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Posted on 11/03/2025 5:10:35 AM PST by Red Badger
The department, which has met its 8-percent overall reduction goal, is now going after “low performers.”
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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“low performers”
How much if a POS grifting leech do you have to be to be rated low performers among government employees?
That bar must be mighty low.
A good place to start would be the double dipper genera. In the DOD civilian employee pool, there are lots of retired military officers who do very little if anything at all.
That is a place to start.
There are lots of ACTIVE DUTY military officers who do very little if anything at all....................
Those government workers still aren’t getting the full private sector/corporate treatment. Let them deal with wholesale layoffs at a moment’s notice or perhaps an entire business units or the business itself closes.
Perhaps decades ago when public sector salaries were lower than the private sector, the tradeoff of greater security for the lower pay was reasonable.
Now, with H1B and offshoring of private sector jobs, lowering wages, coupled with more lucrative public sector salaries, that tradeoff is no longer reasonable.
That sounds great until you need to fill a vacant position and you have no competing candidates. With no competing candidates, each vacancy leads to a direct promotion, regardless of how competent the only candidate is. Worse, if the only candidate takes another position, internally or externally (or retires), you're now reaching two levels below and repeating that all the way down the vacancy chain.
Since you can't simply find experienced candidates "on the street", having some redundancy is the only way to have a pool of skilled staff available for open positions.
Defense One is part of the Atlantic galaxy of left-wing publications. The Atlantic’s default posture is to defend the left-wing apparatchiks installed by Obama, attack new weapon systems. It opposed most of the major hardware programs that performed well during Desert Storm. Its closeted true objective might be summarized as “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber”.
Low performers should definitely be gone.
If there is any “unacceptable performance”, why are they still there to be fired?
I was an engineering contractor supporting an Army Project Officer, it seemed about half my job was unf-ing DAC screwups. Think they could go with 30-40% cuts.
For a few years I worked at an enterprise-level job where many civilians baked difficulties into systems for job security purposes. That needs to end.
D.
O.
W.
Department of War
Is what it’s named
I worked as a contractor on a Navy base for several months. I was astonished at the level of inertia that civilian employees had. They had absolutely no ambition whatsoever. If it was not in their job description they couldn’t care less.
A couple of years later, I worked for a company that hired a moon-lighting after-hours USAF government civilian employee to do some programming for us on a project we had going.
He would have to come in after his day at ‘work’ and I would stay and help if he needed any assistance and lock up after he was finished.
While he was doing his thing I would be busy on other aspects of the project building circuits or filing work orders, etc.
One day he said to me, “You amaze me.” Of course I said, “How?”
His reply was telling. “You are constantly busy, I never see you sitting down not doing anything, and there’s no one here (meaning the boss) and yet you keep right on doing stuff.”
That told me everything in the world I needed to know about government employees............
COL and above, completely agree. Many of the junior officer who came over to the civilian side were actually quite good. One of the best civilians I ever worked with was an O5 former armor Bn Cdr.
How much if a POS grifting leech do you have to be to be rated low performers among government employees?
/
Lower than the illegal alien non English speaking or reading Semi Truck driver Calif. CDL issued to the name
No Name Given
by Gavin newscums
H.Q. in East Bejjing
(formerly known as Sacramento) ?
That’s my guess.
“In the DOD civilian employee pool, there are lots of retired military officers who do very little if anything at all.”
Amtrak.
“ 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.”
Well, Miss Virginia, if the DEI infantry grade officers would be doing their jobs the right way their leader wouldn’t have to show them the proper way.
Unlike her sorry, make work job, leadership starts at the top and permeates all of the structure below.
EC
During my 30 years at Intel, we had 4 house cleanings.
Eventually we had to start getting rid of the good people.
All the bad were long gone.
I left in 2014 and never regret leaving.
going after “low performers.
I am more concerned about obsolete job descriptions. In 1966-67 as a personnel clerk in Vietnam we had WWII procedures that made no sense at all.
From what I hear, many of the current procedures are relics from the dark ages. They are slow, time consuming and add no value but inhibit a quick response to fast moving events.
going after “low performers.
I am more concerned about obsolete job descriptions. In 1966-67 as a personnel clerk in Vietnam we had WWII procedures that made no sense at all.
From what I hear, many of the current procedures are relics from the dark ages. They are slow, time consuming and add no value but inhibit a quick response to fast moving events.
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