2009 Annual Employee Survey for the US Access Board

By law, the U.S. Access Board is required to conduct the Annual Employee Survey and make these survey results available to the public on its website.  In 2009, the U.S. Access Board administered the Annual Employee (AES) to its employees.  Below the 2009 survey results are presented, along with the survey methodology.

Background on the Annual Employee Survey

In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 (Public Law 108-136, November 24, 2003, 117 STAT. 1641), Congress established a requirement for agencies to conduct an annual survey of their employees to assess employee satisfaction as well as leadership and management practices that contribute to agency performance.  As required by the Act, OPM issued final regulations implementing mandatory employee survey, as subpart C, Employee Surveys, of 5 Code of Federal Regulations, part 250, Personnel Management in Agencies.  The final regulations, which are effective as of 2007, prescribe survey questions that must appear on each agency’s employee survey.  These items constitute the Annual Employee Survey, which is what the Access Board administered in 2009.

Survey Process

In 2009, the Access Board partnered with the Office of Personnel Management’s Center for Talent Services (CTS) which provides a variety of human resources services to federal agencies.  CTS administered the AES to the Access Board employees.  Data collection was done in a secure online environment.  In early October, a senior official of the U.S. Access Board e-mailed all employees, notifying the upcoming survey and inviting their participation.  Following that, all employees received an initial invitation from CTS via email.  Employees were allowed to participate in the online survey over a period of two and a half weeks.  A participation reminder was sent by CTS to employees a week prior to the closing of the survey.  Any assistance requested by an employee was handled by CTS via e-mail.

U.S. Access Board Survey Methodology

The total survey population at the U.S. Access Board is 28 employees (as of October, 2009).  Of the 28 employees, 26 responded; therefore, the total response rate was 93%.  (This high response rate seems to be possible, largely due to the introduction of the fully-accessible online survey for all employees including those with visual impairments.)

Because of the small population size of the US Access Board, employees were not asked any demographic questions.  This is a standard procedure for agencies with less than 800 employees.  Any demographic breakouts in a population of only 28 employees would be too small to be statistically relevant, regardless of the response rate.  In addition, the exclusion of the demographic questions helped to preserve the confidentiality of the employee’s responses.

Survey Findings

The 2009 Annual Employee Survey shows that the agency scored very high (i.e., greater than 65% favorable – Strongly Agree/Agree or Very Satisfied/Satisfied) on the majority of the items for questions measuring satisfaction with:  (i) personal work experiences; (ii) recruitment, development, and retention; as well as (iii) leadership.  The employees are highly satisfied with their work; they think that managers communicate the goals and priorities of the agency; and they understand well how their work is related to the agency’s goals and priorities.  On the other hand, the lowest scores were obtained on the items measuring performance culture, especially on the items concerning management of poor and high performers.  A couple of items on training and promotion opportunity had low favorability ratings, as well.  However, this year’s scores for training and performance management are an improvement over comparable questions included in last year’s survey.  Training and performance management are the areas that the agency’s senior leadership plans to address in the upcoming year.