The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently released the results of its 2010 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), which was previously known as the Federal Human Capital Survey. According to OPM, the FEVS has been updated to gather more useful data that will help improve the federal workplace and increase productivity. OPM has also announced that the survey, previously conducted every two years, will now be conducted annually.

The survey focuses on employee perceptions that drive job satisfaction, commitment, engagement and, ultimately, contribute to the accomplishment of agency missions. The survey results are widely followed and serve as the basis for the rankings in the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government list regularly published by the Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.

According to OPM, the FEVS is a tool that measures employee’s perceptions of whether, and to what extent, conditions characterizing successful organizations are present in the agencies surveyed. The FEVS surveyed perceptions in four key areas identified by OPM as important to measuring an organization’s success: (1) leadership and knowledge, (2) results-oriented performance culture (3) talent management and (4) job satisfaction.

The 2010 FEVS results for the SEC reflect a continued decline in employee satisfaction in connection with virtually all of the key survey categories, except for those areas that measure work/life balance and reflect the joint efforts of the Union and management to work together. In 2006, the SEC was ranked 3^rd on the Best Place list. In 2008, after a significant, across the board drop in survey scores, the SEC dropped to 11^th place on the Best Place list (the 2008 Survey was administered before the financial crisis and before Madoff). The 2010 list has not been released, but the SEC’s declining scores suggest a further decline in its comparative ranking.

As was the case in 2008, the FEVS reflects an alarmingly high level of negative employee perceptions about the SEC’s direction as it relates to human capital policies. It reflects a high level of concern about the quality and effectiveness of some SEC managers, the fairness and transparency of promotions and performance awards and the extent to which front line SEC employees have an impact on their own work lives.

The report is extensive, links to it may be found on the Union’s website here. The survey asked supervisors and front line staff to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement in response to 74 statements. The responses were either "Positive," "Neutral" or "Negative," and are in one of five categories: "Strongly Agree," "Agree," "Neither Agree nor Disagree," "Disagree" and "Strongly Disagree." The results report the percentage of responses falling into each category.

The SEC’s results reflect highly positive perceptions in areas where the Union and the agency have worked together to make improvements, such as telework, alternative work schedules and creating a work-life balance. However, the uniform and persistently high negative scores in other areas indicate the need for a renewed commitment to improving human capital policies and practices.

There is no question that the increased burden on the staff post-Madoff and post-financial crisis has contributed to declining scores in connection with areas that measure whether the staff believes it has sufficient resources to do its job and whether it believes its workload is reasonable. Significant declines in these areas contain no surprises, and we expect that the SEC will address them with added staff and resources. However, the Survey results also reveal significant, chronic problems that have continued to worsen, notwithstanding the changes in leadership across the Agency.

Performance Culture

The SEC’s scores have consistently declined in connection with aspects of the management culture, such as whether employees feel as though they are encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things and whether one’s talents are utilized well in the workplace. The SEC’s scores on the survey question asking whether "creativity and innovation" are rewarded have dropped from 42.7% positive in 2006 to 34.6% positive in 2008 to 29.9% positive in 2010.

Furthermore, only a minority of respondents believe that management rewards good performance. In connection with promotions and performance awards, only about one third of respondents believe that promotions are based on merit. The negative responses to this question have risen from 28% in 2006 to 40.5% in 2010.

Concerns about the bases for awards and promotions are further reflected in perceptions about how management allocates performance awards. Only about one third of respondents believe that when management distributes performance awards they are based on merit. In fact, a greater percentage (40.7% compared to 35.4%) believes that performance awards are not based on merit.

The survey also reveals a failure on the part of many supervisors to clearly define expectations. Only slightly more than half of the respondents report understanding after their most recent performance review what they had to do to improve their performance. Similarly, only about half of the respondents believe that their supervisors provide them with constructive suggestions to improve their job performance. In fact, only about half of the respondents believe that discussions with their supervisors about their performance were even worthwhile at all.

The survey also shows that SEC staff feel that they have a lack of personal input into their own work lives. For example, only about one third of respondents agree that they have a feeling of personal empowerment with respect to their own work processes. The negative responses to this question have risen from 26.7% in 2006 to 33.4% in 2008 to 38.1% in 2010. In fact, unlike prior years, the negative responses to this question exceed the positive (38.1% to 37.7%). 

Leadership

The 2010 FHVS measured "leadership" with ten questions. Seven of the ten questions were also asked in prior years, but three were new and thus previous surveys contain no comparative data on these new questions. In connection with each of the seven carryover questions, the negative responses increased as compared to the 2008 results. 39.6% of employees responded negatively when asked whether SEC "leaders generate high levels of motivation and commitment in the workforce" as compared to 35.5% who responded favorably two years ago. Asked whether they have a high level of respect for the SEC’s senior leaders, less than half responded favorably (49.4%). This represents a nearly 5% decrease over the 2008 results and an over 10% drop since 2006.  

What’s Next?

Everyone can agree that the SEC needs to take proactive steps to address declining employee morale and perceptions about their job. We all know that the agency will be hiring new employees over the coming year, providing new technology to help us do our jobs, and creating new training opportunities. We welcome these changes. But clearly the survey results reveal some deeper cultural issues about the nature of the relationship between managers and front line employees which also need to be addressed.

As you will recall, the SEC responded to the 2008 Federal Human Capital Survey results by organizing "focus groups" in each office and division to discuss ways to improve the agency. Unfortunately, however, we have yet to see any actual changes as a result of that process. Furthermore, the SEC’s biggest division, Enforcement, was not permitted to participate in that focus group process at all, and thus Enforcement employees have had no real opportunity to provide feedback on how to improve the agency.

The Union has appointed a number of committees throughout the SEC this year to make proposals to management regarding positive changes to address the issues raised in the focus groups. We are also moving ahead with the creation of a Labor-Management Forum at the SEC, in response to President Obama’s Executive Order to create such forums across the federal government. The Union intends to continue to press for the resolution of the Human Capital Survey focus group issues as a high priority item in this new forum.

The highly skilled professional employees that comprise the SEC’s front line workforce, together with the Union that represents them, stand ready to discuss and implement positive changes at the agency to ensure that the agency succeeds in its mission to serve as the investors’ protector. We continue to hope that management will listen and engage in that discussion.