Many federal workers say their agencies aren't reinventing themselves, despite Vice President Al Gore's admonitions over the past five years, a new survey says.
In a survey of 13,657 federal employees released Wednesday, only about one-third of respondents said their agencies have made reinvention an important priority, reward creativity and innovation or take corrective action against poor performers. Only 25 percent say management and unions work cooperatively. And only about half said their supervisors do a good job.
The survey, conducted by Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR), suggested reinvention efforts have improved the work environment for employees in some agencies, but have left employees in many others still caught in red tape.
"We're not satisfied with the 35 percent number that say reinvention is an important priority, we're not satisfied with the 34 percent number who don't know, and we're certainly not satisfied with the 31 percent who say reinvention has not been made a priority," said NPR Director Morley Winograd.
Employees say their agencies are doing some things right. Three in four employees say their agencies have customer service goals, 65 percent say their supervisors are family-friendly, 62 percent say diversity is respected and 72 percent say they would rate the quality of their immediate unit's quality of work favorably.
Overall, 62 percent of federal employees say they are satisfied with their jobs, the survey found.
The survey found a wide difference in perception between those employees who say their agencies have made reinvention a priority and those who do not. For example, 41 percent of employees who say reinvention is a priority also say labor-management relations are good, compared to 10 percent of those who say reinvention is not a priority. In reinvention-strong agencies, 91 percent of employees give customer service efforts high marks, compared to 56 percent of employees in reinvention-weak agencies. Employees in reinvention-minded agencies give their agencies high marks for valuing employees' opinions, providing training, giving employees flexibility, and helping employees help customers. Agencies with low marks for reinvention were rated low in those areas.
In a letter to federal employees, Gore said he is proud of the work federal employees have done to reinvent government.
"Clearly, the survey shows that reinvention works, but we have a long way to go," Gore wrote. "Experience in the private sector shows that large-scale organizational change takes many years. I plan to meet with agency officials and I have asked NPR to help agencies take their next steps in creating a government that works better, costs less, and delivers results that Americans care about."
Employees across the board said their agencies had not simplified travel regulations or streamlined the hiring process. Those two issues, along with poor labor-management relations, will likely have to be dealt with as governmentwide problems, Winograd said.
NPR's complete survey results are available here on GovExec.com.
NPR refused to release agency-specific results. Agency heads are supposed to share their own survey results with their employees and come up with ways to make improvements in problem areas, an NPR official said.