Results of the second annual federal employee satisfaction survey will not be released until March, the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) said Monday.
NPR sent the survey to thousands of federal employees in September 1999 in an attempt to gauge whether employees enjoy working for Uncle Sam. The survey also asks employees to rate their supervisors and the progress of their agencies in the reinventing government movement.
The 1998 survey was released just three months after it was sent out, but staff turnover at NPR and contractor problems with mailing out the survey have delayed the release of the 1999 results, NPR spokesman Barry Phelps said.
Individual agencies' results will be publicly announced, along with governmentwide totals, in March. In 1998, only governmentwide totals were released.
Last week, NPR presented the survey results to the President's Management Council, consisting of top executives from around the government. NPR is giving agencies six weeks to develop responses to the survey results before they are made public.
About 50 government agencies are included in the survey.
In 1998, 62 percent of survey respondents said they were satisfied with their jobs. Only 52 percent said they thought their supervisors do a good job. Federal employees gave their agencies high marks for setting customer service goals, but low marks for recognizing good performance, dealing with poor performers and managing labor relations.
In December, the results of the first-ever governmentwide customer satisfaction survey were released. The survey found Americans placed federal agencies' customer service just a few points below private sector service on the American Customer Satisfaction Index, though critics questioned the validity of the rankings.
A year ago, Vice President Al Gore called on agencies to rate federal executives' performance on three measures: customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and business results. At least one agency, the Education Department's Office of Student Financial Assistance (headed by former NPR deputy director Greg Woods), has followed up on Gore's call. In its performance plan, the office said it placed 33rd on a list of 50 agencies in 1998 on how satisfied employees were with their jobs. The office aims to be in the top five agencies in terms of employee satisfaction within three years.
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