Understanding Staff/Manager Alignment
Managing change and creating a healthy and productive work environment in organizations is hard for many reasons. An initial challenge is getting managers and staff to agree on the core workplace issues and on the best ways to accomplish agency goals before moving forward.
The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government results can be used to assess employee and manager views and help decide where workplace improvements are most needed. But if managers and staff do not agree on where the problems are, any reform efforts could be undermined. In these current times of significant budget cuts, major changes are in store for agencies and employees, and leaders need to look at the Best Places to Work staff/manager alignment to ensure everyone is on the same page and ready to work together.
While a good deal of information regarding staff and manager perspectives can be found in the responses to Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey questions that are used to compile the Best Places to Work rankings, they are routinely ignored. The staff includes employees who do not have supervisory responsibilities. Managers include senior leaders, managers and supervisors.
Actually, it is normal for managers to answer surveys more positively than staff. After all, managers typically have more status and autonomy, earn more money and exercise more authority. But how big a spread is normal? A closer look reveals that some agencies have cadres of managers whose lack of connection to employees is "off the charts" relative to peer agencies. Results that reveal a large gap between managers and staff may place mission goals, change efforts and day- to-day performance at risk.
The Staff/Manager Alignment score assesses the degree of alignment (or disconnect) between agency staff and managers across the 50 selected questions from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. The score capitalizes on a key benefit of the survey – the ability to readily compare the alignment of staff and managers at an agency to a government-wide benchmark. This allows for clear distinctions between agencies that have normal gaps and those that may be at risk due to very large disconnects in staff and managers' perceptions on a broad range of issues.
The range of possible alignment scores is between +50 and -50. Agencies received one point (+1) for questions from the employee survey showing staff and managers to be "aligned," (i.e., the gap is smaller than the government-wide benchmark), no points (0) for questions falling in the normal range, and they lost one point (-1) for questions showing staff and managers to be "disconnected" (i.e., the gap is larger than the government-wide benchmark). A negative score, analogous to a canary in a coal mine, signals large disconnects between staff and managers on many aspects of the work environment. In determining the government-wide benchmark or norm, we excluded agencies in the top and bottom 25 percent to establish an average score range.
Staff-Manager Alignment and Employee Satisfaction
To connect Staff/Manager Alignment and Best Places to Work index scores, we created a graph that shows how agencies do on both measures. The graph shows the four quadrants into which agencies can fall:
More Aligned / More Satisfied
Agencies in this group have Best Places to Work index scores that exceed government-wide norms, as well as greater-than-normal alignment between staff and managers on key workforce issues.
Less Aligned / More Satisfied
Agencies in this group have Best Places to Work index scores that exceed government-wide norms, but less-than-normal alignment between staff and managers on key workforce issues.
More Aligned / Less Satisfied
Agencies in this group have Best Places to Work index scores that fall short of government-wide norms, but greater-than-normal alignment between managers and staff on key workforce issues.
Less Aligned / Less Satisfied
Agencies in this group have Best Places to Work index scores that fall short of government-wide norms, as well as less-than-normal alignment between staff and managers on key workforce issues.
The alignment results show that some agencies struggling with low Best Places to Work index scores, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Education, must also overcome big disconnects in the way managers and staff view basic workforce issues. Knowing this can have important workplace implications. At the same time, better-than-average alignment at agencies like the Department of Agriculture and the Agency for International Development suggests that these agencies may be positioned for improvement and change efforts, despite relatively low Best Places to Work index scores. There also are a few surprises among agencies with traditionally strong Best Places to Work index scores. Although not among the lowest scoring agencies, those with lower-than-expected alignment include the Government Services Administration and the Social Security Administration.
Looking within an agency, alignment can vary drastically between subcomponents. Consider the Department of Health and Human Services. With a score of -38, the staff and managers at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are not aligned on most questions. However, the staff and managers at the Food and Drug Administration are much more aligned than the government norm with a score of 28. Staff-manager alignment is important to consider when undertaking department-wide changes in workplace performance and culture, and also highlights opportunities for sharing promising practices between organizations within an agency.
Learn More
Best Places to Work Agency Guide for Staff/Manager Alignment Scores
To help you make the most of this critical information, the Partnership for Public Service, with support from the IBM Center for the Business of Government, developed the Best Places to Work Agency Guide for Staff/Manager Alignment Scores.
The guide includes:
- Step-by-step instructions on using the score to guide improvement
- Strategies for agency heads, senior executives, supervisors and union representatives to maintain employee morale and improve communication and transparency
Custom Data Report
A closer examination of the gaps between staff and manager views on each of the 50 survey questions that comprise the score can help decision-makers and action planners identify and address potential hot-button issues for the workforce. Please email bptw@ourpublicservice.org to request more information about your agency's staff/manager alignment – including a custom data report that details staff/manager alignment by question.
The Best Places to Work rankings — the most comprehensive and authoritative rating of employee satisfaction and commitment in the federal government — are produced by the Partnership for Public Service.
