In a blog post, OPM in particular noted improvement in most agencies in employee engagement, which it said “drives performance and is closely tied to mission success in the federal government.”
“An agency that engages its employees ensures a work environment where each employee can reach his or her potential, which in turn has a strong impact on the agency’s ability to achieve its mission goals. Engagement occurs in every office between employees and their supervisors and should be a focus at all levels of an agency, from front-line employees to the leadership,” it said.
OPM noted that the “people and culture” aspect of the President’s Management Agenda is designed in part to support efforts to strengthen an organizational culture of employee engagement and mission performance. Each agency has been asked to appoint a senior accountable official responsible for improving employee engagement.
“Agencies then worked closely with OPM’s FEVS team to analyze and interpret their reports. Each agency received detailed, customized reports with data broken down by department, program, and office, with the goal of enabling agencies to examine internal engagement at the local level,” OPM said.
It said for example that HUD used the survey results to pursue strategies including: creating tools for employees to share ideas; providing the survey results to all employees along with an analysis of the data; responding to employees’ feedback through internal tools; and holding deep conversations between senior officials and program offices. The result was that its engagement score rose by 5 percentage points, accompanied by a 6 point increase in its global satisfaction score.
