Driving performance by building employee satisfaction and engagement: good government requires good people, which is why the key to meeting our current challenges is talent--committed and engaged talent.

In a recent conversation, the CEO of the Gallup Organization (which has done extensive research on employment, in addition to conducting its famous polls) mentioned a large corporation that wanted to do a customer satisfaction survey. He advised the company's executives that, if they really wanted to get maximum bang for their buck, they should focus on employee engagement. That's because when an organization has high levels of engagement, customer satisfaction--and performance--will follow.

It is a revealing anecdote, and one that is backed up by private-sector research. In one study of 50 global companies, the researchers found that the firms with high levels of employee engagement produced dramatically better bottom-line results than the companies with low levels of engagement. In three key metrics--income, income growth, and earnings per share, the high-engagement organizations performed up to 43 percent better. (1)

But that's the private sector. Does this finding translate to government, and to public-sector financial management?

The answer is an unequivocal yes.

It's hard to imagine a time in recent history when government has faced bigger challenges, including huge budget cuts that are forcing downsizing, lay offs, and furloughs. At the same time, governments are being asked to provide more and better services as America faces a new set of public challenges: fixing our economy, maintaining the quality of life in our communities, and expanding opportunity by improving schools and providing affordable health care.

Good government requires good people, which is why the key to meeting these challenges is talent--committed and engaged talent. The Partnership for Public Service, a non-partisan, non-profit organization, provides the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings as a tool to help achieve its goals of helping government attract talented people and helping transform government. The Best Places rankings are based on employee satisfaction surveys, and its results and take-aways apply to all levels of government.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEASUREMENT

You can't manage what you don't measure. That's why the Best Places rankings are an important tool for managers who want to maximize employee satisfaction. By shining light on what drives employee satisfaction, Best Places helps provide a roadmap for organizations and managers to better engage their employees. In addition to ranking federal agencies on a satisfaction index score (calculated based on employee survey data collected by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management through its Federal Human Capital Survey), the Partnership for Public Service also calculate scores in ten key workplace dimensions (e.g., "effective leadership; "employee skills/mission match; and "work/life balance") and in ten demographic categories, including race/ethnicity and age. To dig deeper and make the results more useful to all levels of government, the data is analyzed to find out which of the ten workplace dimensions best predict overall employee satisfaction. These drivers are relevant to all organizations that want to understand and improve employee satisfaction.

WHAT DRIVES EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

The top four drivers of employee satisfaction are: 1) effective leadership, 2) employee skills and mission match, 3) work/life balance, and 4) training and development. In other words, organizations and managers that focus on these four factors will have the best chance of improving employee satisfaction--and therefore improving organizational performance. But what do these dimensions really mean, and how can managers and organizations make the best use of this information?

Before answering that question, it's important to be clear on one point. Employee satisfaction doesn't mean that work is easy or that employees are always happy. Instead, satisfaction means committed employees--what one observer referred to as public servants who are willing to give their "discretionary energy" to their work. In other words, they don't just punch the clock. Instead, they really commit to their organizations and their jobs. And Best Places shows that some of the most committed and productive employees are in highly demanding work environments.

The ten workplace dimensions the survey examines were developed using statistical techniques that tie together specific survey questions from the Federal Human Capital Survey in a way that is both meaningful and statistically sound (and these are not always the same). For example, the leadership dimension consists of 13 questions that range from perceptions about how well immediate supervisors do their jobs to how employees feel about their agency's senior leadership. The questions that make up the leadership dimension (the scale was either "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree" or "very poor" to "very good") include:

* How good a job do you feel your immediate supervisor/team leader is doing?

* Employees have a feeling of personal empowerment and ownership of work processes.

* Supervisors support employee development.

* Satisfaction with involvement in decisions that affect work.

* Satisfaction with information received from management.

* Performance discussions with my supervisor are worthwhile.

* I have a high level of respect for my organization's senior leaders.

* Leaders generate high motivation and commitment.

The skills/mission match dimension includes these five employee survey questions (the scale was "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree"):

* I know how my work relates to agency mission and goals.

* I do important work.

* My work gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment.

* My talents are used well.

* I like the kind of work I do.

Work/life balance, the third most important driver, consists of three questions:

* My supervisor supports my need to balance work and family issues.

* I have sufficient resources (e.g., people, materials, budget, etc.) to get my work done.

* My workload is reasonable.

And the fourth dimension, training and development, includes these questions:

* I am given a real opportunity to improve my skills in my organization.

* I have enough information to do my job well.

* My training needs are assessed.

* How satisfied are you with the training you receive for your present job?

APPLYING THE RESULTS

One important lesson from Best Places is that employee satisfaction matters--and therefore organizations and managers need to work hard to maximize employee satisfaction. One way to do this is to use The Partnership for Public Service's workplace dimensions, and particularly the questions in each dimension, as guides or even checklists. More satisfied and productive employees will answer these questions more positively, and the challenge for organizations and managers is to create workplaces that maximize the probability that employees will do so.

This is not solely--or even primarily--the job of Human Resources. Yes, HR must put in place strategies, systems, processes, and tools for managers and employees. But individual leaders, managers, and supervisors can move the needle of employee satisfaction by focusing on the critical workplace dimensions, and the issues embedded in each of the four dimensions.

BUILDING EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

The Best Places results are not just interesting--they are highly useful and clearly show that improving employee satisfaction should occur at the work unit level. And this can be done without spending a lot of money or resources. Building good leadership, clarifying the line of sight between an employee's work and the organization's mission, making sure that employees can have a personal life, and providing developmental opportunities can pay big dividends.

But how to do this? The first step is to survey employees to identify strengths and weaknesses, and then establish a baseline. Then, act on the results. Ways the top-ranked agencies in Best Places have responded to employee survey results to build higher levels of satisfaction include:

* Adopting and expanding flexible work schedules, including telework and flextime.

* Creating an emerging leaders program to develop the next generation of leaders.

* Expanding training, but emphasizing online education to stretch tight budgets.

* Creating career coaching and mentoring programs.

* Developing a program to provide "spot" staff to help units facing temporary work overloads.

* Actively involving employee groups, including unions, in meeting regularly with senior leaders.

* Expanding supervisory training to focus on targeted competencies driven by employee survey results.

* Bringing together managers and supervisors from across the organization to discuss common challenges--and solutions.

* Providing performance management training to improve communication with employees about performance expectations.

* Expanding student intern programs to offer challenging assignments to college students, with the goal of hiring the best into permanent jobs.

CONCLUSIONS

Is building higher levels of employee satisfaction easy? Probably not, but few things that are worthwhile are easy, The more important question is whether improving employee job satisfaction is doable. And the answer is yes, for organizations that make a commitment to focus on employee engagement. Best Places can be a useful resource to help make this happen. The complete Best Places to Work scores, rankings, and other information can be accessed at www.bestplacestowork.org.

Note

(1.) "Employee Engagement Underpins Business Transformation," September 2009, Towers Perrin, http://wwwtowersperrin.com/tp/getwebcachedoc?country=gbr&webc=GBR/2008/200 807/TP_ISR_July08.pdf.

BOB LAVIGNA is vice president of research for the Partnership for Public Service. Before joining the Partnership, he served for more than 30 years in federal, state, and local government. Lavigna can be contacted at [e-mail].