Unhappiness with senior leadership, teamwork, and concerns about a lack of support for diversity continue to plague the National Park Service as an agency to work for, according to the latest Best Places to Work in the Federal Government Survey.
While most federal agencies saw increasing job satisfaction and commitment, the Park Service slipped again in the rankings, which are based on more than 430,000 employee surveys conducted during the first half of 2015 and analyzed by the Partnership for Public Service—a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to improving the effectiveness of government.
While public interest in the national parks is building ahead of next year's centennial of the Park Service, that anniversary hasn't overcome troubling employee morale, the survey indicates. Category scores for Effective Leadership, Strategic Management, Teamwork, Work-Life Balance, and Support for Diversity all reflected slight declines from 2014's rankings. At the same time, there was modest improvement in the scoring for Performance-Based Rewards and Advancement, Training and Development, and Innovation.
The survey also noted above-average employee departures in 2014, and below-average new hires. While the average number of employees leaving the Park Service stood at 978 from 2009-2014, the actual numbers of employees who quit last year reached 1,095. At the same time, just 267 workers joined the Park Service in 2014, down from the 2009-2014 average of 501.
A request Thursday to discuss the latest survey with officials at the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters, did not draw a response.
The Park Service's overall index score in the 2015 survey, 53.1, was the lowest since the survey was first taken in 2003, and ranked the agency 259 out of 320 agencies. Of the Interior Department's 12 sub-agencies, only the Office of Surface Mining had a lower composite score (50.9), than the Park Service, and only those two agencies within Interior saw overall declines in their rankings.
To put more context into the rankings, the Partnership for Public Service compared the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, two agencies with relatively similar missions but significantly differing levels of employee satisfaction.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has a 2015 Best Places to Work employee satisfaction and commitment score of 65.4 out of 100, a 2.4 increase from 2014. It ranks 93rd out of 320 agency subcomponents government-wide.
In contrast, the National Park Service employee satisfaction and commitment score is just 53.1, a 0.6-point dip from 2014 and 12.3 points lower than the Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Park Service ranks 259 among all agency subcomponents.
Both agencies did well when it comes to the match between employee skills and the mission, with the Fish and Wildlife Service registering a 76.5 score compared to 74.4 for the National Park Service. But in nine other categories measured in the Best Places to Work rankings, the Park Service is way behind its sister agency on employee satisfaction and commitment.
This includes differences of 15 points between the two agencies on training and development opportunities, 10.2 points on satisfaction with pay, 9.5 points on support for diversity, 8.9 points on opportunities for rewards and advancement, 8.3 points on work-life balance and 7.7 points on teamwork.
Denise Sheehan, assistant director for budget, planning and human capital at the Fish and Wildlife Service, said that Daniel Ashe, the agency’s director, came up through the ranks as a career employee and has placed great emphasis on creating a culture that “values employees.” She said there has been a strong emphasis on ensuring employees understand their role in the larger mission of the agency and feel “relevant.” By and large, she said, “employees also have a very strong emotional attachment to their work.”
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Deborah Douglas, an organizational development specialist at the National Park Service, said the leadership takes the issue of employee satisfaction and commitment seriously, is aware of the agency’s shortcomings and has been working to assess the survey data, take the pulse of the workforce and make changes.
Douglas said employee survey data is now shared with more than 400 parks and offices across the country so they can assess their own individual strengths and weaknesses. She said focus groups have been held at 20 parks and offices throughout the nation to identify issues of concern to employees, to pinpoint initiatives that are working and come up with plans to address problems.
As a result of these efforts, Douglas said the park service has initiated additional training programs for senior and mid-level leaders, will soon start a development program for emerging leaders and has created a leadership development advisory group of senior park service leaders. She also said a new office has been created to increase diversity at the National Park Service, and to attract the younger generation to the organization.
In addition, Douglas said a number of organizational goals have been articulated across the agency, ranging from increasing communication with and respect for employees, creating greater accountability so employees know what is expected of them and increasing employee empowerment. She said efforts will be undertaken to put many of these concepts into action.
