Fedweek

With the June 22 deadline for responding to the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey coming up, OPM is urging those who received it to fill it out, adding that “your identity and any information that would permit personal identification will be withheld when survey results are shared with your employer or in publicly released reports regarding the survey.”

“All levels of leadership across government are able to use FEVS results to inform decisions for agency development. Results provide a snapshot of employees’ perceptions of whether, and to what extent, conditions characterizing successful organizations are present in their agencies. This is your opportunity to help shape and improve federal workplaces,” acting director Kathleen McGettigan said in a message to employees.

For years, the most positive responses have involved whether employees are willing to put in extra effort to get a job done, that they are constantly looking for ways to do their jobs better, and that they consider their work important. At the bottom end are whether pay raises depend on how well employees perform their jobs, whether steps are taken to deal with poor performers, and whether differences in performance are recognized in a meaningful way. The results also consistently reveal successively dimmer views of leaders at each level up.

Last year the survey showed a second straight year of slight gains in measures of employee engagement in their work, their overall satisfaction, and the inclusiveness of their workplaces, which are composites of responses to several questions relating to each of those issues.