The private sector outpaces the federal government on important employee engagement and satisfaction issues  

Private sector employees had higher levels of job satisfaction than federal civil servants and were more likely to recommend their organization as a good place to work, according to an analysis of 2022 data from federal and private sector surveys.  

The federal government competes with the private sector for top talent and should seek to meet or exceed employee engagement and satisfaction levels experienced in the best private sector companies.  

But in 2022, private sector employees scored 75 out of 100 when asked about job satisfaction and if they would recommend their organization as a good place to work, while federal employees scored 60.5 and 64.5, respectively, based on a comparison of data from the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® and private sector surveys provided by global employee research firm Mercer.  

The data shows that private sector employees had higher scores than their government counterparts on 23 out of 28 important questions dealing with everyday workplace matters.  

The largest gap between employees in the two sectors—22 points—was on empowerment. When government employees were asked how satisfied they were with their involvement in decisions that affect their work, they had a score of 50 out of 100 compared with 72 in the private sector.   

Private sector employees also outpaced civil servants on issues that included the use of their talent, recognition for providing high-quality products and services, and receiving training needed to do a good job.  

Federal employees, however, outscored private sector employees by more than 20 points on a question about accountability for their work—87.3 out of 100 compared with 63 for the private sector. Similarly, federal employees scored 86.9 on if their supervisors hold them accountable for achieving results, while the private sector scored 63. The large gap in scores on these two questions reflects a strong culture of performance and accountability in the federal government.   

Federal employees also had more positive views on expressing opinions that are different than other employees in their work unit and on a question about pay.  

The federal government competes with the private sector for top talent and should seek to meet or exceed employee engagement and satisfaction levels experienced in the best private sector companies. Top-flight organizations use innovative strategies to improve workplace policies and practices to improve employee engagement and satisfaction, according to Partnership research. And our study on Veterans Affairs Medical Centers found a strong correlation between employee engagement and higher patient satisfaction levels, better service and higher employee retention.   

MORE COMPARISONS 

Since the federal government and private sector differ in many ways, we conducted an analysis to compare the views of employees in the federal government and the private sector by age, sex and their organization’s size.   

We found that the federal employee experience is more similar to that of employees in small rather than large organizations in the private sector. Click here for more information on this issue.  

We also found that men in the federal government expressed a more favorable view of their workplace experience than women, while the opposite was true for the private sector. For more details on the workplace gender gap, Click here for more information on this issue.  

Finally, we found older employees gave more positive responses than their younger peers in both the federal government and the private sector. The differences between those aged 30-39 and those 60 years or older were largest among federal employees on issues of recognition and job satisfaction. For more details, click here.   

METHODOLOGY 

The data used for this analysis is based on the views of more than 557,000 civil servants across the federal government who participated in the 2022 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. The Mercer data is based on the views of 463,553 private sector employees in the United States who participated in company employee engagement surveys.   

The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® employee engagement and satisfaction score is calculated based on the federal employee responses to the following three items:   

1. I recommend my organization as a good place to work.   

2. Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your job?   

3. Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your organization?  

For 2022, the private sector data provided by Mercer did not include the question on job satisfaction. The Mercer engagement surveys are customized to individual organizations. Because not every company received each question, it is not possible to calculate a comparable Best Places to Work employee engagement and satisfaction score for the private sector, as we have done in the past.  

COMPARISON OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE SECTOR EMPLOYEE SCORES ON 28 WORKPLACE QUESTIONS