DOINews: Partnership for Public Service Releases 2011 “Best Places to Work” Rankings

WASHINGTON --The Partnership for Public Service has released results for its Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings for 2011. The rankings are based on data from the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FedView) and indicate that Department of the Interior employees view the department and its leadership in a generally favorable manner.

“We have put in place several improvements based on employee comments from earlier surveys,” Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said. “There's no clearer example than our current diversity and inclusion program, on which we have a placed a huge emphasis since the 2010 survey, when employees told us in that it needed attention. In this year's survey, employees ranked our diversity and inclusion program highest among positive changes that have been instituted in the Department – that's a great success story that we must carry forward.”

The 2011 Best Places to Work rankings show Interior ranked 18th of 33 large federal agencies, which reflects a relative drop of one position from 2010, when Interior ranked 17th out of 32. These results, as well as results from the 2011 FedView survey,provide the Department with a measurement ofsuccess in meeting employee expectations and a set of goals for future improvements.

In general, many Interior employees like the work they do, feel their work is important, and constantly look for ways to do a better job. They feel valued by their supervisor and feel the quality of the work performed in their offices was very good. The survey also shows that employees continue to be concerned about leadership competencies and having the resources needed to do their jobs.

The 2011 survey was issued to approx 13,600 Interior employees, of which 52 percent responded. This year's survey results will allow the department to see at a broad level any changes since the 2010 survey. The FedView results are posted here, and include a brief high-level summary (pages 3-9).

The Partnership for Public Service is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that works to revitalize and inspire service in the Federal Government by helping inform institutional awareness and create incentives to focus on key workforce issues through providing Federal managers and leaders a way to measure and improve employee satisfaction and commitment.

Detailed results of the rankings can be viewed at: http://bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings/.

December 5, 2011