The subtle difference between engagement and experience in the 2024 FEVS

Agencies have the results of the 2024 Federal Employee Experience Survey (FEVS) in hand—and overall employee feedback has a positive trend. The 2024 FEVS achieved a record high of 73% in the Employee Engagement Index.

But as agencies begin to dig deeper into the survey results, they may want to consider the intersection of two key 2024 FEVS metrics: employee engagement and employee experience.

The difference between these two measures of the federal workforce is small, but it is important to understand in order to create better federal jobs over the long term.

Workplace conditions that promote engagement

Employee engagement, as defined by OPM, measures how effectively the federal workplace provides conditions that allow employees to feel connected and committed to their jobs. These conditions include things like effective leadership, meaningful work, and career opportunities.

According to OPMManagers can use the results of the FEVS Employee Engagement Index to understand where they should aim to maintain or improve various workplace conditions.

The FEVS Employee Engagement Index is a calculation based on the aggregate results of employees’ opinions of senior management, line managers and their own work experience. The FEVS Employee Engagement Index in 2024 increased 1% from last year, setting the index at a record high of 73% since its inception in 2010.

Taking a closer look at the results, each sub-index of employee engagement has shown modest improvements over the past few years. The biggest increase was in the leader-leadership category, which measures how federal employees rate the performance of their agencies’ top leaders. Between 2023 and 2024, this sub-index increased from 61% to 63%.

For government as a whole, the question of whether managers are communicating the organization’s goals scored 68% in the Leaders Lead section. The lowest scoring question (52%) asked employees whether senior managers provide high levels of motivation and commitment to employees. Both of these issues showed growth of 2% from 2023.

After all, the more engaged employees feel, the more likely they are to put effort into their work and do a good job.

“I just hope that we can keep the conversation going around how great the need is to invest in your workers at all experience levels,” said Tracy DiMartini, IRS human resources specialist, at the Oct. 24 event. organized by GovExec. “Employees with 25 or 30 years of experience are just as important as those we hire. Because the minute people feel like you’re not investing in them, they just don’t feel like they’re interested, and they’re not going to give you better work.”

As a result of higher work productivity, high employee engagement can also lead to best customer experience.

“Of course, employee engagement is how many agencies try to measure the health of an organization,” Colleen Heller-Stein, executive director Council of Human Capital Chief Executives (CHCO)said earlier this month at an event hosted by Cornerstone.

What employee experience means at FEVS 2024

Based on employee engagement results, agency leaders may decide to make changes to the work environment to try to make it more conducive to engaged employees.

With these changes made, the 2024 FEVS Employee Experience Index asks: In fact make employees feel more engaged?

The Employee Experience Index is the result of how employees answered the following five questions:

• My work inspires me.
• The work I do gives me a sense of accomplishment.
• I feel a strong personal attachment to my organization.
• I share the mission of my organization.
• It is important to me that my work brings the common good.

Employee scores on all but one of the survey questions increased between 2023 and 2024. The final question—“it is important to me that my work contributes to the common good”—retained the same score of 92%, making it the highest-ranking question in the entire FEVS.

Overall, the index scored 74% in the 2024 FEVS, up 1% from the 2023 survey. A separate measure of employee experience is a new FEVS feature that OPM added to the survey for the first time in 2022.

Agency-specific FEVS results have not yet been released for the 2024 FEVS, but the Social Security Administration shared preliminary findings with Federal News Network earlier this month. SSA employees who responded to the survey showed an upward trend in both employee engagement and employee experience. SSA Engagement Score increased by 3% and Experience Score increased by 2%.

While these two metrics—engagement and experience—are separate dimensions, they are also inherently intertwined.

“The feedback we’re getting on these two complementary indices really tells us that what we’re doing is strengthening the environment at SSA and making it more conducive to employee engagement,” Kristen Medley-Proctor, Acting Deputy SSA Commissioner for Human Rights. resources, the message says recent interview. “We see this particularly in our front-end components—our operational components that serve the public every day—which is really important because there is a connection between employee engagement and customer experience.”

© Federal News Network, 2024. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.