Perhaps not surprisingly given the scandals that have plagued the department this year, employee views of working at VA fell in many key areas in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey taken this year.
In 2013, 49.3 percent had positive views of the standards of honesty and integrity among their organization’s leaders, but just 43.9 percent said that in 2014. General satisfaction with policies and practices of senior leaders fell to 37.3 percent from 40.2 percent.
Views of immediate supervisors weren’t hit as hard. In 2013, 61.2 percent agreed or strongly agreed that they have trust and confidence in their supervisor, compared with 60.4 percent in 2014.
However, overall satisfaction with the organization fell from 55.2 to 52.8 percent. And the percentage who agreed or strongly agreed that they can disclose a violation of law or rule without retaliation dropped from 59.2 to 56.1 percent. The Office of Special Counsel has more than 100 open investigations into alleged retaliation against VA whistleblowers, although it did recently credit the agency for taking steps including restoring several who had been downgraded.
