The Defense Department is making another push to slim its civilian workforce, this time by directing managers to fire employees for “unacceptable performance” while continuing to encourage civilians to leave voluntarily.
A 20-page memo signed by the Pentagon’s personnel boss late last month lays out several mechanisms for civilian employees to resign or be removed for cause, beyond the 60,000-plus employees who have already voluntarily bowed out this year through either the Deferred Resignation Program or Voluntary Early Retirement Authority.
It also gives employees, half of whom are furloughed during the government’s shutdown, just seven days to respond to a proposed removal for poor performance. And if local managers do not sign off on the removals within 30 days, they must forward the case to the secretary’s office.
“Managers need more guidance on how to separate underperforming employees,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in a second memo signed Sept. 30. “Complex offboarding creates cultural drag that hurts morale across the Department and hinders our mission.”
But rather than offer that guidance, said Virginia Burger, a senior defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, the memo reiterates much of what is already laid out in the department’s civilian personnel management rules.
What it does propose to add is another layer of bureaucracy to DOD’s human-resources infrastructure, directing a review on the feasibility of centralizing the Pentagon’s oversight of disciplinary actions, rather than the current local initiation and final decisions.
Hegseth appears to be cultivating a leadership style not dissimilar to that of a company-grade infantry officer, the pinnacle of his leadership experience in uniform, micromanaging each process rather than creating strategy to streamline solving problems, Burger said.
“That works with 40 people,” she said, but is much less manageable with hundreds of thousands of personnel all over the world.
Along the same lines, Hegseth used the gathering of hundreds of generals and senior enlisted leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico last month to “announce” that physical fitness standards would now apply to everyone in uniform—not mentioning that such a policy already existed, though there may have been questions of how completely it’s been followed.
A previous attempt to remove “unsatisfactory” performers among probationary employees was reversed by a court order, when a lawsuit brought evidence that those with excellent evaluations were shown the door.
The memo mentions the deferred resignation program and voluntary early retirement as off-ramps, as well as the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program, which offers to pay$25,000 to any civilian whose job is being eliminated if they agree to resign and forfeit any right to sue for wrongful termination.
The effort seems designed, Burger said, to scare employees into leaving of their own volition rather than face a potentially scurrilous removal for cause.
“The point is the cruelty,” she added.
In March, Hegseth directed all DOD components to submit recommendations for new organizational structures that would eliminate or merge redundant positions. His office has declined to discuss what the recommendations were and which ones it plans to implement.
The other half of that project included creating new incentives for high performance. Another Sept. 30 memo calls on the components to submit their plans for awarding bonuses and other incentives to best performers, and how they will justify those awards.
Hegseth’s office did not immediately respond to a request for the Pentagon’s target for civilian end strength. When he took office, the number stood at just under 800,000, with voluntary resignations bringing that number to about 438,000 by late September. Those measures have already netted the 8-percent cut the administration called for back in February.
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