Management Responds to Union Concerns with the GAO Employee Feedback Survey

Soon after the publication of the June 16, 2008 Communiqué--in which the Union expressed a number of concerns that employees had with the Employee Feedback Survey--GAO senior management invited the Union to participate in meetings to discuss these concerns.  Prior to this invitation, management refused the Union's efforts to schedule time to discuss employees' concerns with senior management. As a result of these meetings, management has agreed to several changes in response to two of our three major concerns: (1) confidentiality; and (2) pressure on staff--particularly in the field--to provide positive responses.  Management has stated they are committed to working with representatives of the Union to address other concerns in future employee feedback surveys. Finally, management indicated that they are considering using an outside vendor to do the survey analyses next year.

In response to our request, management has agreed to provide additional information to employees on how the survey is conducted and how results will be used.  There will be a live Q&A session for all employees on Monday, June 30, at 3 PM ET in the HQ Auditorium and by VTC to all field offices. Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro will make introductory remarks and Nancy Kingsbury, Managing Director, ARM, and Cynthia Heckman, Chief Human Capital Officer, will facilitate the presentation.

Changes to the 2008 Employee Feedback Survey

• The question “Where are you located?” will no longer specify all individual field offices–only the region where they are located (West, Central, and East).  Further, summary survey analyses for the 3 regions will be provided to the MD of Field Operations only, and mission team MDs will only see responses for their teams broken out by HQ and by field.

• Management has agreed that managers should not say anything to influence employees' responses to the survey other than to encourage their participation. To facilitate this, Management has addressed this in its Managing Director meetings.

• The question “How many years have you worked at GAO?” will have only 2 response options: 1) less than 10 years; and 2) 10 years or more (past surveys had 11 response options).  Employees will be asked to identify their age as: under 40; or 40 or older, as in the past.

Management clarified that all demographic information (such as age, band, and team) will be based on self-reported information from the survey responses only–not attached to the survey responses from administrative records. Detailed questions on other demographics, such as band level, still remain, however.

These changes address several of our major concerns.  The Interim Council hopes that you consider the importance of these changes as you think about whether you should participate in this year's survey.  Union representatives expressed firmly, however, that earlier discussions with senior management could have resulted in additional improvements and that this year's survey does not resolve all of our concerns, particularly related to 1) having the analyses conducted entirely outside of GAO, and 2) the lack of survey questions that address critical issues for GAO employees, including GAO’s performance management system, for the purposes of comparisons over time and with other federal agencies.

Members of the Union survey team met with Eric Adams, Director of Workforce Relations; Jade Mariano, Workforce Relations; Alice Feldesman, AD, ARM; along with Ms. Kingsbury and Ms. Heckman.  The Union survey team is comprised of: Barbara Chapman, ARM; Debra Conner, IT Dallas; Richard Frankel, NRE; Stuart Kaufman, ARM; Ron La Due Lake, ARM; Lise Levie, EWIS; Karen O'Conor, ARM; Bev Ross, ARM; Lorene Sarne, ASM; Shamiah Woods, PDP Atlanta.