Survey: Performance, Pressure Have Increased Among Remote Government Employees During COVID
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By
Frank Konkel
The survey also revealed managers seem to trust employees to perform more in virtual environments.
Nearly half of remote and hybrid government employees report team performance has improved over the past two years, according to a survey released this week that examined workforce trends during the pandemic.
The survey, conducted by Eagle Hill Consulting, polled more than 1,000 U.S.-based full-time employees during the month of May and found 46% of government employees who telework reported their team’s performance improved since 2020. Comparatively, only 35% of government employees working in-person reported team performance improvements during the same period.
Pandemic life has upped the pressure among government employees, too. Nearly two in three (64%) report feeling “more pressure to perform” on the job, with 63% believing they need to “prove their value.” The pressure may contribute to government employees’ sense of performance, with about half reporting individual improvements in their own work during the two-year period.
In addition, three in four government workers say they feel “more committed to quality outcomes” during the pandemic, with another 70% feeling “more supported by their supervisor.”
“The pandemic was transformational for the government workforce, accelerating what employees have long desired: more flexibility,” Melissa Jezior, president and chief executive officer of Eagle Hill Consulting, said in a statement. “Our research is a clear signal that flexible work environments—both fully remote and hybrid approaches—can deliver performance results. And by providing government employees with more flexibility, government employers may have better outcomes when it comes to attracting and keeping workers at a time when public employers are really struggling to compete with the private sector.”
Another key finding in the survey relates to trust. More than nine in 10 federal employees believe their manager “trusts them to get the job done,” and is relatively consistent among fully remote, hybrid and in-person employees.