DHS employees: Mission is important, but management is not so good

There are a lot of unhappy campers at the Homeland Security Department. That's the takeaway from the 2007 Annual Employee Survey, conducted from Oct. 26 through Dec. 21. While 91 percent of respondents said the work they did was important and 80 percent enjoyed their jobs, only 18 percent of employees thought pay raises were based on job performance and only 25 percent believed promotions were based on merit. What's more, only slightly more than one-quarter of employees said managers took steps to deal with poor performers who could not or did not improve.

The survey results showed that fewer than half of employees held leadership in high regard; believed the department's culture promoted improvements in service or other outcomes; or thought Homeland Security had the talent required to accomplish its mission. The results were posted online late Thursday.

Of the 141,425 employees sampled across 13 organizational components, 65,753 responded to the electronic survey, for a response rate of 47 percent. The survey was designed to capture data across Homeland Security's various agencies, as well as draw from all levels of the workforce.

Employees at the Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed the most dissatisfaction with leadership, while those in the Science and Technology Directorate, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and the Coast Guard were most satisfied with leadership.

Elaine Duke, deputy undersecretary for management at Homeland Security, wrote in the department's leadership blog that it was "gratifying" that 54 percent of survey respondents said they would recommend DHS as a place to work. While not exactly a resounding endorsement, it was an improvement over the 51 percent who said they would do so in a similar survey in 2006.

Duke said that numerous reorganizations since the department's creation in 2003 and the lack of a centralized headquarters contributed to employee dissatisfaction. "While these are not excuses for low morale, as a DHS employee I can honestly say I see the challenges first-hand," she wrote.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, took a less charitable view. Acknowledging that the majority of employees enjoyed their work and believed it was important, the survey also showed that, "DHS and its component agencies engage in a culture of favoritism, filled with arbitrary treatment of its employees, and a refusal to empower, listen to, engage or motivate them, as well as provide them with the resources they need," Kelley said.

Kelley said the survey illustrated Homeland Security's "failure to manage effectively on a grand scale."