Information for Agencies

Now that your agency has received its 2009 Best Places to Work rankings, you may be wondering what you can do to improve employee satisfaction and commitment in your organization.

Analyze Your Agency's Results

The workplace analysis report and Hay Group Excel tool displays your agency’s results for the survey questions and workplace categories included in the Best Places to Work rankings.

Specifically, the Excel Tool includes the following types of reports for your agency:

• Agency results for the Best Places to Work Index, as well as 10 workplace categories
• Agency results for individual survey questions (e.g., percentage of employees providing a favorable, neutral, and unfavorable response)
• A comparison of agency 2008 results to the previous year (trend)
• A comparison of agency results to the federal government-wide results
• A comparison of agency results to the private sector
• A breakdown of survey results by key demographic categories (age, racial/ethnic background)

You will need your agency code and password to access this information. Contact your Office of Human Capital/Human Resources for details.

The Best Places to Work Excel tool was developed by the Hay Group.

Improve Recruitment, Retention and Results

The Partnership for Public Service is also introducing the Best Places to Work guide: the first-ever collection of tools, tips and guidelines to help agencies better understand their Best Places to Work data and use it to improve the workplace environment in a way that also improves organizational effectiveness.

Employee commitment and satisfaction directly affect agency outcomes. Higher levels of employee satisfaction are beneficial to your agency’s overall performance and ability to achieve its mission. The Best Places rankings offer information about what factors drive employee commitment and satisfaction, enabling managers and leaders to take concrete action.

Your agency’s focus on improving employee satisfaction can also bolster its reputation and its competitiveness as an employer in the global marketplace by attracting and influencing job seekers. High employee satisfaction and demonstrated commitment to effectively accomplishing your mission will help attract—and keep—top talent. Effective use of the employee survey results is therefore a powerful instrument for improved recruitment, retention and results.

Use the Guide and the Rankings to Drive Change in Your Agency

Whether you’re a chief human capital officer, human resources director, chief learning officer or a manager at any level, the guide will be useful to you as your agency starts improving the workplace environment. Union leaders and employee groups will also benefit from the guide in their efforts to convey the employee’s perspective.

Communication is key to achieving buy-in across all levels at your agency, as well as gathering more information to start forming solutions. Starting the improvement process from within the agency ranks will help your employees be more fully involved and committed to the objectives. Agency employees have special knowledge of the agency’s culture and inner workings, which is important because agencies and subcomponents vary.

Managers also face unique challenges because agencies and subcomponents have distinct missions and cultures, so what works for one organization may not work for another. This guide will provide you with guiding principles and practical tools that you can tailor to your agency’s specific needs.

Leverage Content, Tools and Additional Resources

The Best Places to Work guide will be released online as a series of chapters starting in June 2009, after the Partnership for Public Service provides agencies and subcomponents with their survey data and workplace analysis reports.

The guide’s chapters will address a set of topics that will help agency managers improve the workplace environment for their employees:

• Chapter One: Understanding Your Data and Communication (June 2009)
  Gain an in-depth understanding of what your data mean to better focus and set priorities during action planning. Enhance two-way communication across all levels of your organization to engage key stakeholders in improving employee satisfaction.
• Chapter Two: Action Planning (July 2009)
  Use your data to develop a viable plan of action and maintain stakeholder engagement to ensure long-term support and resources for the effort.
• Chapter Three: Sustaining Results (August 2009)
  Incorporate the commitment to improve the workplace environment into the agency’s culture and broader mission and sustain progress over time. Document lessons learned and start planning for future action.

In addition to the research-based content, each chapter will include additional resources to help agencies becoming even better places to work:

• Tools and Tips
  Worksheets to guide the agency manager and initiative leaders and best practices to maintain during the improvement effort
• Examples
  Success stories from highly-ranked and most-improved agencies and lessons learned from agencies that have been there before
• Annotated Bibliography
  Links to additional resources to help the reader gain deeper knowledge about specific topics

The Best Places to Work guide was developed by the Partnership for Public Service with generous support from TMP Government.

 

© 2009 Partnership for Public Service