1. How Many Unnecessary Employees Does the Federal Government Employ?
WSJ asked this highly relevant question yesterday as media reports about the govt shutdown reveal some interesting information This is not about hardships faced by any affected employees. Totally separate.
WSJ asked this highly relevant question yesterday as media reports about the govt shutdown reveal some interesting information This is not about hardships faced by any affected employees. Totally separate.
2. Whether President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer decide to call structures at the border walls or fences, they ought to at least explain how they are managing the public payroll inside the United States.
3. Various media reports have noted that the temporary closure of 25% of the government has forced roughly 420,000 federal workers deemed essential to continue working while some 380,000 who are not deemed essential stay home.
4. If it were a business, this non-essential portion of just a quarter of our government would be among the largest private employers in the country. Does this mean that non-essentials approach 1.5 million across the entire government?
5. As American businesses scour their communities for talent during an historic worker shortage, taxpayers seem to be paying to maintain the world’s largest reserve force of bureaucrats.
6. An incurious press corps seems largely uninterested in the appropriate size of the federal workforce. They just blindly assume no size is ever too large for the federal workforce. No large organization in the private sector is ever managed like that.
7. This does not mean that our government can run smoothly without all the furloughed employees. I have no doubt some of them can only be spared for a short time. Then the work begins to pile up to unmanageable levels. Fair enough.
8. But it is an iron law of organizational dynamics that no matter what the size of an organization, it can always create justification for every position in the organization.
9. It takes courage, foresight, and insight on the part of organizational leaders to keep an organization effective and cost efficient by managing its size properly. Too small is hurtful, and so is too large. Rightsizing (while a hated word in the private sector) is essential.
10. Rightsizing must always be done with great care and great compassion (redundant positions were after all created by leaders, not the rank and file), but it must be done from time to time.
11. And the best and most humane time to do it is when the economy is going great, because that is when the economy can most easily absorb any displaced workers, but also desperately needs them. While uncomfortable, such resource re-allocations are wholesome overall.
12. May this become a priority for the administration once the partial shutdown is over and backlogs are cleared.
The End
The End
