Reader Comment – More on Deferred Resignation Program

This weekend an anonymous reader left a comment on my post about the introduction of HR 3026, the Protecting America’s Cybersecurity Act. With respect to HR 3026, the reader makes an important point:

“For any legislation to be effective DRP needs to be addressed before October and employees currently on administrative leave need to get back to work because every day that passes is another day for our adversaries to strengthen and our country becomes less secure.”

Employee by-out programs have a long history, both inside and outside of government. Typically, these programs have a tendency to self-select the most effective employees for termination. Those employees generally feel that they have good prospects for finding a new job, so they have the most to gain from a buy-out. The anonymous reader points out that that might not be the case here:

“The catch 22 is this was anything but voluntary and all made the decision under extreme duress created by management.”

Threatening folks with widespread (and indiscriminate) reductions in force certainly would encourage a wide number of people to accept this deferred resignation process. The self-selection process would still apply, but you would also tend to see larger participation by people who feel that they have less attractive prospects for finding a new job. Still, a large number of people remaining (not all by any means) are going to be coming from the lower portion of the employee bell curve because they will feel that they have very low prospects of finding a new job.