r/VHA_Human_Resources

What happens if you can’t return to your job?

Has anyone been in a situation where they couldn’t perform their regular job due to a work-related injury, and their agency couldn’t accommodate their restrictions?

I’m wondering what happens if workers’ comp and reasonable accommodation don’t work out, including reassignment, but you also don’t qualify for FERS disability retirement.

What options are left? Can you remain on LWOP, or can you eventually lose your job?

I’d really like to hear from anyone who has been through this or had to go through reassignment. I’m trying to understand what happens when you can’t return to your position and don’t have a clear path forward.

Has anyone gone through the approval process to move? If so, how long did the process take?

Did you move without approval? If so, what were the consequences?

I think it's ridiculous to require employees to get management approval to move within the same pay locality if your duty station is not changing/affected. I feel like a prisoner, and I believe this requirement shouldn't be legal since pay and duty station/where you report to work are not changing!

Any advice and guidance is much appreciated! Thank you in advance!

Will our self-assessment be reviewed by someone/something determining our official rating? Last year my supervisor acknowledged that they never read my self-assessment, which I put a lot of thought and effort into. Don't want to waste my time and energy if it doesn't matter.

I’m curious whether other VHA HR professionals recognize issues/ shortcomings with their direct supervisors and leadership.

Have you experienced supervisors who:
Are not very knowledgeable?
Pressure HRS to move forward with illegal actions?
Fail to hold underperforming employees accountable?
Overlook erroneous actions seemingly hoping the errors will go undetected?

I’m genuinely interested in hearing whether others encounter similar situations, how they’ve handled them, and whether leadership was ever held accountable.

Or is this just what I’m witnessing?

So I really don’t understand why we are posting our job announcements to grade 00 for hybrid internal candidates. The handbook doesn’t specifically say anything about that for hybrids in fact, I’m not sure if the handbook references grade 00 at all. I do know that nurses are appointed by rank in person whereas hybrid and title five positions are rank in position. I just don’t see the benefit of referring every single person that meets the minimum qualifications when the hiring manager might only be interested in hiring at let’s say the GS four or GS five level. Additionally, the people applying might not be interested in applying for something less than GS four or GS five but if they meet the minimum quals for the GS three, then they are going to get referred. It won’t be until the tentative offer they find out they’d only be getting GS3 (yeah I know it’s supposed to be called conditional offer, but I don’t care. I’m tired of things changing names constantly.) So can someone give me the logic behind the fact that we post JOAs to grade 00 for hybrids? Like what’s the benefit? Where is it really laid out in policy? We can still refer internals that meet minimum qualifications to the grade level. It would be helpful for them to know what they are being referred for in case they want to turn down an interview because they don’t want to accept a freaking GS3 position.

In a job announcement for VHA, it mentions that a classification consistency review that may result in a change in title, series, and/or grade if determined by the Office of Personnel Management was being conducted. Is this affecting all current and future Budget Analysts at VA (VHA, VBA, and Cemetery)? Is this government wide for all agencies for Budget Analysts and stay away from the 0560 Budget Analyst series?