Federal Manager's Daily Report

The Partnership for Public Service has released rankings of the best places to work in government according to the agency’s overall mission, finding “wide disparities among agencies within each mission area.”

The rankings by mission area–energy and environment; infrastructure; law enforcement and border protection; national security; and public health–follow the earlier release of the Partnership’s overall rankings of best places to work in the federal government.

In the law enforcement and border protection category, for example, the Coast Guard was assigned a score of 71.1, while the Secret Service scored just 32.9. In energy and environment, there was a similar-size gap between a division of the Justice Department rated at 85.9 at the top and the National Park Service at the bottom with 53.8. “In fact, in no instance is the gap between the top and bottom-ranked agency in a mission area smaller than 21 points,” it said.

The rankings are partly based on responses to three questions on the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey: I would recommend my organization as a good place to work; considering everything, how satisfied are you with your job; and considering everything, how satisfied are you with your organization.

“The purpose of ranking by mission area is to examine agencies that have similar responsibilities and employ workers with comparable occupations to see if there are commonalities or discrepancies in employee engagement. The data will allow leaders to compare their organizations to other agencies in their field, see where they are excelling or falling short, and gain insights about how they can better meet the needs of their workers and ultimately the American public,” the Partnership said.