OPM has begun emailing the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, adding in a message to employees that “all levels of leadership have access to FEVS reports and are urged to use results to inform decisions for agency development.”
The survey is being sent in two phases to some 1.5 million career permanent, non-seasonal employees, both full-time and part-time. Each agency’s survey will be open for six weeks, with the survey closing in late June and first results to come in late summer.
In an earlier memo, OPM had urged agencies to support the survey, saying “the quality of the information you receive is improved when you encourage participation in the survey and demonstrate how results from previous years have been used for agency improvements.”
Although neither the memo nor the launch announcement posted on the OPM site said so specifically, the annual call for support commonly has been interpreted as meaning that employees should be allowed to fill out the survey during working time. That would take about an hour in most cases.
Participation in the annual survey has been declining in recent years and is now below 50 percent. The memo noted that one of the questions annually getting the most negative response involves whether employees think their agencies will use the results to improve their workplaces, with only about four in 10 agreeing.
A new feature this year is a pilot follow-on survey testing new topics and updates to existing questions. Those who submit responses to the full survey will be asked if they want to answer that one too; OPM is urging that they do.
