Commentary: From Results to Action: Using the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey to Improve Agencies

• Author: Janelle Callahan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12372
• Published date: 01 May 2015
• Date: 01 May 2015

From Results to Action: Using the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey to Improve Agencies 399

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 75, Iss. 3, pp. 399–400. © 2015 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12372.

Commentary

Janelle Callahan is senior manager at

the Partnership for Public Service and leads

the organization ’ s Best Places to Work in

the Federal Government research.

E-mail: jcallahan@ourpublicservice.org

From Results to Action: Using the Federal Employee

Viewpoint Survey to Improve Agencies

I n “Assessing the Past and Promise of the

Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey for Public

Management Research: A Research Synthesis,”

Sergio Fernandez, Tima Moldogaziev, Zachary

Oberfield , and William G. Resh provide a compre-

hensive review of the strengths and weaknesses of the

federal employee survey administered by the U.S.

Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The survey

is used by my organization, the Partnership for Public

Service, as the basis for our Best Places to Work in the

Federal Government rankings. As a nonprofit, nonpar-

tisan organization that works to strengthen the civil

service and improve government effectiveness and effi-

ciency, our analysis provides an independent perspec-

tive on the federal workforce in a variety of categories.

Fernandez and his co-authors acknowledge that the

primary purpose of the Federal Employee Viewpoint

Survey (FEVS), the successor to OPM ’ s Federal

Human Capital Survey, is as a management tool

for federal leaders. From our perspective, it is the

most powerful measurement tool federal leaders and

managers have available to them. Ten years ago, few in

government were talking about what federal employ-

ees thought or how the survey information could be

used to improve employee satisfaction and commit-

ment, and the performance of federal agencies. This is

important because the views of employees are related

to many critical organizational outcomes, as we know

from the academic literature and assessments by

practitioners.

The article raises an impor tant question: how might

the FEVS be improved to yield more rigorous

research?

According to the authors’ analysis of more than 40

peer-reviewed journal articles, diversity management

and empowerment are two areas where research-

ers have advanced understanding using the FEVS.

Empowerment, in particular, is a concept that we

have found important to agency improvement. We

also see great value in the topics of appreciation,

communication , and trust, as well as perceptions of

performance at all levels (individual, work unit, and

organization).

We agree with the authors that it would be help-

ful to understand the validity of the survey items in

greater detail and to expand on themes identified in

the literature. As they note, the survey was originally

designed to assess human capital management in

agencies, and so it does not include the full range of

questions needed to undertake thorough assessments

of certain topics important to academic research-

ers. The issue of adding new questions, however, is

problematic because the survey already has more than

80. Changing the wording of questions to improve

measurement or to create alignment with other

research would mean losing the ability to identify

trends over time. In spite of some weaknesses with the

survey design, we believe the trends and comparisons

offered by analyzing the results of the employee survey

provide helpful direction to agencies.

The strength of the survey lies in many factors. First,

agencies can understand how they are performing

relative to others. Without the ability to compare,

any data point loses its relevance. Second, the data

are rich, with many organizational and demographic

breakouts, and can tell us if one set of workers has

a dramatically different perspective from another

set of workers. For example, the Department of

Commerce had subcomponents with the highest

employee satisfaction in government and the lowest

in 2013, prompting leaders to ask what was going on

and to take action. The U.S. Patent and Trademark

Office (USPTO) was the number one agency of 300

subcomponents regarding employee satisfaction and

commitment, while the Economic Development

Administration (EDA), also in Commerce, ranked

last. EDA officials said they began consulting with

the USPTO and other organizations to gather

best practices and work on improving employee

satisfaction. In 2014, EDA was the most improved

subcomponent, raising its satisfaction score by

Janelle Callahan

Partnership for Public Service