If you are a federal employee, you may be reading this from home - at least according to a new federal report about the number of federal work absences.
The report, entitled "Missing in Action: AWOL in the
Federal Government," tracked the number of absent workers who did not take sick or vacation hours to account for their absences across 18 government agencies from 2001 to 2007. Amazingly, the investigation found that federal workers missed nearly 20 million hours of work
in the last six years that was not paid for by sick or vacation time. Put another way, 2.8 million hours of work are lost per year due to AWOL absences - the equivalent of 1,458 full-time employees simply being paid not to work.
"People have just flat not shown up for work," said Sen. Tom
Coburn (R-OK) who commissioned the report. "My question is: If people aren't showing up for work,
why are they
still employed by the federal government?"
Senator Coburn blames bureaucratic inefficiencies that allow such absences to take place without proper supervision. But that's just one part of the equation. One must look at the motivations of federal employees to get the full picture.
Due to the incredible difficulty involved in removing a federal civilian employee from a job, many employees simply bet on their supervisors not being willing or able to file enough complaints and paperwork to get rid of them. As a result, some simply do whatever they choose.
"There's no management consequence for them not showing up for work,"
Coburn said. "And what that does is undermine the effectiveness of any
organization."
Federal union workers passed blame onto the Bush administration for "being asleep at the wheel" when it comes to serving as CEO of the 2.7 million federal workers.
So what's the cost to the American taxpayer for such workplace truancy? Take a gulp: a loss of productivity of $7 billion to $10 billion a year.
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