An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

News | Dec. 29, 2016

Best Places to Work rankings show DLA employees with high job satisfaction

By DLA Human Resourcess

Federal employee job satisfaction increased slightly in 2016, and Defense Logistics Agency employees’ job satisfaction reflected that trend.

The Partnership for Public Service released its annual Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings Dec. 15. Agencies are grouped in four size categories for rankings: large, midsize, small and agency subcomponents, the category that includes DLA.

Tya Dammer, an organizational psychologist in DLA Human Resources, said DLA’s 2016 index score, which measures general satisfaction, rose slightly from the previous year, from 63.7 to 65.7. Governmentwide, federal employee job satisfaction and commitment increased 1.3 points from 2015, for an index score of 59.4. The federal government still lags the private sector’s employee engagement score of 77.1.

“Overall, federal government scores have shown a slight increase in each of the past two years,” Dammer said. “This is a positive shift after four straight years of declining scores.”

The Best Places to Work index score is based on the percentage of positive responses to three workplace satisfaction questions in the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, administered by the Office of Personnel Management. In 2016, more than 950 DLA employees took the survey out of a random sampling of about 6,340 who received it. FEVS results were released in September, and DLA scored highly.

In terms of Defense Department subcomponents with similar missions, DLA’s index score (65.7) was higher than the Naval Supply Systems Command’s score of 59.8, Air Force Materiel Command’s score of 57.9, and Army Materiel Command’s score of 53.2. DLA’s 2016 index score also outranked all of the military services’ composite scores and most other defense agency subcomponent scores, Dammer said.

The index scores are also reported as rankings among agencies. DLA ranked 117th among 305 agency subcomponents in this measure of general satisfaction.

DLA’s highest category scores were in Employee Skills-Mission Match (76.5) and Teamwork (67.7).  DLA’s lowest-scoring category was Performance-Based Rewards and Advancement, with a score of 48.9.

DLA Human Resources Director Brad Bunn said high scores in these particular areas reflect success in the People and Culture goal area of the DLA Strategic Plan.

“Our Strategic Plan calls for us to ‘continuously pursue a performance-based culture that fosters an environment in which DLA employees understand how they fit into the enterprise mission and vision, feel valued, and have rewarding career path options,’” Bunn said. “High scores in such things as Teamwork and Employee Skills-Mission Match show we’re on the right track.

“However,” he added, “lower scores in the area of Performance-Based Rewards and Advancement also show we need to continue in these efforts. We’re committed to using our robust culture action planning process to improve our understanding of employee challenges and concerns and develop and implement solutions,” Bunn said.

A complete breakdown of agency subcomponent Best Places to Work rankings is available on a rankings page.