COLUMBUS, Ohio –
Hello DLA Team,
I am writing to provide some updates on this year’s DLA Culture and Climate Survey.
About 95 percent of DLA employees received the 2018 survey when it launched March 13. By the time it closed April 24, 63 percent of you had completed the survey. Those responses will help agency leaders determine the most effective ways to continue to attract and retain mission-focused people and prioritize areas with room for improvement. The results will also help us improve our current leadership model to cultivate motivated leaders who are prepared to effectively manage in the dynamic future environment.
As I explained in an earlier blog post, we learned this year of a requirement to secure approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) before surveying foreign national employees. Because we consider our foreign national employees as members of the DLA team, we decided to delay surveying organizations that include foreign-national employees so members of these work units could all take the survey at the same time. We now expect the OMB approval to be granted in early August, so we have scheduled the launch of the survey to this segment of our workforce – about 1,500 overseas employees in DLA Distribution, DLA Disposition Services, DLA Energy, and DLA Troop Support – on Aug. 14. They will have until Sept. 25 to complete the survey.
So when will we see the results?
In order to have the complete picture, we’ll gather, compile, and release the results after all DLA employees have had the opportunity to complete the survey. We expect to release the results of the 2018 DLA Culture and Climate Survey in mid-October. While this is a bit later than our normal timeline, it’s important that we have a comprehensive set of data for the entire enterprise.
Once the results have been released, the process will work just like in previous survey iterations. DLA Human Resources and DLA Public Affairs will release agency-wide results to the workforce. Organizational leaders will receive results reports for DLA J- and D-code organizations and Major Subordinate Commands (MSCs) and determine how best to share those results with the members of their workforces. Culture champions will work with leaders and organizations to analyze the results and develop plans to act on them. You’ll be hearing much more about this topic in the fall when results are available.
Does all this mean that we don’t have to worry about improving organizational culture and climate until October?
Of course not! There is always something we can do to improve or sustain our culture of high performance and mission focus. I’ll bet you don’t have to think too hard to come up with at least one thing you can do to make our DLA workplace a bit better or to improve support to our customers. So while we’re waiting for the official survey results, feel free to get a head start on building a better future!
Thanks for reading.
Brad