https://open.substack.com/pub/thehotshotwakeup/p/forest-service-announces-reorganization?r=e6x28&utm_medium=ios
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https://open.substack.com/pub/thehotshotwakeup/p/forest-service-announces-reorganization?r=e6x28&utm_medium=ios
I like it! Looks like maybe emphasizing local leadership and resources, similar to the old days of the 1970’s, before bloating of WO and RO Staffs sucking funds from the ground pounders!
I do see a need of a “parachute” for when some of these new initiatives go sour. I do hope the WO is cleaned out of those career fund suckers who have never spent a day in the field! I suspect the Salt Lake move will do a good job of challenging the “how much management can you afford” question that will be on the journeyers mind…🤣
I listened to the podcast. Chris French says this has been in the works for years. I will say that it has the potential to be a good thing but there are always the unforeseen consequences. Hopefully this will not be Albuquerque Service Center 2.0. That was well intended and there was rationale for it, it just didn’t turn out like a lot of people hoped for. I don’t know how well it is working now, hopefully it is working well.
This is a very complex change and you have to have excellent people making it happen. Chief Schultz could be gone in 2.5 years. Who knows how it will all work out. I saw this post on the US Forest Service Employees FB page. Pretty well written and gives the perspective of at least one employee being affected by this. It was anonymous, understandably.
“I’ve had the opportunity to meet in small groups with Chief Schultz on a few occasions. He’s a nice guy, reminds me of my dad, and I believe he truly cares about the work we do, and not just cutting down trees. I’ve also looked at his co-authored academic analysis of the Forest Service in the book Toward a Healthier and More Resilient US Forest Service and believe he’s a smart guy with some big ideas, probably even a couple good ones. But as a regional office employee, I continue to be deeply concerned about how he’s leading the agency through what may be one of the most significant changes in its storied history.
One of the key principles for leadership in change management is getting your employees to understand the big why of what you’re doing. Also helpful? Enabling employees to feel empowered and have a voice, feel valued. You want buy-in from your employees so they’ll be on your team working towards a successful outcome. You need trust. You need to communicate.
What don’t you need? To read stony-faced from a script for 15 minutes announcing the big change as your first all-employee engagement. To fail to provide any context for why this change is needed and how it’ll make our agency be more successful. To spend a year failing to make employees feel personally valued. And to allow regional office employees to feel continuously invisible or disappeared only to claim, on the very day of this cold announcement, that actually their work is in fact important.
I don’t love change, I’ll admit it. I’m human after all. But I’m also prone to curiosity and tend to towards optimism. I strive to understand other’s viewpoints even when I disagree. But, man, nothing about how this is has been rolling out, since way back last summer, inspires me to be even the least bit curious about whether maybe some of these changes aren’t actually the worst thing. Nothing has made me motivated to work really hard to help us be successful. I’m in no mood to innovate. I waste a lot of energy being angry at the chaos we’ve continuously experienced, and shall for some time to come; at the time and energy put into an interim operations plan that turns out in no way has positioned us to move into the structure announced today; at the work that my colleagues and I want to be doing, that I believe the Chief and the administration wants us to get done, that isn’t getting done because we’re bogged down, distracted, and anxious, worried about our futures. Or we’re simply confused at what is going on because communication is, well, abysmal at best.
If a year ago agency leadership started an open discussion with employees about the challenges we face, the challenges on the land; if the chief engaged with employees to hear their ideas, because he knows he’s a new kid on the block and some folks may have some wisdom to share; if he transparently shared his big ideas, got other Forest Service leaders on board, dare I say even had some cascading conversations about it; maybe, maybe this wouldn’t feel quite so painful. Maybe we’d trust when he says we’re valued, our work is important, he understands this will be hard but we’re in it together. Maybe we’d be energized to give the agency a win. Instead, we’ve had a year of rumors, secrets, and apparently nondisclosure agreements, until finally the big reveal today…womp womp.
I’ll keep working hard for my colleagues. For my partners. For the land. But my heart’s just not in the game anymore, and that makes me sad.”
And don’t forget the lie detectors, the loyalty tests, the chaotic downsizing, the “essential employees” and the ‘disappeared’ co-workers. Attrition will continue to impact the functions of the USFS, while the applicant pools will be ‘tainted’, at best. Imagine taking 9 months to hire someone, only to find out they don’t know how to do the job.
It does seem to violate Sharon’s first rule of making changes – talk to the people who are living it.
Back when Jim Lyons wanted to close the Missoula Regional Office (also a move to Salt Lake City), Montana’s congressional reps stepped in and stopped it (as I remember I heard). There’s a lot more of Congress that should be taking an interest in this proposal, and the losers might be more motivated than the winners.
Am I understanding this correctly? The vision is to decrease administrative layers, become more efficient and get more money to the ground by replacing nine regional offices with 40 state offices and, I assume an office in Puerto Rico? If so, then I’m struggling with how that decreases administrative layers (seems like replacing a layer), how that increases efficiency, and how the math works to get more money to the ground.
9 regions with 15 state offices, more details here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/reorganization
Ahh, I just read an article about the reorganization and the plan is for 15 state and multi-state offices not one for each state where there are national forests. Still, that is an increase of six more offices and not a removal of an administrative layer. Or, as I asked in my first comment, am I missing something?
Here’s a helpful link on the reorg: https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/reorganization
Nine regions are becoming 15 State Offices, plus some other service centers (hubs). Many of the state offices will manage a region. The current expectation is that each state office will have a director and a staff of six or seven. Implementation is not expected until the end of the current fiscal year coinciding with the usual decline in the western state wildfire season.
Sounds like the WO is going to maintain some workforce in DC (maybe 200 folks), but most positions (maybe around 500) will be folded into hubs or into org charts. The presumption is that most of those 500 WO employees are not living in DC and have been working remotely/being hosted on a forest and so that transition will be less impactful than it sounds.
Anon.. that is very helpful…7 x 15 is 105.
200 is a lot more than I would have thought..do you know more about what staffs, levels?
Also the info about some or most of the 500 not being onsite in DC.
Do you know what grade will be the heads of the State Offices?
State Directors will be SES.
Unfortunately, most of those details are above my pay grade, and the details may still be in the works. Also seems subject to change depending on how things progress. The emails were pretty noncommittal on details… “monitoring… adjusting as needed.”
The second paragraph in my initial post was more speculative than I prefer, but maybe that aligns with what other’s heard. The 200/500 figures are ballpark guesses based on some percentages thrown out, so nothing solid on that. Also a whole bunch of RO employees will be looking for new positions.
It is expected that State Directors will be SES. Interestingly, the state director will not set targets.
Sorry I don’t have anything more helpful, very little concrete at the district level. Stay tuned, I suppose.