Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey Data Research Articles

Telework and Work Flexibility in the United States Federal Government Post-Pandemic

A decade before the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States (US) federal government was working to create flexible work environments for employees under the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act. Given this reality and the growing desire for greater flexibility of workers inspired by the “Great Resignation” during the pandemic, the US federal government appears to have recovered lost employees faster than other levels of the public sector. Still, given that federal workers skew older with less than a tenth of the workforce being under age 30 years and nearly a third reaching retirement age, a true crisis still looms in our administrative state. Using the 2021 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey Data, we analyze what factors predict turnover intention post-pandemic, focusing the analysis on teleworking and other workplace flexibility policies. We use the findings to make recommendations to help increase employee recruitment and retention within the US federal government.

The impact of presidential elections on workplace satisfaction in the U.S. federal agencies: A longitudinal study (2004–2019)

While job satisfaction has been widely studied by public management scholars, little research has examined the impact of external political events on the federal workforce, and specifically how presidential elections might affect satisfaction over time. Using Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data spanning sixteen years (2004–2019) and three U.S. presidential administrations (Bush, Obama, and Trump), we employ hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to investigate how presidential elections affect workplace satisfaction at the agency level. We find that workplace satisfaction does shift in response to presidential elections, decreasing during the first terms while increasing in the second terms. We further find workplace satisfaction is largely unaffected by federal agency’s ideological alignment with the President’s party. These findings suggest that neutral competence endures among civil servants over time and points to the federal bureaucracy’s resilience in the face of ongoing political change.

Benefit and hidden cost of organizational support for telework amid the COVID‐19 pandemic on public employees' job satisfaction and retention intention

AbstractThis study examines the impact of crisis‐induced telework during the COVID‐19 pandemic 2020 on public sector employees' job satisfaction (JS) and retention intention (RI). Analyses of the 2020 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data reveal a negative association between the amount of COVID‐induced telework and the federal employees' JS and RI. However, this negative effect is mitigated by offering adequate organizational telework support for mandatory telework during the COVID peak and subsequently decreasing the amount of telework after the peak. Nevertheless, the findings also indicate that solid organizational support for teleworkers during the pandemic's peak can ironically discourage them from returning to the regular work setting even when it is safe, potentially compromising organizational performance—a hidden cost of the organizational support. Still, this hidden cost does not appear to be significant enough to warrant revisions in the level of crisis‐specific organizational support.

Improvements in employee performance management over time: evidence from U.S. federal agencies

ABSTRACT This study examines annual changes in U.S. federal employee perceptions of their organization’s performance appraisal process to assess whether improvements in the fairness of the process and the quality of feedback received increase the motivational effects of these employee performance management systems. Analysing ten years of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data, we find that employee perceptions of appraisal fairness and feedback quality increased between 2010 and 2019, as did the strength of the relationship between employee performance management and work effort. The paper concludes with further discussion of some implications of these findings.

A Study of Interracial Differences in Turnover Intentions: The Mitigating Role of Pro-Diversity and Justice-Oriented Management

Enhancing racial justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion are the core values of public administration and critical to the functions of public-sector strategic human resources management. However, very limited empirical research has delved into the interracial differences in public sector employees’ turnover intentions and its mitigating factors. Using the 2006–2017 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data, the present study aims to contribute toward filling this gap in the literature. The theoretical arguments and empirical findings of this study show that when compared with White employees, Federal Black, Indigenous, and Employees of Color (BIEOC) are significantly more likely to intend to leave their current organizations. However, the likelihood of turnover intentions of Federal employees, particularly, BIEOC can be reduced through institutional interventions anchored in pro-diversity management (e.g., commitment to fostering a racially representative workforce), distributive justice in employment outcomes (e.g., in pay and promotions) and procedural justice in organizational processes (e.g., anti-discrimination practices).

Association of Employee Engagement Factors and Turnover Intention Among the 2015 U.S. Federal Government Workforce.

Employee turnover is a major challenge facing the federal workforce, which has lost more employees to voluntary turnover than any other form of turnover. This study determined the associations between engagement, demographic factors, and voluntary turnover intention by analyzing 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data. The findings indicate that employees with higher engagement levels are less likely to report an intention to leave their jobs than those with lower engagement levels. All engagement factors-perceptions of supervisors, leaders, and intrinsic work experience-are independently associated with turnover intention. Demographics also influenced turnover intention; being younger, male, and in a supervisory role and having a higher education level and shorter tenure were more likely to indicate turnover intention. Increasing employee engagement can have a positive effect on retaining a productive federal workforce. To retain an effective federal workforce, human capital management practices are needed to optimize factors that reduce turnover intention.

Moving beyond Mandates: Organizational Learning Culture, Empowerment, and Performance

ABSTRACTCultural aspects of organizations have been perceived as keys to creating desirable organizational performance in pursuit of an effective government. Particularly, organizational learning culture may enable individuals to learn from each other allowing them to feel free to create creative ideas and transfer knowledge. This study examines whether organizational learning culture is associated with organizational performance through the mediating effect of employee empowerment. Using the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data, the findings show that having organizational culture more conducive to learning is indirectly and positively associated with perceived performance. The study supports that empowerment is an important mediator elucidating the positive association between learning culture and performance.

Do Good Workplace Relationships Encourage Employee Whistle-Blowing?

The literature contains mixed arguments and evidence regarding how employee willingness to blow the whistle is affected by interpersonal relationships in organizations. This article examines whether there is a curvilinear relationship between interpersonal relationships and whistle-blowing intentions, by operationalizing interpersonal relationships with the person-group fit and person-supervisor fit variables. By using the 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data, this article finds that the curvilinear relationship does exist: when the person-group fit and person-supervisor fit become very high, the intention to blow the whistle dwindles. As a result, this article argues that the impacts of workplace relationships on whistle-blowing intention would not be simply linear, but curvilinear.

HR Practices and Knowledge Sharing Behavior

In the era of the knowledge-based economy, knowledge management has increasingly captured the interest and attention of researchers and practitioners. In addition, knowledge sharing behavior has been recognized as an important element of knowledge management. However, few studies have explored knowledge sharing behavior in the public sector. Using the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data, this study investigates the relationship between human resource (HR) practices and knowledge sharing behavior in the public sector, including the moderating role of trust in supervisor. The authors find that HR practices and trust in supervisor play pivotal roles in promoting knowledge sharing behavior. In addition, results show that trust in supervisor moderates the relationships between HR practices and knowledge sharing behavior. The implications of these findings are thoroughly discussed in this study.