The Path To 2025: Our Enablers

Vision 2025 / The Path To 2025: Our Enablers

We will achieve our vision through careful strategic planning and implementation efforts. Our priorities – a superior customer experience, exceptional employees, and an innovative organization – require a set of initiatives to realize our vision. The following enablers will guide the future strategic planning, resource investment decisions, and budget requests needed to make Vision 2025 our future reality.

Customer Experience Focus

A comprehensive customer strategy will drive our understanding of customer needs and preferences throughout our organization.

We will develop a comprehensive approach to understanding and staying ahead of our customers' preferences and needs. Through strategic outreach, transparent communication, superior service channel offerings and support tools, and flexible delivery capabilities, we will facilitate high-quality, personalized, and comprehensive interactions. The customer strategy will include a plan to drive accountability around customer service by engaging customers and regularly assessing their needs.
Employer of Choice

We will attract and retain dedicated public servants and give them all the support they need to provide world-class service

The Social Security Administration is currently one of the top ten best places to work among large federal agencies. As an employer of choice, we will implement human resource management best practices and work with our labor unions to develop an effective talent management and rewards strategy. As a result, we will create an environment where we recruit, retain, and reward our exceptional employees. We empower our employees to make decisions and innovate. We will engrain informed risk-taking and continuous improvement in our culture, and welcome both as positive contributions. Our talent management strategy will also include an evaluation of our current accountability structure and our recognition and rewards methods.

Business-Driven Integrated Systems

We will make informed, strategic choices regarding Information Technology (IT) to create seamlessly integrated systems across all levels of the organization, increasing accessibility, accuracy, and ease of use.

We will institute a more agile approach to implementing technology, resulting in faster development cycle time. Through the creation of a network of integrated internal systems, we will operate as a unified organization, sharing information and using data across service areas and teams. Our IT investment approach will reflect prioritization of our current and emerging business needs. We will also reevaluate our current portfolio of IT projects against the capabilities defined in Vision 2025 and assess the policies, rules, and technologies currently hindering integration. We then will develop a plan and investment strategy for our path forward.

Strong Internal Working Relationships

We will have strong working relationships, both across component lines and with our management associations and labor unions.

To reach our shared vision of a superior customer experience, exceptional employees, and an innovative organization, we will work together in a spirit of common purpose, respect, and inclusion. Both union and management leaders demonstrate strategic foresight in working together on solutions that are beneficial to employees, the public we serve, and the agency.

Transformational Leadership

Our leaders inspire our employees, promote innovation, and transform the agency to meet the changing needs of our customers and employees.

Successful implementation of Vision 2025 depends on the innovative and collaborative efforts of leaders at all levels of our agency. Our leaders will understand the needs of our customers and employees, and move towards innovative solutions that position the agency for continued success. Our leaders will work across the organization toward a common vision and deliver comprehensive solutions. They continually grow as leaders and adapt to innovations and leading practices. They will regularly challenge the status quo and remove initiatives that are not aligned with the agency strategic direction. We will implement new ways for our leaders to engage in strategic planning to identify solutions, prioritize initiatives, measure the right efforts, and hold ourselves accountable for achieving this vision and related successes.

Evolving Policies and Processes

Continual evaluation of policies, regulations, and processes enables efficient and effective operations and reflects current societal needs.

We continually evaluate policies and procedures and propose changes to keep pace with medicine, technology, and the world of work in our disability programs. We explore issues of benefit equity and adequacy across our programs, and work with Congress to strengthen our programs for the future. We work to simplify and streamline policies and procedures, and to provide high-quality public policy research to help shape the future of our programs.

Infrastructure Alignment and Collaboration

We are aligned to most efficiently meet our customer and business needs.

We will align our physical infrastructure and workforce distribution to the current environment, as we keep up with evolving technologies and our customers' needs for our continuing community presence. Our current physical infrastructure assets and workforce distribution across the field office, DDS, hearing office, and headquarters landscape will be continuously improved as we realize our vision to provide customer choice. We will invest in appropriate infrastructure, technology, and capabilities, and put our people in the right places with the right tools to meet customer needs. We will also increase collaboration across state and federal agencies to improve customer service and capitalize on existing facilities planning resources.