Why the Rankings Matter
Today, America faces high unemployment, a growing federal budget deficit, war in Afghanistan, a major military engagement in Iraq, an aging population, long term-energy needs and a host of other daunting challenges. Now, more than ever, we need effective government and public servants who represent the best and brightest that our nation has to offer.
Employee satisfaction and commitment are two necessary ingredients in developing high-performing organizations and attracting top talent. The Best Places to Work rankings are an important tool in recognizing the importance of federal employee satisfaction and ensuring that it is a top priority for government managers and leaders. When agencies are badly managed and workers are unhappy, a low level of engagement and poor performance often follow, and the public suffers.
The rankings provide a mechanism to hold agency leaders accountable for the health of the organizations they run. They also offer a roadmap for better management and provide an early warning sign for agencies in trouble. Had Congress or government leaders paid attention to the 2003 Best Places survey, for example, they would have found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was last in the employee rankings. That was two years before FEMA’s inept response to Hurricane Katrina, but at the time, few noticed.
Since the first rankings were released in 2003, they have helped create much-needed institutional incentives to focus on key workforce issues and provided managers and leaders with a way to measure and to improve employee engagement. Federal human capital professionals have reported that the Best Places to Work rankings have heightened awareness among senior leaders and spurred reform of workplace practices. In 2009, a pivotal year, the Office of Management and Budget required agencies to review and analyze their scores, and asked them to develop performance improvement plans as part of their budget submissions.
The rankings also directly address one of the biggest barriers to federal employment: a lack of cross-governmental information for prospective employees. The Best Places to Work rankings provide job seekers unprecedented insight on opportunities for public service by highlighting the federal government’s high-performing agencies and promoting federal organizations that often go unheralded.
The Best Places to Work rankings — the most comprehensive and authoritative rating of employee satisfaction and commitment in the federal government — are produced by the Partnership for Public Service and American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation (ISPPI).