Comments
Of course, the top dogs in the top-heavy NPS have a rosier view and think training will stop their decade-long slide toward the bottom of the survey rankings. Many of them got where they are because of who, not what, they know and they are rarely troubled by transparency or accountability.
"...senior executives “don’t see the world in the same way as the people they are managing...”
"SES executives are disconnected from the rest of the workforce … SES are isolated from the day to day operations in the workplace; they don’t spend time interacting with employees and first line supervisors on a daily basis.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/07/02/report-fin...
I work for the park service, and I keep waiting to hear something about the rankings from DOI, the NPS Director's office, the regional office, and my supervisory chain. Crickets. Especially interesting is that the index score for HR Specialists is around 47, which is below their government level index score and the servicewide NPS index score. In comparison, HR Specialists at Fish and Wildlife scored an index score of 76. This is disconcerting because usually the index scores of HR Specialists tend to run higher than the one for all employees. It is also a mission critical occupation...when staffing in HR Specialist drops too low, it impacts the ability of the service to meet its mission. IT specialists and Contract Specialists scored low as well, but the HR Specialists were the lowest.
When you consider the number of parks and offices in the service, 20 focus groups is probably insufficient. I haven't asked to be in a focus group at all since I started working for NPS. The lack of comment or discussion at the national or park/office level sends an unspoken message that the rankings are not as important as employees probably would like them to be. I genuinely hope park leadership hasn't resigned itself to this scoring and ranking as the new normal. The work environment definitely impacts the health and wellbeing of employees. I hope senior leadership recognizes it.
Upon reading your excellent and troubling article I went my bookshelf and pulled out, "The Vail Agenda, National Parks for the 21st Century" published almost 25 years ago. This insightful document was compiled by a roster of experienced and respected leaders in park management, conservation, science and government. I recall the surge of hope I felt when I first read this report thinking, FINALLY, perhaps now we can begin to regain the original purpose and promise of the National Park Service! We had the documented proof of serious decline in the agency negatively affecting the national treasure known as the National Park System. And yet here we are again shaking our heads over the tragic on-going decline of the crown jewels of our national heritage.
I sincerely believe we can and must live up to the promise and directives of the NPS Organic Act of 1916 and the Redwood Act of 1978. It will take selfless courage and dedication to overcome the ingrained and all-too-often rationalized agency timidness in the face of raw commercial and political power demands that are adverse to the best interests of the parks and their true owners, the American public both present and future. This thread of weakness unfortunately extends from the highest levels of the agency to the field based management of the national parks. There are notable exceptions particularly at the boots on the ground level, who speak out and refuse to turn their backs on clear violations of established resource protection policies, regulations and laws. However, they frequently face subtle and not-so-subtle pressures to avoid making waves.
I am convinced that the declining health and vitality of the National Park Service and the flawed stewardship of the parks cannot be completely reversed internally. It is far too ingrained. It will take something on the order of an expanded second Vail Agenda that is focussed largely on practical steps to accomplish the original recommendations. This "Vail II" conference would set up a systematic program for the implementation of the goals and objectives of the original Vail Conference. These would be the archetectual plans for the (re)construction of the National Park Service. These plans would include clear and concise guidelines and measureable implimentation goals. It would take the buy-in of the administration at the highest levels.
Ray, you might have some insight into a question I keep asking but have been unable to answer: You say changes would take buy-in of park administration at the highest levels. Here's the question that haunts me --- how much of the reluctance of those at the top to stand up for what's right is a direct result of political pressures from even higher up? From Congress? From various executive branch administrations? (Think Mark Hoffman as one possible causative example.)
How much comes not from inside the NPS, but from outside, as various political special interests and beholden Congress members apply pressures?
