BBG Watch Commentary
Something to consider for the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) new director, Andy Lack, who is expected to be sworn in this week as the BBG’s CEO with the title of BBG Director.
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Broadcasting Board of Governors, together with the Department of Homeland Security, has the worst employee-rated senior leaders in the entire federal government. The BBG’s senior leaders have been in the last place since 2010 when the OPM started to show charts for the Employee Engagement Index. Andy Lack will be coming to the rescue of one of the worst-managed federal agencies.
The latest assessment, shown in several charts published online by the OPM, is based on the 2014 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) results. The OPM FEVS surveys cover only federal employees of the BBG who work for the Voice of America (VOA), the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB). The OPM survey does not cover the BBG’s non-federal grantee entities, which are believed to be better managed. It also does not cover hundreds of full-time and part-time VOA, IBB, and OCB contractors whose morale is believed to be even worse than the morale of federal employees due to low pay and the lack of benefits and job protections. IBB, VOA and OCB have been accused by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of employing hundreds of contractors and entering into federal contracts in violation of U.S. laws and regulations.
The OPM Employee Engagement Index – Leaders Lead Subfactor Table shows the BBG as tied with the Department of Homeland Security, a much larger federal entity (smaller agencies usually get better scores) in the last place with 39 points in 2014. Governmentwide average was 50. The BBG score for senior leaders dropped four points from 2013.
In the overall Employee Engagement Index, the BBG is also at the very bottom, right behind the Department of Homeland Security.
According to the OPM, the Employee Engagement Index assess the critical conditions conducive for employee engagement (e.g., effective leadership, work which provides meaning to employees, etc.). It is made up of three subfactors: Leaders Lead, Supervisors, and Intrinsic Work Experiences.
In the New Inclusion Quotient Index – IQ Index, which is made up of five subfactors: “Fair, Open, Cooperative, Supportive, and Empowering,” the Broadcasting Board of Governors is also at the very bottom of federal departments and agencies.
OPM: “All agencies are accountable for ensuring that the Federal Government recruits, retains, and honors a world-class workforce – one that gets things done. These ratings reflect where agencies stand on meeting that expectation.
The ratings are based on percent positive scores of the items that make up each index. The ratings provide a reliable assessment of where agencies fall within each index: HCAAF, Employee Engagement, Global Satisfaction, and the New IQ. An agency can look at the various items that comprise each index to get a richer understanding of the areas they are doing well in and areas that need improvement.”