Fact Sheet
Bureau of Human Resources
Washington, DC
July 5, 2005
Encouraging Results for State Department in 2004 Federal Human Capital SurveyAs the State Department works to improve the management of its most valuable resource, its employees (human capital), results are encouraging from the recent report from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). OPM's government-wide "2004 Human Capital Survey" provides agency-specific results along with comparisons to its last survey from 2002 and private sector results. Each Federal agency was rated in the following areas:
- Leadership;
- Performance culture;
- Talent (recruitment, development, and retention);
- Job satisfaction; and
- Federal benefits.
Of the 276,000 Federal government employees surveyed electronically, more than 150,000 employees government-wide responded to the survey, a 54% response rate. The State Department had a 57% response rate with 1,272 respondents. Its responses were more favorable than, or at least as favorable as the majority of the 78 survey items when compared to the median of government-wide results. In the areas of leadership, performance culture, and talent, the Department's responses overall were more positive than the government-wide results. Responses were similar to those of the private sector in the area of personal experiences. Respondents were less positive about job satisfaction, however, than those in the private sector.
Overall, State Department respondents were more positive with regard to personal work experiences, performance culture, learning (knowledge management), job satisfaction, and benefits than they were in 2002. There was a significant increase in positive responses (between 15% and 34% each), while the difference in decreases in positive responses were much smaller (5% each on average).
The State Department's 2004 most favorable ratings were in the use of technology, work group cooperation and quality of work, and importance of work. Department employees' use of technology is notably higher than the government-wide ratings. The survey also showed that the respondents saw marked improvement since 2002 in opportunities to improve their skills, management's support of employee development, electronic access to learning and training programs on desktops, personal empowerment, and leaders' ability to motivate and commit to employees.
Respondents were slightly less positive in their 2004 survey than they were in the 2002 survey in certain survey items. Decreases of about 5% each were found in the areas of work unit complaints, disputes and grievances being resolved fairly; work unit products and services improving based on customer/public input; management assessment of the organization's progress in meeting its goals and objectives; the individual understanding of how his/her work relates to the agency's goals and priorities; and improved skill level of the individual's work unit.
In identifying challenges facing the Department, respondents felt that the Department needed improvement on:
- Differentiating performance in a meaningful way;
- Dealing with poor performers;
- Recognizing and rewarding high performers; and
- Rewarding creativity and innovation.
In analyzing these results, the State Department's Bureau of Human Resources also examined the demographics of the respondents. The respondents were not totally representative of the Department's workforce. Seventy-five percent of the respondents identified themselves as supervisors, managers, or executives, while less than 40% of our workforce aligns with these groups. More than half of the respondents are 50 years of age or older, although such persons account for 36% of the Department's workforce. More than half of the respondents have more than 20 years of government service while only 28% of its workforce has that many years in government.
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