Employees Rate Bureau of Economic Analysis Among Top Federal Agencies

Employees of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) rank the agency among top federal work places, according to results of the 2003 Organizational Assessment Survey conducted by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). OPM’s Performance America Network uses the survey to measure 17 areas of organizational excellence. Based on survey results, BEA set federal agency benchmark highs in 12 of the 17 areas employees were asked about. Additionally, BEA employee ratings were more favorable than the private sector in overall satisfaction in the organization, physical working conditions, and involvement in decisions that affect employee work, pay, and recognition for doing a good job.

BEA Director J. Steven Landefeld said, "The agency is very proud of the high employee ratings. Our employees have earned high respect for the importance and quality of the statistics produced here and, as we can see now, for making BEA a very good work place."

Landefeld said employees should be particularly pleased with the high ratings in areas like diversity, strategic planning, work environment/quality of work life, employee involvement, and training/career development.

"We take our employees’ concerns seriously," Landefeld said. "Although we rated well in last year’s survey, over the past 12 months we involved employees in projects that led to improvements in all 17 areas of the survey."

The 12 areas where BEA set the federal benchmark highs in the 2003 survey were diversity, strategic planning, work environment/quality of work life, performance measures, employee involvement, rewards and recognition, communication, leadership and quality, use of resources, training/career development, innovation, and job security/commitment to workforce.

The Organizational Assessment Survey assesses dimensions that organizational theory, research, and practice show are related to high performance. OPM has worked successfully with many organizations in all phases of organizational assessment and change management. These organizations have used the OAS to assess their performance, benchmark best practices, make changes, and evaluate their success. With technical guidance and support from OPM, the Performance America Network members have achieved a strong return on their investment and commitment to improving their organizational processes and practices.