Return to Article: IRS seeks strategy to recruit, retain employees
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34021
After 21 years in IRS I can honestly say that I have had a reasonably good career under a few great managers that offered progresive management technics and generated mutual respect. Unfortunately they are the minority. The majority of comanagers and managers have been self serving vindictive individuals that use counter productive management techniques that neither motivate employees or treat our customers fairly.
Very sad that we as an organization have so many great employees that leave because they are simply fed up. The Union is ineffective in dealing with abusive and hostile work environments. I will probably be one of the 4000 retirements leaving earlier than full career because I am simply tired of being treated like chattel.
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32506
Arrogant management has driven both new hires as well as experienced employees through the doors in their desire to secure their own performance bonuses at the sacrifice of the well being and morale of their employees. Case loads were consistantly held to the maximum though employees were ill and were immediately pressured to maximum performance standards upon return no matter the severity of the illness. Pre leave letters were flying around to intimidate anyone who had the audacity to be ill or to care for an ill person. Managment additionally withheld relative information to employees if and what medical documentation was necessary in order in order to comply with these phony letters in order to maximize the intimidation aspect. The rate of retention of new hires is lower than McDonalds and those nearing retirement are ticking off the days like inmates. The emperor managers have now built their little kingdoms, they are only now beginning to realize that they can not stop the expatriation that they have so foolishly began. Executive bonus should be converted to retention bonuses in order to retain the knowledge of emploees in non management ranks in order to save this agency.
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32201
The agency needs to stop spending money on ways to recruit and retain employees and start listening to the employees that they have, who have great ideas. Employees and managers have been saying for years that they needed to have some employees shadows other employees who are currently in the process of retiring. IRS have loss so much experiences of employees who have retired, some who left voluntarily and some who were force to retired. IRS have a lot of areas that need improvement, but like anything else they need to stop and LISTEN.
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32153
Well imagine that, the IRS is reaping what they sowed - years of abrasive and abusive treatment at the hands of "emperor managers" that are disrespectful and completely discard the seasoned employees' experience so they can treat us ALL like new-hires.
Micromanagers, petty retaliations, and vindictive, spiteful managers - that succeed and get away it - are the norm over here at IRS.
No wonder 7 of my GS-12 and GS-13 friends (highly trained and many were CPAs) and co-workers have already LEFT the IRS to go to other more worker friendly agencies.
Hopefully you will soon be able to add my name to the growing list of highly trained ($100s of thousands of dollars of training) employees that are mid-career professional employees who have had it with the contemptibly narrow-minded micromanagers managers over here at the IRS!!
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32049
The IRS is like any other organization in the Federal Government these days, in a state of malaise. They spend a lot of time and money recruiting new employees, but very little retaining experienced employees. Many managers, since they are normal human beings, prefer new hires to experienced recruits so they can "shape them in their image." It is much more challenging, and takes a better and more experienced manager, to guide experienced employees who are more confident/stubborn. Before I retired from the IRS 5 years ago, I talked constantly about retention issues, but it fell on deaf ears. Another big reality is that with more and more employees in FERS (the new retirement system) which is much more portable than CSRS (the old retirement system)employees are much more likely to leave before their retirement age than they were a few years ago, so the retention issue will only grow as CSRS is phased out.
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31923
It is amazing that the IRS needs to complete a study to come up with a "strategy to recruit, retain employees." Hopefully, they won't assign the same folks to come up with that strategy as came up with the idea of outsourcing hundreds/thousands of IRS tax collection jobs.
For crying out loud - you can't attract and retain IRS Federal employees when at the same time you are giving away their work and jobs to private contractors!
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31920
As a previous IRS employee, I can tell you that the reason I left was a manager that went so far to get me to leave that every other manager she put over me was immediately antagonistic towards me. When asked about what was wrong, there was never anything wrong but with all 5's across the board on my ratings, I was called unpromotable and when I asked for training, I was denied because it would make me "promotable".
I had managers going through my work looking for anything to use against me. I even had one manager that made up stuff against me for a promotion and when my greivance was looking like it was going to succeed then the UNION rep suddenly got a temp promotion to a manager position and had to leave my case.
Before he left the union rep talked to the top manager and his opinion of the case went from being on my side with "we have them and there's nothing they can do about it" to "you don't have a leg to stand on".
He wouldn't tell me anything about the conversation and said that the only way management would talk to me was in private so no one could confirm what they said. The union rep said that management could be legally liable if their story could be confirmed by a second party.
But management never talked to me about any problems, they just wouldn't promote me. All the analysts, and I mean all of them, were on my side but wouldn't speak up because they were afraid of having their "privileged employee status" revoked so they were afraid to speak up.