Lee, good question. Ultimately it comes from within - not from without - the National Park Service. There always has been and always will be external pressures (political, economic, social, bureacratic, etc.) to either "look the other way" or to figure out some way to justify/rationalize actions not in keeping with the laws, regulations and policies of the NPS and with the best interest of the resource and owner public. How the NPS and its individual members respond to those pressures is the measure of commitment to the ideals of the agency and the welfare of the parks. Sometimes that means putting your career on the line and taking "the heat" that is sure to come. If that is too much for an upper level management employee to accept, then he/she has no business being in the kitchen.
What the National Park Service desperately needs - and what it all-too-often suppresses - are wave makers, employees willng to confront and resolutely seek effective solutions to important problems - particularly those that compromise park values and resources. Over time tendencies to avoid dealing with problems are institutionalized and become a selective factor in the advancement of upper level management. Calm waters tends to become stagnant and lose their life supporting vitality. The increasing dissatisfaction within the ranks of the NPS is a symtom of this tendency.
Look at the Green Book. For FY 2016 there is 1 executive series and 24 SES. By contrast there are 55 GS-1's. There are more GS-4s & GS-3s FTEs, than GS-15, 14, and 13s. I don't think you can legitimately blame SES staff for the issues within the NPS. The issue is that there is insufficient funding to manage the parks. There is insufficient staff in park units and in central offices. Additionally, during the Bush administration there was a push to accomplish things through contracting. This costs more money and it takes a lot of work on the part of the contract specialist and subject matter expert to get a decent work product. As a result of insufficient funding, an increase in the number of parks and partnership properties --which are a nightmare to manage --the workload has become overwhelming. While the workload is overwhelming, the amount of neglect that resources are receiving is disheartening. Perhaps one of the differences with FWS & NPS is NPS has more cultural properties to manage. There is more than 11 billion dollars in backlog maintenance needs. The windows are falling out of the building I work in. Add in that we haven't seen a decent pay increase in forever and what does anyone expect to see regarding moral? That having been said, I think the survey should ask different questions.
Thank you, Ray. That's sobering.
But Birch's comments are enlightening, too. It helps point out the complexity of the whole mess. A combination of factors all meshing (at first my fingers typed "messing" . . . . perhaps that was more appropriate than the word I intended) together to create such a muddle that trying to figure out where to start is nearly impossible.
One thing I keep picking up as I visit parks and speak with people in uniform is an overwhelming frustration with the mishmash of hiring practices; the hopelessness of people who love the work but can't find a permanent position to fill. The WalMartization of the NPS is obvious and painful to witness. Where does that come from? Is it just the NPS trying desperately to compensate for a lack of funding or does it involve Congressional creation of a maze of hiring practices that attempt to keep every conceivable socioeconomic and ethnic demographic happy at election time?
Lee/Birch,
The following is taken verbatum from The Vale Agenda report published a quarter century ago: "The National Park Service has great strengths - and has major problems. Without question, its greatest strength is its employees. For the vast majority of its employees, to work for the Park Service is to engage in an ever-renewing project of preserving and protecting some of the nation's and the world's most meaningful and enriching - and, often, most fragile and threatened - natural and cultural resources.Throughout the organization, the individuals who work for the Park Service are precisely those who are drawn to the challenge and who hold forceably to personal stakes in the units and programs for which they are responsible. They are drawn despite a pay scale that is commonly one or two steps below that of comparably responsible and experienced employees in other sister federal agencies, and despite the common frustrations associated with bureaucracies and politics. ... When individuals with this much dedication encounter roadblocks to performance,the result is a weakening of morale and effectiveness."
Improving career opportunities and pay scale will undoubtedly help to compensate for some of the frustrations employees at the lower end of the pay scale, particularly seasonal personnel, regularly experience. I wholeheartedly support greater pay and career oportunities for all rank and file NPS employees, but I also believe that whatever developments in career opportunities and pay scale take place the proof of their effectiveness must be measured in the protection and care of the resource and the service provided park visitors.
Sorry for being long winded!
Ray