A survey similar to the FEVS started in the early 2000s and took largely its current form and became annual starting in 2010. The only prior change in the schedule was a delay in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. Image: Douglas Rissing/iStock
By: FEDweek StaffOPM has said it will not conduct the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey—the main annual vehicle for employees to evaluate their workplaces and their agency’s leadership from immediate supervisors to senior leaders—this year for the first time in more than a decade.
“A transformed workforce requires a transformed Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey,” OPM director Scott Kupor said in a statement. “We are revising FEVS to remove questions added by the Biden-Harris Administration and to refocus on core administration priorities: to restore a high-performance, high-efficiency, and merit-based civil service. FEVS will be back next year, new and improved.”
OPM previously had delayed the survey, typically sent in the spring in several phases, saying that was needed “to reduce the administrative burden on agencies as they address President Trump’s urgent governmentwide priorities.”
While Kupor’s announcement did not specify which questions are to be dropped, the earlier statement identified those related to DEI that the Biden administration had added—also meaning the end of an index started in 2022 based on those responses—as well as “gender ideology-related questions.”
OPM also said at the time that it would reintroduce a question removed by the Biden administration regarding whether steps are taken in the employee’s work unit to deal with a poor performer who cannot or will not improve. The first Trump administration repeatedly cited the low levels of agreement to that question in policy statements and budgetary proposals to strengthen management’s hand in discipline.
The Biden administration meanwhile had added a question asking what happens to poor performers and one asking whether employees believe they are held accountable for the quality of their work—to which 87 percent agreed in 2024, one of the highest positive rates.
A survey similar to the FEVS started in the early 2000s and took largely its current form and became annual starting in 2010. The only prior change in the schedule was a delay in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
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