Survey: Feds like their jobs and their bosses, not too sure about senior leaders
OPM's annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey found that most federal employees still find their work to be important, even if many critics do not.
Pay raises have been small and slow in coming over the past year, and scandals and mishaps have put several agencies in the hot seat. But those speed bumps didn't seem to dishearten those who responded to the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey that was released Oct. 24.
The 2014 survey's global satisfaction index -- measuring employee feelings about their job, their pay, their organization, and if they would recommend their organization as a good place to work -- was 59 percent, the same score as last year.
Agency leaders, however, may find cause for concern in some of the other numbers in the Office of Personnel Management survey, which tabulated responses from 392,752 federal employees at 82 agencies.
Fewer than half expressed confidence in their senior leadership. Forty percent were satisfied with the policies and practices of their senior leaders; 38 percent said senior leaders generate high levels of motivation and commitment in the workforce in their organization.
And the largest decrease over the past year was in respondents' views of their senior leadership's honesty and integrity. Only half of respondents said their organization's leaders maintain high standards for those traits, down 4 percentage points from 2013.
Immediate supervisors fared better.
Sixty-nine percent responded positively to the overall job their supervisor is doing, 61 percent said they get constructive suggestions to improve their job performance, and 65 percent have trust and confidence in their bosses.
In the federal IT community, conversation has largely revolved around how leaders can create an environment that supports innovation and experimentation. But only 35 percent of respondents said creativity and innovation are rewarded at their agencies.
Still, a majority of federal employees believe their work is important, say they put in extra effort to get their jobs done and actively look for ways to do their jobs better, the report found. Seventy percent of respondents said their work gives them a feeling of personal accomplishment.
"It is encouraging to see that federal employees remained committed to their jobs regardless of the difficulties our workforce has faced in the last few years," OPM Director Katherine Archuleta said.