OPM Launches 2011 Employee Survey

The Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday announced that it has begun to distribute the 2011 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. The survey will be distributed governmentwide through the end of May, and OPM will invite more than half a million federal workers to participate.

The survey, which was previously known as the Federal Human Capital Survey, will measure employee morale as well as organizational climate, culture and engagement issues. This year's survey also will include expanded sections on telework and work-life balance, OPM said.

"The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey is crucial to helping agencies understand how to improve their work environment to increase productivity and provide better service to the American people," OPM Director John Berry said. "Our employees are our most valuable resources, and engaging them is critical."

In past surveys, OPM has asked a couple of questions on how employees use information technology and how satisfied they are with IT systems to perform work. With IT becoming more central to agency missions as well as employee satisfaction (for instance, in the case of telework), it will be interesting to see if the new survey aims to better gauge employee perceptions of agency IT programs and their ability to promote knowledge-sharing, collaboration and improved work-life balance.