OPM trumpets the 1 percent

Does 1 percentage point make that much of a difference?

The Office of Personnel Management released partial results from the 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) on Sept. 28, which showed little year-over-year change in federal employees’ attitudes towards their jobs.

“The results show that employees across the Federal Government are more engaged in their workplaces and more satisfied with their jobs than they were a year ago,” OPM’s press release stated, noting the results were based on 421,748 responses from 82 agencies’ employees.

But on the two measures OPM released, “employee engagement” and “global satisfaction,” the changes were both a single percentage point.

The employee engagement score across federal agencies ticked up from 63 percent in 2014 to 64 percent this year, OPM reported, while the 2015 global satisfaction score was 60 percent, a 1-percentage-point bump from last year’s survey results.

“[T]here is still plenty of room for improvement,” OPM’s release noted.

OPM’s announcement said that the 1-percentage-point changes were statistically significant. A spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for statistical clarification.

“This survey data provides a powerful way for agency leaders to be able to think about, and evaluate, their engagement programs and office cultures,” said OPM Acting Director Beth Cobert.

NASA topped both the engagement and satisfaction indices for large agencies, with 78 and 76 percent positive responses, respectively.

The Homeland Security Department registered low marks across the board, with 39 percent of DHS respondents saying they were satisfied with their organization and 38 percent saying their “leaders lead.”

Smaller agencies tended to score higher than large agencies on employee engagement, with an overall 67 percent score for small agencies compared with a government-wide 64 percent.

Fifty percent of the feds contacted about FEVS gave responses to the survey, OPM noted. OPM plans to release the full FEVS data in October.