Frequently Asked Questions Why did the Partnership for Public Service conduct the Public Service Viewpoint Survey? The cancellation of the 2025 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and many other personnel surveys across the government created the first major gap in the annual collection of federal employee engagement data since 2009. It is critical for government leaders, policymakers and the public to understand the impact of significant changes to the federal workforce. It is also important to note that a stated goal behind many policy and workforce changes is to increase the efficiency and productivity of the federal civil service. Significant research, including our own, shows an engaged workforce is more productive and provides better services to the public. Therefore, it is important to maintain both engagement and productivity metrics to demonstrate the impact of current management practices across federal agencies. When was the Public Service Viewpoint survey administered? The survey was open for responses for about six weeks between Nov.10 and Dec. 19, 2025. Who was allowed to participate in the Public Service Viewpoint Survey? All permanent, civilian, career federal employees were eligible to participate in the survey. Federal contractors, political appointees, active-duty military and recently departed employees were not eligible to participate. For more information, please see our Methodology. Why couldn’t former federal employees who left government in 2025 take the survey? We wanted the 2025 Public Service Viewpoint Survey to capture the same population as past federal employee surveys like the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Our survey only includes current federal employees, not those who recently left the federal workforce. How many responses are represented in the Public Service Viewpoint Survey? The government-wide scores were generated based on responses from 11,083 employees working at executive branch agencies across government. For more information, please see our Methodology. Why is my agency not included in the Public Service Viewpoint Survey results? Any agency that did not have workforce data available on the Federal Workforce Data platform is not included in our survey. Responses submitted by employees at those agencies also were not included in our final government-wide sample. Additionally, agencies that had workforce data available but fewer than 30 responses to the survey were not included in the list of agency results in order to protect respondents. However, the responses were included in our government-wide sample. For more information, please see our Methodology. How did you keep federal employees who participated safe? We strongly encouraged respondents to complete the survey outside of official work hours and on nonwork devices. Additionally, we discouraged respondents from sharing information about the survey through official agency channels such as work email addresses. All response data is kept secure and encrypted. Any personally identifiable information or demographic data shared with us was restricted to the Partnership’s data team and was only used for survey administration and analysis. While we asked for a personal email as a part of the verification process, it was not used to contact respondents for any reason and was deleted upon completing the data cleaning process. In addition to protecting data about respondents, all survey findings shared by the Partnership are anonymized in a way that will prevent individuals from being identified. Following the Office of Personnel Management’s approach, data for agencies with less than 30 respondents will not be shared outside the Partnership. Agencies will not have access to privileged reports with any more details than those shared with the public. Why did you work with unions and associations to help distribute information about the 2025 Public Service Viewpoint Survey? We engaged with a wide range of unions and management associations such as the American Federation of Government Employees, the Federal Managers Association, the National Federation of Federal Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, among others. Their partnership was crucial in reaching members of the federal civil service. We also promoted our survey to the public through other channels, such as our website, newsletters and social media. Who administers the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey? The Office of Personnel Management has administered the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and its predecessor, the Federal Human Capital Survey, since 2002. Many agencies have used this survey to fulfill a legal requirement that all executive branch agencies conduct surveys of their workforce. Several executive and legislative branch agencies have conducted their own annual employee surveys in the past, including NASA, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Intelligence Community. While the Partnership has relied on the OPM survey to produce the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings for over 20 years, we are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and not a part of the U.S. government. Can I compare the 2025 Public Service Viewpoint Survey results to the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey or other federal surveys? Despite similarities in questions and topics being covered, significant methodological differences exist between the 2025 Public Service Viewpoint Survey and the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. This means that results from the 2025 Public Service Viewpoint Survey should not be directly compared to the results of previous federal agency employee surveys, such as deriving score increases or decreases. For more information, please see our Methodology page. Where is the data for the 2024 Best Places to Work rankings? Results from the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings in 2024 and earlier years can be found on this page under Historical Agency Information. I have a question not covered here. Who should I contact? Please see our Contact Us for who to reach out to with your question.
