| Submit your comments on this article |
| Government |
| New VA Chief May Fire 1,000 Staffers Over Healthcare Scandal |
| 2014-11-11 |
| [LATimes] The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced a series of reforms Monday aimed at improving the agency's customer service after concerns about substandard healthcare forced a leadership change earlier this year. Three months after taking the helm, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald unveiled plans to create a chief customer service officer tasked with overseeing an agency-wide program to streamline the department's regional centers into a single network. In an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday, McDonald said that 35 staffers also will lose their jobs and 1,000 additional workers may be fired -- all of whom "violated our values," he told the program. Many of these staffers had already been placed on administrative leave pending a formal ruling, he said. As part of the restructuring, the agency will sponsor a series of local councils nationwide to help veterans access private and public resources, McDonald said Monday. "Our shared goals are to ensure that veterans have a clear understanding of VA and where to go for what they need within any of our facilities," McDonald said in a statement announcing the changes. The former CEO of Procter & Gamble, McDonald assumed command of the agency after the resignation of Eric Shinseki earlier this year. Shinseki faced intense criticism when employees at the Veterans Health Administration, the agency's healthcare arm, were accused of falsifying appointment data and failing to provide timely care to veterans. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #8 Say it with me, "Reduction In Force". |
| Posted by: Ulunter Hitl3744 2014-11-11 21:42 |
| #7 It's about time that someone starts going "Al Dunlap" on some of the potted plants that "work" in government. I'm sure that some public employee union will have a conniption fit. Let's hope that McDonald prevails. |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2014-11-11 21:35 |
| #6 tw, Mr McDonald might find it's a little harder to fire civil service people than at P&G |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2014-11-11 20:48 |
| #5 Harvard Business School lectures are overweighted with cases studies of how Procter & Gamble did this or that. And Mr. McDonald spent his entire post-military career there; he'll have started at the bottom and worked his way up, as all Proctoids do. He's had plenty of experience analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of businesses, and equally much experience analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the people he was suddenly put in charge of with each promotion or lateral move. That's what P&G deliberately trains their managers to do from the day they arrive, the ink on their diplomas still damp from the printer. He'll have had plenty of experience firing people, too, whether for cause or simple down-sizing. P&G regularly clears out the bottom 10% of performers at all levels, promoting as needed and bringing in another batch of new hires with brand new diplomas. This 1,000 will be the low hanging fruit, so obviously deserving of dismissal that it will be nearly impossible to bring them back in any capacity. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-11-11 19:22 |
| #4 Early retirements w/full benefits who will then come back as full-time contractors. Bet on it. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2014-11-11 15:59 |
| #3 Besoeker: I think you have a bright future in the writing of fiction; if the scenario you write about ever plays out, I promise to never say a bad thing again about the much ballyhooed Lawn Darts! |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2014-11-11 09:47 |
| #2 Superb! The wait in line gets even longer. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2014-11-11 07:47 |
| #1 After he discharges his thousand, let Secretary McDonald be immediately detailed to the IRS for the sacking of a second thousand, then to the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, EPA, DOE, and Agriculture in turn. With a little effort, I suspect a goal of 100,000 gov't sackings within the next twelve months is attainable. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-11-11 02:53 |