Employee Benefits Survey

The Office of Personnel Management has released the findings of 2006 Employee Benefits Survey. Employees' positive views about such benefits as health benefits, retirement annuity, retirement health benefits, and life insurance had increased slightly since 2004. At the same time, about 30 percent of those responding to the survey could not rate telework because it was not offered in their agencies.

In fact, telework, child care subsidies, and health and wellness all received lower ratings. OPM noted that employees may not have access to some or all of these at their agencies, or they may not be eligible to participate.

The benefits survey focused on 10 benefits programs and was issued to a random sample of 2,000 employees governmentwide last August. The target population included almost equal numbers of employees with three or more years of federal service and new hires who had less than three years service. OPM received 850 responses.