A recent news story from the Federal News Network focused on the recent approach by President Joe Biden’s administration to get federal employee feedback on employee engagement, the pandemic and plans to return to the office, and equity and inclusion. Any time a survey is done there is typically some bad that comes with the good, but a telling part of this survey is the lack of employee satisfaction at the Social Security Administration.
Workers from all agencies participated in the survey, but Social Security employees, more so than other agencies, expressed frustration with high workloads and identified exhaustion as common when it comes to their jobs. Social Security continues to be understaffed and it is likely to be a reason for high workloads and exhaustion. Below is a portion of the study that addresses Social Security employee concerns as identified by the Federal News Network.
Most responses from the federal workforce, as a whole, generally fell between “neutral” and “somewhat agree” for most of the survey’s prompts.
Going deeper into the responses, however, agencies and their components showed the most variation on responses about whether leadership was doing a good job protecting employees’ health, safety and wellbeing.
Employees at DoD, the Education Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and SSA said they were the most likely to take a different job with more remote work options or workplace flexibilities.
Aside from feedback on return-to-office plans, federal employees on average gave the highest ratings to having someone at work they could talk to about their day-to-day problems, and agency leadership showing they value diversity and inclusion goals in the workplace.
Employees at SSA, followed by the Veterans Affairs Department and USAID, were more likely than employees at other agencies to feel exhausted in the morning at the thought of another day of work.
Employees at DHS and SSA said they were most likely to take another job that offered the same pay and benefits as their current position.
Respondents who work at SSA, followed by USAID, gave the lowest marks to the reasonableness of their workloads.
