NASA has an especially strong sense of mission but that is not the only reason it has been judged the best large agency to work for in the government for four straight years, the agency has told Congress.
NASA employees are “heavily engaged” in their work and see it as something bigger than just a job, assistant administrator for human capital Lauren Leo told the House oversight subcommittee, which was examining the rankings produced by the Partnership for Public Service. Employees “consistently cite shared values, shared commitment to the mission and loyalty to the agency as reasons why they feel positively engaged in their jobs,” she said.
One result is that NASA has an unusually low attrition rate, especially considering the high-demand nature of many of its occupations, she added.
However, the agency continues to take proactive steps including:
creating a website as a platform for the women in its workforce to share their experiences as a way of inspiring girls and young women to pursue those careers;
using the annual employee viewpoint survey results to create a handbook to guide supervisors and other leaders in assessing the health of their organizations and offering practical solutions to common problems;
introducing new initiatives related to supervisory and leadership development, innovation and performance management; and
focusing on locations where employee views are below the agency-wide figure;
stressing recognizing and rewarding performance and innovation, which need not come in the form of money; and
encouraging employees to share their experiences through social media and other means.
