Most Federal Workers Say Employee Experience Directly Impacts Citizen Service, According to New Eagle Hill Consulting National Employee Survey

But Few Feds Say Agencies Deliver on Employee Experience and Satisfaction

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Jul 20, 2021, 10:05 ET

ARLINGTON, Va., July 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A new survey from Eagle Hill Consulting finds that fifty-one percent of U.S. federal workers believe that the employee experience at their agency directly impacts their ability to serve citizens. Yet, only one-third (33 percent) say that their agency places importance on employee experience and satisfaction.

This research comes as citizen satisfaction with federal government services is at its lowest point since 2015.

The Eagle Hill Consulting Federal Employee Experience Survey was conducted online by Greenwald Research in December 2020. The online survey included 509 respondents from federal employees across the U.S. Read more in Exceptional Customer Experience in Government Stems from Empowered Federal Employees.

"The key takeaway for federal agency leaders is that failing to focus on the employee experience leads to downstream effects on citizens," says David Witkowski, who leads the federal practice at Eagle Hill Consulting.

"Agencies have made big technology investments to improve the customer experience – from enhancing self-service options, improving websites, and offering greater channel flexibility. But technology can never replace the human interaction that lies at the heart of a citizen's experience with government. And that human touch is all the more important as citizens are battered from the pandemic, the economic crisis, and natural disasters. Citizens likely will continue to need an even higher degree of caring and support from engaged federal employees to help solve their problems," Witkowski explained.

The research also finds that:

Federal respondents say their organizations both weighted customer experience as more essential to delivering the organizational mission (55 percent) and took action to improve customer experience (46 percent) than say their organization considered employee experience more essential to delivering on the organizational mission (29 percent) and took action to improve it (29 percent).
A majority of federal respondents agree that their feelings about their day-to-day work experience—negative or positive—impact their productivity (58 percent).
Only about half (53 percent) of federal employees report being very satisfied with their overall experience working at their agency.
Survey respondents most often cited their willingness to help others, including peers, partners and of course, customers, as the area most affected by their feelings about their daily work experience (62 percent).
Federal employees who say they are dissatisfied with their overall experience at work are much more likely (25 percent versus 7 percent) to say that that their feelings about their day-to-day work experience negatively impact their willingness to help others.
Most federal employees feel good about their individual performance but feel far less confident in their teammates' abilities and performance. Forty-six percent of respondents cite having to do the work of underperforming colleagues among their top sources of frustration at work.
One-third of federal workers (34 percent) say their manager/supervisor does not demonstrate care/concern about their interactions and relationships with team members.
While 69 percent of federal workers say technology improves their ability to serve customers, 22 percent say technology actually makes it harder for them to do their work. Overall, more than one third of respondents (38 percent) say technology frustrates them.

Steps that agencies can take to improve both the employee and customer experience are detailed here.

Eagle Hill Consulting LLC is a woman-owned business that provides unconventional management consulting services in the areas of Strategy & Performance, Talent, and Change. The company's expertise in delivering innovative solutions to unique challenges spans across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, from financial services to healthcare to media & entertainment. Eagle Hill has offices in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, Boston, MA and Seattle, WA. More information is available at www.eaglehillconsulting.com.

SOURCE Eagle Hill Consulting