2011 Best Places to Work
"The Partnership for Public Service and American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation use data from the Office of Personnel Management's Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey to rank agencies and their subcomponents. Agencies and subcomponents are ranked according to a Best Places to Work index score, which measures overall employee satisfaction, an important part of employee engagement and, ultimately, a driver of organizational performance. The Best Places to Work score is calculated both for the organization as a whole and also for specific demographic groups."
Accessed from http://bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/about/ on April 22, 2011.
USGS Best Places to Work Summary
The Department of Interior is ranked 18 out of 33 large agencies, with an overall score of 62.9 (down from 65.4 in 2010).
For 2011, the USGS is ranked 64 out of 241 sub agencies, with an overall index score of 67.7. This ranking falls just short of the top twenty five percent. The ranking and score are lower than 2010 (50th out of 224 with score of 70.2). Despite a slight drop, employees responding to the 2011 survey are still more satisfied than employees who responded in 2009, 2007, 2005, and 2003.
The BPTW Overall Satisfaction Score is made up from the responses from three FEVS questions: "How satisfied are you with your job?" "How satisfied are you with your organization?" and "I recommend my organization as a good place to work". These items are tracked below and show an overall rise from 2002 to 2011.
| Scores by Demographic | BPTW Score | 2010 to 2011 Change |
|---|---|---|
| Female | 70.7 | -0.1 |
| Male | 68.9 | -2.9 |
| 40 and over | 69.4 | -1.4 |
| Under 40 | 70.5 | -5.2 |
| White | 70.7 | -1.5 |
| *Due to small sample sizes, no further demographic data was reported. | ||
The Best Places to Work also scores and ranks agencies and sub agencies on 14 categories of worker satisfaction:
Employee Skills/Mission Match: extent to which employees feel their skills and talents are used effectively; level to which employees get satisfaction from their work and understand how their jobs are relevant to the organizational mission,
- Strategic Management: extent to which employees believe management ensure have necessary skills & abilities to do their jobs, is successful at hiring new employees with the necessary skills to help the organization, & works to achieve organizational goals with targeted personnel strategies & performance management
- Teamwork: extent to which employees believe they communicate effectively both inside and outside of their team organizations, creating a friendly work atmosphere and producing high quality work products,
- Effective Leadership: extent to which employees believe leadership at all levels of the organization generate motivation & commitment, encourages integrity, & manages people fairly, while promoting professional development, creativity, & empowerment of employees
- Empowerment: extent to which employees feel empowered with respect to work processes & how satisfied they are with their involvement in decisions that affect their work,
- Fairness: extent to which employees believe arbitrary action and personal favoritism is tolerated, and if employees feel comfortable reporting illegal activity without fear of reprisal,
- Leaders: level of respect employees have for senior leaders, satisfaction with amount of information provided by management & perceptions about senior leaders' honesty, integrity, and ability to motivate employees,
- Supervisors: employees' opinions about immediate supervisor's job performance, how well supervisors give employees opportunity to demonstrate leadership skills, and extent to which employees feel supervisors support employee development and provide worthwhile feedback about job performance,
- Performance Based Rewards and Advancement: extent to which employees feel they are rewarded & promoted in fair & timely manner for performance & innovative contributions to workplace,
- Training and Development: extent to which employees believe development needs are assessed and appropriate training is offered, allowing them to do their jobs effectively and improve their skills,
- Support for Diversity: extent to which employees believe that actions & policies of leadership & management promote & respect diversity,
- Family Friendly Culture and Benefits: extent to which employees believe family-friendly flexibilities are offered to them, including telecommuting & alternative work scheduling, along with personal support benefits like child care subsidies and wellness programs,
- Pay: how satisfied employees are with pay
- Work/Life Balance: extent to which employees consider their workloads reasonable and feasible, and managers support a balance between work and life
| Category | USGS Rank out of DOI Subagencies | BPTW Score | BPTW Score 2010 to 2011 Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performance Based Rewards and Advancement | 47 of 229 | 52 | -1.7 |
| Effective Leadership - Fairness | 56 of 229 | 58.9 | 1.9 |
| Employee Skills/Mission Match | 84 of 229 | 79.3 | -1.9 |
| Family Friendly Culture and Benefits | 85 of 229 | 41.3 | -2.1 |
| Training and Development | 87 of 229 | 62.1 | -1.7 |
| Effective Leadership - Supervisors | 103 of 229 | 66.6 | -0.8 |
| Effective Leadership - Empowerment | 120 of 229 | 50.1 | -2.7 |
| Pay | 122 of 229 | 62.3 | -5.8 |
| Effective Leadership | 134 of 229 | 55.2 | -0.7 |
| Support for Diversity | 154 of 229 | 56.7 | 2.2 |
| Teamwork | 156 of 229 | 64 | -1.6 |
| Effective Leadership - Leaders | 180 of 229 | 44.4 | -1.2 |
| Work/Life Balance | 185 of 229 | 57.6 | -3.5 |
| Strategic Management | 190 of 229 | 52.7 | -1.5 |