In the latest in a series of reports parsing results of the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, GAO has identified six practices it considers key to having employees engaged in their jobs.
As it had previously, GAO said that the employee engagement index, or EEI, compiled by OPM based on responses has declined from a high of 67 percent to 63 percent over 2011-2014, a drop that GAO says is somewhat misleading because it reflects steep drops in several large agencies including DoD that masked sustained or increasing levels at many other agencies. It again stressed that perceptions of leaders “consistently received the lowest score” on the questions that make up the index.
The six key factors to engagement, GAO said, are: constructive performance conversations as reflected in the question about whether a supervisor provides constructive suggestions to improve the employee’s job performance; career development and training as reflected in the question about whether employees are given a real opportunity to improve their skills; work-life balance as reflected in the question about supervisory support for such balance; an inclusive work environment as reflected in the question about whether supervisors work well with employees of different backgrounds; employee involvement as reflected in the question about satisfaction with involvement in decisions that affect the employee’s work; and communication from management, as reflected in the question about satisfaction with the information received from management on what is happening in the organization.
GAO added: “OPM developed resources to help agencies use EEI data to strengthen employee engagement but fell short of supporting a holistic approach to improving engagement and linking to performance. For example, OPM does not report whether annual EEI changes are statistically significant—that is, whether the changes were meaningful or due to random chance. Likewise, OPM does not analyze which FEVS questions are associated with higher EEI scores. This information would help agencies better focus their efforts to improve engagement and target resources. Further, OPM has provided limited examples or lessons learned on linking engagement to agency performance, which agencies will need to inform their next survey cycle.”