But I as a GS 7 stood up to them, didn't get promoted, but at least I stood for what was right even if no one else did. We even had some in our organization that worked as spies and would blame their failures on those they knew the managers didn't like and the managers NEVER checked the stories but believed the liars.
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31881
The best way to retain people is to treat them with dignity, respect and candor. The so called leadership knows nothing about any of these qualities and are only concerned with achieving bonuses at any price. Across the board, employees are appalled by the shallowness and hubris that are qualities of the current leadership exude. Everson was appointed to a five year term and seemingly bolted for a better 'deal'. This is the legacy he left and now employees are following this example. Current management has made it clear that public service and loyalty are a thing of the past, so shall thouisands of employees who will retire at the first opportunity.
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31877
My wife was offered a job at the IRS but the commute was too long from one end of Atlanta to another so she declined it. Why not have satellite offices around a large city like Atlanta so you ca recruit quality and quantity of people in mre nearby areas with out the terrible commuting required in that city?
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31850
As an employee of the IRS Headquarters Office for over 14 years, I believe the single greatest impact on our ability to recruit was the elimination of moving expenses for most HQ position openings. Providing field personnel with the opportunity to advance to higher graded project management positions without worrying about the uncertainty of moving expenses would enable us to backfill many of the positions being vacated by retirees. The vacated positions in the field are often more easily filled due to lower entry grade levels although an aging workforce there is still an issue.
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31841
The IRS is whining because they are running low on people to abuse. You are the "Employeer of Choice", remember? You don't need help with recruitment and retention, people are beating down the doors to come work for you. Just because they are eligible to retire doesn't mean they will. If you don't like it leave. Remember stating this at all the Town Hall meetings to explain the reorganizations and RIFs?
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31826
The IRS should use this as an opportunity to correct any imbalances in its workforce distribution. They should be recruiting Hispanics and people with targeted disabilities, for example.
They also need to do better at following EEOC guidance regarding the way they treat their employees, especially employees with disabilities. At a July conference of Deaf IRS employees, it was noted that IRS does NOT have a centralized fund for reasonable accommodations, which leads to denials of legitimate requests for interpreters.
The IRS definitely has some work to do. Right now, they have the reputation of being rigid and unwilling to embrace new technology, etc. for people with disabilities.
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31817
One way to retain highly qualified LMSB IRS agents who are leligible to retire is to increase their salaries. A suggestion would be to move all LMSB GS-13 step 10 IRS agents who are eligible to retire to a GS-14 step of equivalent salary. This would give them incentive to remain on the job for at least three additional years and have the opportunity to increase their salaries within the GS-14 pay scale. During this time period the IRS could hire additional employees to replace the eligible employees once they decide to retire.
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31814
As a retired, grade 13, IRS employee who received a buyout, it would not be enough incentive for me to come back unless I did not have to repay the buyout. I was a tax expert and could easily work filing seasons or even year round on tax issues. But I would not have $25,000 laying around to pay back the buyout. Nor would I want to work 4 months or more to do so before I saw any monetary gain. It is one thing to waive the pension reduction requirement and another to waive the buyout payback. But both would have to be done to rehire some of us with the skills they will need to provide good customer service.
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31812
Having read this article I am very disheartened by this approach to human resources. Generations X and Y deserve jobs too. Why worry about "double" paying retired personnel. Why not just hire people who might need to work, who are not retired. The younger generations will never get expierence if they do not have jobs!
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31810
The IRS should strongly think outside of the box and look at hiring individuals who owe back taxes. The majority of these individuals have incurred a devastating crisis (medical, divorce, tragedy) which has caused them to be placed in this situation. Many of these individuals are professionals who would be more than willing to take on this opportunity. Many of these individuals because of a financial hardship cannot be placed into govt jobs because the IRS back tax has ruined their chance of a govt clearance. Let's think outside of the box and fix what is apparently broken.
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31802
IRS management needs to change their own attitude towards subordinate employees. I recently resigned due to conflicts with management over the right to talk openly with senior management officials during Townhall meetings or during Departmental briefing. This conflict escalated in the fact that I identified concerns pertaining to their Certification and Accreditation Process. If the IRS wants to retain personnel then they need to change their own way of protecting their own hides.
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31795
Offer an incentive for those who stay an extra year, 2 years and 5 years. These people would train the new recruits coming in. Also recruit retirees from other govt. jobs who retired early.
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31774
The bill that was introduced into the Senate that would allow retirees to return to work (part time) without any penalty is long overdue. The retirees can help out while a agency is hiring and they can also train new employees. This will get the new employees up to speed quicker and without any impact on the workforce.
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