No Room for IT?

I'm in the process of analyzing the results of the 2010 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, and you certainly can expect more posts, particularly on telework and the generation-specific results of the survey, in the days to come. But one thing from the survey struck me as a bit surprising: this year's survey did not ask how employees use information technology or how satisfied they are with IT systems to perform work. These questions have been asked of employees on past surveys, and I questioned back in February whether the new survey might make an even better attempt to gauge employee perceptions of agency IT programs and their ability to promote knowledge-sharing and collaboration.

No such questions were asked, however, so there are no results to report. Perhaps the best we can get is a couple of questions on the 2010 survey that related to employee innovation. For example, when asked whether they felt encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things, 59.9 percent of federal workers agreed. Only 41.4 percent of workers indicated that creativity and innovation are rewarded at their agency.

What do you think? Should tech have played a bigger role in the survey, particularly as the government looks to recruit and retain the next generation of federal employees as well as create more open and collaborative cultures at federal agencies?