The Supervisor of ESS #3, Essay Example

As the supervisor of ESS #3, I have spent an inordinate amount of time leveraging my existing resources, while finding creative ways to enhance the effectiveness of this section. The fiscal year began with the management of six full-time employees who were responsible for processing FOIA requests. During the month of January, two of the six employees left due to medical illness. This created a major challenge, as I was required to devise a fair and equitable way to distribute the new FOIA requests in addition to the work of the employees on medical leave. My staff was already feeling overworked and underappreciated and the additional losses exasperated the situation. After seeing and hearing the frustrations of my workers, I aimed to create an environment in which my staff could find new ways to motivate themselves in light of the constant loss of staff in addition to the new FOIA processing protocol.

As the first component of my plan, I aimed to tackle the loss in staff. After a couple days of researching and brainstorming with the Record Center Manager, I met with Lynn Calvin to discuss the potential for the Record Center Staff to assist with processing FOIAs. Lynn agreed that the Record Center Staff would be allowed to process FOIAs without a modification in their contract. As a consequence, I immediately started assigning document requests to the Record Center staff. I then hired an additional SEE Enrollee for the explicit purpose of processing FOIAs. Prior to submitting the solicitation package, I rewrote the job description to ensure that I would only receive candidates with the skills necessary to assist with FOIA processing. A SEE Enrollee with a background in research and previous experience as a paralegal was hired.

My second challenge was to determine how to increase morale during this season of no promotions and minuscule pay raises. To do so, it was necessary for me to think outside of the box. Thus, I fostered a sense of shared accountability and responsibility, regularly soliciting my staff’s advice and opinions on how to assign FOIAs with multiple requests. Furthermore, I encouraged my staff not to get bogged down with the negative aspects of the job and to take intermittent time off to decompress. I also spoke candidly and openly about the challenges our section faced, including what changes I was empowered to make in addition to those that were out of my control. Last, I relaxed some of the expectations in a manner that did not interfere with the timeliness and the quality of the work produced. Making these adjustments changed my staff’s perspective on their work and helped them realize that working as a team would help us weather the storm. Once I regained my full staff, a sense of normalcy returned and I was selected to serve as the Acting Branch Chief for the ECAB Branch on top of my responsibilities as the supervisor of ESS # 3.

Serving as the Acting ECAB Branch Chief has its own challenges and rewards. At the beginning of this experiences, I was thrust in the spotlight, needing to advocate for branch resources as well as working on a succession plan for two employees. In the midst of concluding my job as Acting Branch Chief, headquarters issued a new SOP that altered the manner in which my staff would process FOIAs. Once of the most significant changes was that all FOIAs had to be signed by the division director. This alteration required me to facilitate a process in which all of the letters that my sections utilized would be reviewed and changed to add the division director’s name.  In addition, I designed a process where all of my staff’s work would be brought to the Division Directors office for his signature. This created a challenge for me because all of my section’s work needed to be out within 20 days; adding the Division Director’s staff to the review process would potentially make my staff’s work late. Through my own initiative, I developed a system where the Division Director staff could review the letters and the Division Director could sign the letter prior to the 20 day deadline. Once I implemented the new system and my section settled into this new process, I was once again struck with another challenge. One of my employees, a top producer, left on extended sick leave. This again required me to consider how to equitably reassign his work without creating morale concerns. I plan to implement a plan similar to the one I conducted previously, as it has demonstrated success.

In conclusion, I would like to state that despite all of my section’s challenges, I was able to lead a team that successfully completed FOIAs in a productive and efficient manner. It is expected that we will encounter continued success under my supervision in the future.