If you are human capital and work at a DDS, you probably already know this. A new report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) entitled Strategic Workforce Planning Needed to Address Human Capital Challenges Facing the Disability Determination Services identifies “three key challenges” facing DDS offices:
High turnover: Over half of all DDS directors surveyed said that examiner turnover was too high in their offices. We found that examiner turnover was about twice that of federal employees performing similar work. Nearly two-thirds of all directors reported that turnover has increased SSA’s hiring and training costs and claims-processing times. And two-thirds of all directors cited stressful workloads and noncompetitive salaries as major factors that contributed to turnover.Recruiting and hiring difficulties: More than three-quarters of all DDS directors said they had difficulties over a three-year period in recruiting and hiring examiners. Of these, more than three-quarters said these ifficulties contributed to increases in claims-processing times, examiner caseload levels, backlogs, and turnover. More than half of all directors reported that state-imposed compensation limits contributed to hiring difficulties.
Gaps in key skills: Nearly one-half of all DDS directors said that at least a quarter of their examiners needed additional training in areas critical to disability decision-making. Over half of all directors cited factors related to high workload levels as obstacles to examiners’ receiving additional training.
A one-page highlight from the report can be found here.
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