After this week, Defense Department civilians will no longer have to submit an email list of five things they accomplished over the previous week, according to a Friday email from the Pentagon’s acting personnel chief, ending a requirement the Pentagon put in place back in March.
Their last email, due Wednesday, must include one idea that will “improve the Department’s efficiency or root out waste,” according to the message from Jules Hurst. It shouldn’t include anything classified or sensitive, he added.
“Your weekly emails have served as a reminder of the depth and breadth of the Department’s mission, and of how it takes a workforce of many talents to achieve our national security mission,” Hurst wrote in the email.
The “5 bullet points” exercise first came down from the Office of Personnel Management in February, an initiative by the Department of Government Efficiency, a White House advisory board.
For staff, it was one more requirement on top of existing internal weekly reviews.
“We still have not been told what its true purpose is or who will read it. It’s an internal joke,” a Defense civilian told Defense One after the requirement came out in March. “This is just one more report each week that takes time away from the actually important work we have to do, for which we’re already overworked and underpaid.”
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions about whether the weekly emails had been used to initiate disciplinary action against any civilian employees, nor whether there were plans to publicize any of the ideas submitted by civilians.
Hurst’s email mentions no monetary reward, or indeed any incentive, for ideas that wind up saving money. In this, it is unlike the Navy’s decades-old Beneficial Suggestions program, which has saved many tens of millions of dollars over the years. Earlier this month, a Naval Sea Systems Command center paid civilian workers a total of $11,050 for suggestions that saved the organization nearly a quarter-million dollars.
Bradley Peniston contributed to this report.
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