DHS ticks up in job satisfaction, still worst among all federal agencies

Homeland Security has ticked up in job satisfaction, though it still brings up the rear as the least-favorite place for federal employees, according to the latest annual survey of workers.

Overall, the department ticked up 2 percentage points in overall satisfaction, from 47 percent to 49 percent. And some of the most embattled agencies in the department — the ones that deal with immigration law enforcement — saw their satisfaction rise even more, the department said.

The numbers stop a several-year skid at the department, and Mr. Johnson said they represent a payoff for what’s been an intense focus on getting employees to feel more engaged.

“We’re still at the bottom of the list, but we’re gaining rapidly on the rest of the pack,” Mr. Johnson said.

He’s led a rollout of a new department mission statement and instituted valor awards that recognize bravery of employees, many of whom saved lives, both on duty and off duty.

Mr. Johnson also put on a uniform and went to work for a brief period alongside Transportation Security Administration employees screening bags at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

The annual federal worker satisfaction survey, administered by the Office of Personnel Management, is a major test of how departments and agencies are viewed by their employees.

The survey probes whether employees feel overworked or properly trained, how they feel their managers are doing and whether they feel their pay, advancement opportunities and benefits, such as child care and exercise-promotion, are up to par.

The OPM divides government into large agencies and small agencies. Among the large ones, NASA remained the best, with a job satisfaction rate of 78 percent. Among small agencies, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget was the top, at 79 percent.

Governmentwide, the overall satisfaction rate is 61 percent. At Homeland Security, the 50 percent rating is better than last year, but it’s still the worst.

And when broken down into the four components, the department ranks last on satisfaction with the job and with the structure of the organization. It is second to last when asked if employees would recommend it to other workers, and it is fourth from the bottom when it comes to satisfaction with the amount of pay.

Critics of the agency — including the labor unions that represent line agents — say the department’s orders stopping officers from arresting many of the illegal immigrants they encounter have sapped morale.

Mr. Johnson countered that the agents told him their morale problems stemmed from pay disputes. He and Congress worked to sort out a long-running fight over overtime within the Border Patrol, and to boost pay parity within ICE, the corps of interior enforcement agents.

The department he oversees is the newest in the government, having been cobbled together in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. It includes everything from emergency management after storms, drug interdiction by the Coast Guard, collecting customs duties from imports to targeting online child sex pornography rings.

Growing pains have shown, and many of the agencies that make up the department have struggled with their own peculiar problems. And it has suffered under President Obama, with the satisfaction rate slipping from 62 percent — above the government average — in 2010 to 47 percent last year. The tick up to 49 percent this year was the first improvement in years.