Trump doctor hid cauliflower in mashed potatoes to improve diet: report "When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same. The temperament is not that different."
You would believe this if it was another country ruled by despotic dictators. Its now in trump's America... White House Confirms It's Purging Disloyal Employees 'From the Bowels of the Federal Government' Administration will "take appropriate action" when officials find workers not sufficiently loyal to Trump, spokesman says. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2...l-employees-bowels-federal-government/163316/
If this is the scope of their thinking, I have no problem with any administration firing employees who are trying to undermine them. That being said, being truthful and pointing out potential issues should not be considered undermining. Unfortunately, I can see this administration going to the extreme. "The administration is examining employees throughout the government to find anyone taking action officials decide represents an effort to undermine Trump..."
And... I think that is what is happening. Its not trump changing out members of his cabinet or administration or political appointees. Its trump targeting anyone with a federal government job (and those contracts contain legal protections from such actions as trump is attempting to implement). Federal government employees hold no responsibility to "support" trump and they, like everyone else, can be Democrats, Biden supporters, "liberals", an even "never trumpers". Working for the federal government does not take away their constitutional rights. trump's loyalty test and efforts to remove people that are not "for him" (the trump spokesperson literally said: "we want people in positions that work with this president, not against him, and too often we have people in this government—I mean the federal government is massive, with millions of people—and there are a lot people out there taking action against this president and when we find them we will take appropriate action,” ).
A sign of poor leadership if you can't get your employees on board with your vision. I don't agree with all the parts of my CEO's strategy, but he's been a good enough leader that most employees understand what he's trying to do and trust him enough that we try to get him there. Speaking of which, employee engagement scores for federal agencies took a dip in 2018 and are roughly flat to 2019, but generally have recovered from a recession low. Certain functions that you'd expect to get emphasis from Trump had scores go up (like the Small Business Admin) while others with targets on their backs (e.g., Consumer Financial Protection Board or the EPA) saw big decreases. Looking at the history, you can see the 2008 recession had a big impact, and the sequestration and shutdowns hurt their scores. The agencies haven't had those problems since Trump's election. But mostly looking at this graph, I see morale in the agencies generally holding up. All but the most disgruntled agency is over 50% (though honestly, corporations score more like 70%+). You're always going to get the disgruntled worker in any large organization, and they're toxic to the company culture and you need to get them out. I don't think that needs some kind of public threat. For an organization that has passing marks on engagement, I wonder what effect on morale intimating you have an engagement problem would have. I would be alarmed if my CEO said there were some employees not on board with the strategy and instead of communicating better to educate and persuade the employees on the wisdom of the strategy, they were just going to find the nonbelievers and fire them. Not the sort of place I'd want to work. Maybe federal employees don't think that way -- they have good job security while they see a revolving door in the C-suite. But I couldn't put up with that.
Really good points and added information. I really agree with the importance of leadership and communication of strategy to employee buy-in and support. I'd be curious what the same data looks like for 2019... as I would guess the downward trends started just before 2018 would continue or even drop more precipitously based on the continuing turmoil, insecurity with all the "acting" department leaders, and the growing complaint trump has had with people being "disloyal" to him. btw, I also don't always agree with the CEO's strategy in my company, but since I am responsible for helping set that strategy, I can't disagree with too much of it.
I imagine you've just put more thought into this than Trump has in all the decades of his life. First it would require him to think about how someone other than himself might see things or feel, then it would require him to listen to what "experts" have to say on employee management strategy, when we all know he is clearly smarter than all of them put together. I dont see either as particularly likely. He seems like more of a "fly by the seat of your pants" type of guy. His modus operandi in the upper echelons seems to be a "fire em and try someone else" drunkard's walk towards a better functioning workplace.
While I was finding that graph, I saw an article that said overall engagement was flat in 2019. Obviously, there would be volatility among the agencies, but overall they seem pretty steely. Which makes sense to me, honestly. As bad as this is, the history shown in my chart includes periods where federal employees worked and did not receive paychecks, and the scores didn't crater. If you can put up with that from your employer, you can put up with anything.
Again, good added info. I suspect federal employees are by and large a pretty loyal group. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-federal-pay-raise-cut/
Since trump sees that media and public are distracted by the mess he has made of the Coronavirus response, he saw an opportunity to create a mess with foreign surveillance. And rand paul and vlad putin approve... Rand Paul and Trump thrust fate of surveillance law into doubt The Republican senator said the president made comments contradicting his attorney general. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/27/rand-paul-trump-surveillance-law-117940
'I can't even': Emails reveal EPA officials' reaction to Trump rant on toilets, showers https://news.yahoo.com/cant-even-emails-reveal-epa-145412239.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews