Social Security, Export-Import Bank among surveys worst federal workplaces
The Washington Post featured the top federal workplaces last week in a special section that highlighted the government’s highest-ranking agencies among employees.
Spotlighting the top organizations in the “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government” report for 2023 was great positive reinforcement for agency leaders doing well and instructive for the dawdlers.
While positive reinforcement is better than negative attention in changing behavior, taxpayers have a right to know not only the good but also the bad about their government. Today, we’re looking at those lagging workplaces, the cellar dwellers that would rather avoid the embarrassment of being among the worst places to work in the federal government.
The annual Best Places report is produced by the Partnership for Public Service and Boston Consulting Group, using data from the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Agencies are ranked by engagement scores that approximate employee morale. The Partnership says the scores reflect “the commitment of the workforce, its job and organizational satisfaction, and the willingness of employees to put forth discretionary effort to achieve results.”
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But this is not just about making “happy employees,” Max Stier, the Partnership’s president and CEO, said in an interview. “The taxpayer and the customer will be getting better value from an agency that has more engaged employees.”
This is about government performance.
Overall, the federal government scored 65.7 out of 100, a 2.3-point increase over 2022.
Unfortunately, for their employees and customers, some workplaces were well below that. The Social Security Administration (SSA) at 52.1, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) at 57.7, and the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) at 40.6, were the lowest-ranking organizations in the large-, midsize- and small-agency categories, respectively.
EXIM also was among the agencies whose score dropped the most, from 55 in 2022 to 40.6 last year. That 14.4-point decline was tied by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) for the second-largest drop, from 70 to 55.6. Getting the booby prize for the biggest plunge, by far, was the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. Its score plummeted from 74 in 2022 to 52.6 in 2023, a 21.4-point free fall.
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Building on lessons he learned as Baltimore’s mayor and Maryland’s governor, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley is frank about the problems he faced when he joined the agency in December.
“You know, the president didn’t ask me to come here ... because the agency was doing well,” O’Malley said by phone. “I’m here because he saw what had happened when Congress reduced our staffing to a 25-year low, even as the number of customers we serve has climbed and will continue to climb to an all-time high.”
One of the first things he did after taking office was to meet with SSA staffers around the country in “mayoral-style town halls,” O’Malley said. “I know you are suffering,” he recalled telling them, while asking what “we can do now to make things better.”
Among the 1,600 employee responses was a complaint about an agency form that had clients separately click responses to 41 questions about their money. O’Malley remembered one Boston staffer saying, “'My firstborn for a ‘no to all’ button.' And so, within two weeks, we got that done.”
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This is an example of a small change making life easier for employees and customers. Staffers are “thrilled with actually being able to serve the public,” O’Malley said. “They are win-wins. You improve the employee experience, you're improving customer service.”
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) officials agree with that. Union leaders, strongly critical of agency leadership in the past, acknowledge positive changes under O’Malley, while calling for continued improvements.
“SSA employees have been and remain chronically overworked and overwhelmed due to years of underfunding and understaffing, while their pay and benefits are uncompetitive compared to other agencies and employers,” said a statement from the AFGE SSA General Committee. But it praised O’Malley for listening to workers, streamlining work processes, improving training and “and making a real effort to improve their working conditions.”
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A statement from EXIM blamed its bad showing on “the effects of a four-year lapse in EXIM’s authorization” and “a sustained lack of board quorum.” Now EXIM has implemented mentoring programs and monetary rewards to boost morale and engagement.
CSOSA said it is focusing on communication, transparency, and leadership training. “Managers have been instructed to have an ongoing dialogue with their staff,” added communications director Lisa E. Kinney, “regarding the 2023 results and areas where we can improve.”
MSPB formed a Continuous Improvement Team of employees at various levels, and an official said the agency is working on four key challenges — innovation, input on decision-making, management communication and work-life balance. State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration offered no explanation for its severe morale nosedive.
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While some agencies have faltered, the 2023 ratings mark the first government-wide increase since 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc. More than 1 million federal workers from 532 agencies and subcomponents responded to the survey, the greatest response ever in the Best Places rankings.
“The government-wide score increase may also reflect the Biden administration’s deliberate focus on employee engagement and satisfaction,” the Partnership said in a statement, “and may have been influenced by a flurry of important laws enacted by Congress over the past several years,” citing the Build Back Better Act, the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law among others that engage workers while assisting people, companies and the economy.
Within the bad news is a ray of optimism, if only of the nowhere-to-go-but-up variety.
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Improvement in other federal agencies provides examples for the lowly ones seeking redemption. The morale-busting Department of Homeland Security has earned voluminous coverage in recent years for its endemic problems. This year, it is the most improved large agency. Its score remains below average at 60.8, but that reflects an encouraging 5.9-point increase. Among midsize agencies, the Federal Trade Commission’s score rose the most, by 8.1 points to 75.4, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission had the biggest jump in the small-agency category, by 9.8 points to 73.0.
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