NEH named a Best Place to Work among small federal agencies

The National Endowment for the Humanities continues to be one of the best places to work in the federal government, according to a new Best Places to Work survey announced by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. 

NEH ranked fourth among small agencies surveyed by the Office of Personnel Management in the spring of 2014. It is the third year in a row that NEH has been among the five top-ranked small agencies. In 2013, NEH was ranked second. 

NEH’s scores fell slightly in 2014 along with scores of satisfaction and commitment of the overall federal workforce. The Endowment score fell from 84.6 out of a possible 100 to 82 in 2014. Government employee satisfaction for all groups stood at 56.9 in 2014, the lowest level since the index was announced in 2003.  Similar scores in the private sector stood at 72 for the current year, according to Hay Group, a technical partner on the survey.    

The survey of 376,000 federal workers measured employee views on leadership, teamwork, innovation, work-life balance and performance based rewards and advancement. The Endowment was ranked among agencies of similar size. 

NEH employees assessed their agency particularly highly on “employee skills-mission match” (81.3); “teamwork” (77.4); “work-life balance” (76.8); and “effective leadership, supervisors” (75.4). 

Women ranked the Endowment especially well. NEH’s female employees gave the agency the highest ranking of 87.9 out of 100 among 16 similar-sized agencies. 

The Partnership for Public service is a non-profit group that seeks to measure and promote leadership and innovation in government.