And Now for the Laggards in the OPM Survey

When officials at the Office of Personnel Management announced the results of their 2008 Federal Human Capital Survey in January, they only released the names of agencies that took the top 10 spots in each of four categories: leadership and knowledge management, results oriented performance culture, talent management and job satisfaction.

The complete list, however, includes 37 agencies in each category. By listing only the top 10, OPM officials avoided embarrassing bosses at agencies crawling along the bottom.

The Federal Diary, of course, suffers from no such compunction. We were able to obtain the complete lists (pdf). Below, we have printed the agencies that are at the top and bottom of each and their rankings for 2008 and 2006.

OPM surveys the federal workforce every two years. More than 210,000 participated in 2008. Here's how to interpret the findings:

-- The leadership index indicates how highly, or not, employees of an agency regard their leaders.

-- The performance index indicates how much workers in an agency believe it promotes improvements in processes, products and services.

-- The talent index indicates the degree to which staffers think an agency has the talent needed to achieve its goals.

-- The job satisfaction index is my favorite because it indicates how satisfied employees are with their jobs. That's key.

Here's a tip: Check out the progress made by the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. It's like a small, unknown college that comes out of nowhere to beat the big basketball powerhouses during March Madness.

Contact Joe Davidson at federaldiary@washpost.com.