America deserves a federal government that is highly effective—one that is efficient, innovative and responsive to the needs of the public. Our government works best when it has an engaged workforce, good leaders and the processes, structures and information to make smart decisions. The nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service accomplishes its mission by identifying opportunities to make government work better, offering solutions to fix government where it is broken and collaborating with those inside and outside of government to bring about change.

The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings, part of our effort to strengthen the federal workforce and the management of government, offer the most comprehensive assessment of how federal public servants view their jobs and workplaces. The rankings, produced by the Partnership and Boston Consulting Group, provide employee perspectives on leadership, pay, innovation, work–life balance and a range of other issues.

The rankings and accompanying data also give federal leaders a way to measure employee engagement across the federal workforce, as well as at individual departments, agencies and their subcomponents. This serves to alert federal leaders to signs of trouble and provides a roadmap to better manage our government’s most important asset—its employees. At the same time, leaders across the government can learn from the success stories to help improve their own organizations.

This is particularly true regarding the government’s experience dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021, with federal leaders stepping up during the deadly public health crisis to find new and better ways to engage employees and achieve their missions. If sustained, many of these initiatives could become the basis for transforming and improving the way government works to better serve the public.