowing recommendations and turned out to be a featherweight. Guys from his former agency laughingly asked "Why did you hire that doofus? We're glad he's gone." They'd outplaced their turkey to our agency.
Given the above, I give those bosses, the ones bribing losers with paid leave to resign, credit for creativity. It is effectively severance pay and can ease the separation process. True, the system shouldn't make firing someone so difficult, but I see little chance to change it anytime soon. That would require a 60 seat GOP majority in the Senate plus a Republican president, a relatively unlikely combination of events.
