OFFICE OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT   (OHRM) - Human Capital planning, development & outreach

2007 ANNUAL EMPLOYEE SURVEY

SURVEY BACKGROUND
With 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 survey their employees annually to assess employee satisfaction as well as leadership and management practices that contribute to agency performance.

OPM issued final regulations implementing mandatory employee surveys on August 24, 2006, as subpart C, Employee Surveys, of 5 CFR part 250, Personnel Management in Agencies. The final regulations which are effective as of January 1, 2007 provided a list of questions and response options that must appear in each agency’s employee survey. Every other year OPM will administer the Federal Human Capital Survey (FHCS) government-wide which will satisfy the survey requirement..
Although the Veterans Health Administration has been conducting surveys for the past several years, and wished to continue using its Administration-specific survey questions instead of the questions OPM has published, OPM ruled that since the requirement is mandated by law, agencies must participate and use the required questions. However, agencies can append the required items to an existing survey, or collect data from a small, statistically valid sample.
In order to properly compare results of the Annual Employee Survey (AES) with the FHCS, VA used the same parameters as the FHCS (i.e., full-time, permanent employees as well as the three Administrations and Staff Offices (VA-Other)). The Office of Human Resources Management contracted with the VHA National Center for Organization Development to select the sample, administer the survey and conduct data analysis, including comparing the percentage distribution of respondents for each demographic to the percentage distribution of the demographic in the target population. The AES ended 12-19-07.

The AES uses questions developed for the Federal Human Capital Survey (FHCS) which is an assessment tool administered by OPM to measure employees' perceptions of whether and to what extent the conditions that characterize successful organizations are present in their agencies. It also serves as a tool for OPM to assess progress toward "green" on Strategic Management of Human Capital under the President's Management Agenda. The FHCS was administered in 2002, 2004 and 2006. The FHCS is directed at full-time, permanent employees from agencies represented on the President’s Management Council (PMC).