Working from home comes with additional distractions you typically don’t have in an office environment. When someone is working from home they can be distracted by children, by pets, entertainment options and the temptation to perform household chores, but working from home is what is needed with pandemic on the loose.
Many businesses have to put up with some lack of production, but the Social Security Administration is not one of them. A couple of months ago when Social Security closed its doors and transitioned into most employees working from home some thought the backlog of disability cases the agency processed would increase, but just the opposite has occurred.
A recent news report from NPR shows that since Social Security employees began working from home productivity is up and the backlog of cases has actually decreased. Ralph deJuliis, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 220, who also works at a Social Security office in Tulsa Oklahoma, reported that the agency has trimmed the backlog of cases by 11 percent since March 23, 2020.
“Telework is proving a great boon to the service Social Security provides to the American people,” says deJuliis,. “We are getting the checks to people faster and quicker,” he was quoted in the article.
The article also pointed out that studies have been done with government agencies that show productivity actually increases when employees are allowed to work from home. Although there are many more distractions at home there is also less work time being lost to coworkers visiting with each other and it seems that many people working from home may be working longer hours.
These reports should provide Social Security employees some ammunition to argue that they should be allowed to continue to work from home once Social Security offices are given the green light to reopen.
