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Agency leadership and whether merit plays the role it is supposed to play in workplace decisions continue to draw especially low ratings from employees of DoD and DHS, according to summaries by those departments of their results on this year’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey.
Although OPM has not yet released government-wide data from the annual survey, the results from DoD and DHS together account for nearly half of the executive branch workforce apart from the Postal Service, which does not participate in the survey.
At DHS—long rated toward the bottom in the annual survey—responses to 14 of the 71 questions asked government-wide fell below the 35 percent positive level, which OPM says indicates a problem that management needs to address. The most-negative responses involved whether pay raises reflect performance, whether steps are taken to deal with employees who cannot or will not improve, and whether promotions are based on merit.
Only slightly more positive were whether employees have sufficient resources to get the job done and whether senior leaders generate high levels of motivation and commitment in the workforce.
At DoD, three questions yielded positive responses of 35 percent or less: 33 percent of respondents agreed that promotions in their work unit are based on merit, 34 percent were satisfied with their promotional opportunities in their organization and 35 percent said they have sufficient resources to get the job done.
Overall, for both departments, the highest positives involved employees’ willingness to do extra work to get the job done, belief that their work is important, and whether they constantly look for ways to do it better. Those have consistently rated at the top among all agencies for years, while questions about higher leadership, recognition of good performance, and consequences for poor performers have consistently rated at the bottom.