Top Trends

Each year’s Best Places rankings provide a snapshot that offers a wealth of information about the state of our federal workforce. But valuable insights also come from trend data comparing the new results with rankings from prior years. Longitudinal data reveal which agencies are improving and which are not. They show if previous workforce challenges have been addressed and whether new problems have arisen. In 2007, the overall trend lines are relatively flat compared to 2005, but there are some trends worth noting.

Compared to the 2005 Best Places rankings, the government-wide employee satisfaction score for 2007 is virtually unchanged (down 0.4 percent). Looking at the ratings of the individual federal organizations, roughly two in five saw their scores go up. More specifically, 37 percent of large agencies, 31 percent of small agencies, and 42 percent of agency subcomponents enjoyed an increase.

Of the 10 workplace categories included in Best Places, no category score changed by more than 2.4 percent in either direction. Two of these categories were up from 2005:  employee skills/mission match, and performance-based rewards and advancement. The effective leadership dimension held steady. Others – strategic management, support for diversity, teamwork, training and development, and work/life balance – were all down with work/life balance seeing the biggest drop (2.4 percent). In two dimensions – pay and benefits, and family-friendly culture and benefits – comparable data from 2005 are not available.

As in previous years, effective leadership was identified as the key driver of employer engagement and, while the overall leadership index score remained flat, some of the responses to the questions in the OPM Federal Human Capital Survey that underlie the Best Places indices raise concerns. Specifically, there was a notable downturn in the opinions of government’s top executives. Compared with 2005, federal executives responded less favorably on 83 percent of all items in the OPM survey. Three in four of those declines were more than five percent. Since effective leadership is so critical to effective workplaces, an examination of the downturn in satisfaction among federal executives is in order.

More Employee Participation

The biggest change since 2005 is actually found in the inputs, not the outcomes. The 2007 Best Places rankings include 283 federal organizations (30 large federal agencies, 31 small agencies and 222 subcomponents) and are based on the responses of more than 221,000 employees. In 2005, the rankings covered 248 organizations and 150,000 employees.

Most important, employee response rates have increased to 57 percent, up from 54 percent in 2005 and 51 percent in 2003.

These trends all demonstrate a growing awareness of the value of asking for, and receiving, employee feedback on the work environment. Survey participation stands out, because it is a behavior that reflects the level of employee engagement. Employees who don’t care, don’t trust, or think others don’t care, won’t take the time to fill out surveys. The rising participation rates show that, regardless of whether federal employees have something positive to say, increasingly they care enough and are engaged enough to say it.

Top Movers

Despite the leveling off in overall federal employee satisfaction, several agencies show spikes in the employee satisfaction scores.

Among large agencies, the biggest mover is the Social Security Administration, which is up 9.7 percent, vaulting the agency to seventh place in 2007. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is the second fastest riser, boosting its previous score by 9.2 percent. Taking home the bronze for biggest improvement among large agencies are the departments of Justice and Treasury, both with a seven percent rise. The Justice Department’s increase is particularly noteworthy, because it also had significant gains from 2003 to 2005. With its 2007 gains, DoJ is the biggest mover from 2003 to 2007, up 21 percent. The Department of State is the only other large agency whose employee satisfaction score has had a double-digit percentage increase (about 15 percent) since 2003.

In the small agency category (a new category this year), the Federal Housing Finance Board sets the pace among fast-risers with an almost 18 percent increase. Just behind the Board is the Export-Import Bank, up 17 percent. Rounding out the top three small agency movers is the Corporation for National and Community Service, up 9.9 percent.

Still Room for Improvement

While there are many surface similarities between the 2005 and 2007 rankings, there are still red flags federal managers should heed. The biggest area of concern is that, in general, agencies with the most room for improvement are showing the least amount of progress. In fact, some of these agencies’ scores are decreasing.

For example, the Small Business Administration was the lowest ranked agency in 2005, and it remains at the bottom with a 4.4 percent drop in its score since 2005. The Department of Education’s score also declined this year, by 3.5 percent, placing it 28th out of the 30 large agencies ranked.

At the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which ranked 29th among the 30 large agencies, the index score actually went up 1.4 percent, but this increase was not enough to lift DHS out of next-to-last place. And despite the overall increase in its satisfaction index, many of DHS’s subcomponent scores declined. In particular, declines show up in the DHS subcomponents most closely involved with the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. The Federal Emergency Management Agency score dropped about 13 percent from 2005, placing it 211 out of 222 federal subcomponent organizations. Most alarmingly, DHS headquarters’ score dropped 29 percent from 2005, the largest decline of any subcomponent. Some encouraging news out of DHS is that the Transportation Security Administration, the lowest-rated federal subcomponent in 2005, enjoyed a 6 percent increase and no longer ranks last.

Among the small agencies, the largest declines included the Federal Maritime Commission (down 14 percent), the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (-13 percent) and the Farm Credit Administration (-11 percent).

 

© 2007 Partnership for Public Service