I am the President of NTEU Chapter 1, representing all SBSE employees in the State of Wisconsin.  I feel compelled to reply to your message concerning "Effective Utilization of Time".  I believe the R/Os and R/As in Wisconsin (and I am sure this is true around the country) want to do a good job that includes effectively managing time.  I receive quite a few complaints from SBSE employees in Wisconsin concerning management practices that deter employees from efficiently using their time.  There has been a lot of effort to reengineer work processes for employees.  I have yet to hear that management is looking within to see what can be done at the National, Area, Territory and Group level to help employees effectively utilize time.  The message that is getting through to the troops is " The beatings will continue until morale improves".
 
Listed below are examples of bad management practices that employees have presented to me:
 
1)  Posting promotions on the COL and never filling them.  Employees spend a lot of time preparing MPQs and other documents to apply for promotion opportunities only to find that selections never get made.  Territory Managers are often unaware of postings until they hit the COL.  It appears there is some mysterious process in the National Office that generates listings on the COL without consultation or input from local management.
 
2)  Rescheduling and cancellation of training classes.  This appears to be a management problem at the Area level, at least in Area 7.  Agents are advised to clear their calendars in preparation for training classes.  They cancel taxpayer appointments only to find the class cancelled or rescheduled at the last minute.  This has happened with reengineering training, Toolkit training, NRP training and numerous others.  We have also experienced the problem of classes being scheduled at the last minute and appointments have to be cleared because notice was not given timely about a scheduled training class.
 
3)  Assignment of R/O cases by zip code.  In the Milwaukee metropolitan area there is a helter skelter approach to assigning cases.  In the past cases were assigned based on fairly contiguous geographic alignment by zip code.  The assignment of cases has degenerated to a point that R/Os are assigned cases from one end of the metropolitan area to the other.  This causes a huge increase in travel time and dollars.  It also makes it much more difficult for R/Os to meet contact deadlines.  Nothing is being done at the Territory or group manager level to deal with this problem.        
 
4)  There continues to be problems with RGS software.  The usual response is a new version of RGS is coming and will solve all the problems.  The new RGS version gets issued and the old problems persist and new problems are encountered.  This was especially a problem for NRP cases since the NRP software is not compatible with RGS.  RGS problems are very frustrating for Agents and add considerable clerical burden.
 
5)  Many SBSE employees in Wisconsin feel their Group Manager is helpful and available to resolve problems.  However, some employees report problems at the group level.  The problems focus on the reluctance of certain managers to appoint an Acting Manager when they are in meetings, or away from the office on the clock, but not really available to assist, answer questions or close cases.  This causes issues to backlog in certain groups and results in inefficient utilization of employee time.
 
6)  The requirement to audit on site does not take into consideration travel concerns.  Agents may be required to drive an hour or two (or more) to reach the audit site.  Since credit hours for travel are not allowed three or more hours of the eight hour workday may be spent traveling back and forth to the audit site.  If the Agent was able to pick up the records at an initial meeting and take the records back to the office he or she could spend subsequent full eight hour days auditing rather than driving.  Agents are generally told funds are not available for overnight travel to an audit site.
 
7)  The priority of NRP cases and all the time devoted to NRP during the past year have left many groups with nothing but old cases to start.  Agents are now dealing with short statutes because there was poor planning of the impact of NRP and how to manage the remaining inventory of non NRP case work.  In some cases Agents told their manager they would be in desperate need of work once they closed out the last of their NRP cases.  Now the NRP cases are closed and the Agents have no cases to start.
 
8)  There is much confusion over the change from Lexis to Westlaw for electronic research.  Employees have not been trained in Westlaw.  Many employees have been unable to get a password for Westlaw to begin online training.  Some are still using Lexis because it works, even though they are not sure they are supposed to use it.  Others are not using Lexis because they think it is unavailable because of the conversion to Westlaw.  Employees are wasting a lot of time trying to figure out how to do required research because of conflicting directions from management or no direction at all.   
 
These are the highlights, but certainly not an all inclusive list of management practices presented to me by SBSE employees in Wisconsin that detract from the effective utilization of time.  Employees here are certainly willing to do their part to help make the IRS a more efficient organization.  We can only hope that you will help us by improving management practices.    
 
Joe Hynes
President, NTEU Chapter 1
P O BOX 2166
Milwaukee WI  53201