Many agencies that earned the top spots in the Partnership for Public Service’s 2024 Best Places to Work series last year are now experiencing major and tumultuous shifts in their workforces.
The Partnership for Public Service’s results, published Thursday, found that in 2024, governmentwide employee engagement and satisfaction was at 67.7 out of 100 — one of the highest ever scores the Partnership has reported since it launched the Best Places to Work series in 2003.
In the latest rankings, based on data collected in the spring and summer of 2024, NASA maintained the number one spot on the Best Places to Work list of large agencies for the 13th year in a row, with a score of 81.6 out of 100. The Environmental Protection Agency came in second place with an overall score of 79.9, and the Department of Health and Human Services was ranked third with a score of 76.3.
For mid-sized agencies, the Government Accountability Office once again topped the 2024 Best Places to Work list, posting an overall score of 87.7 out of 100. The General Services Administration and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tied for second place with a score of 85.
But the release of the Partnership’s rankings on Thursday comes amid the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul the federal workforce. The administration has so far pushed forward with mass terminations of probationary employees, a hiring freeze and a broad return-to-office push, as well as plans to strip civil service job protections and replace career federal workers with political appointees.
“The current moment represents an extremely challenging time for employees and federal leaders alike, with President Donald Trump issuing numerous executive orders and taking steps that are altering the work of numerous agencies, adversely affecting employee morale and that could lead to a degradation of public services,” the Partnership wrote in its Best Places to Work results.
Trump, however, has touted his administration’s major changes to the federal workforce, which are largely led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and billionaire Elon Musk.
“My administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy, and we will restore true democracy to America again,” Trump said Tuesday during his speech to a joint session of Congress. “Any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately.”
As a result of Trump’s efforts, many of the top agencies from the 2024 Best Places to Work rankings have now become the targets of significant layoffs and reductions in force (RIFs).
HHS, as an example, has laid off thousands of employees across many of its components — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Likewise, GSA is now beginning to conduct a RIF, with plans to make as much as 50% cuts to its workforce and programs.
Max Stier, the Partnership’s president and CEO, raised alarm bells about the patterns of layoffs across agencies, and urged the Trump administration to reverse course.
“Against the backdrop of a new presidential administration and dozens of executive orders that seek to downsize and politicize our nonpartisan, merit-based civil service, this new data could not come at a more critical time,” Stier said in a press statement. “Rather than an arbitrary and thoughtless workforce downsizing exercise, we encourage the Trump administration to use these insights to help strengthen and invest in building a government that can more effectively serve the public.”
On the low end of the Partnership’s Best Places to Work rankings, agencies at or near the bottom of the list have also been recent targets of the Trump administration.
The Social Security Administration came in last place in the 2024 Best Places to Work rankings for the third year in a row. The agency received an overall score of 54.2 out of 100. SSA’s score last year still marked an increase in the overall engagement and satisfaction levels of its workforce. But now, SSA is outlining plans to lay off at least 7,000 of its employees.
The Education Department, which ranked near the bottom of the Partnership’s list of mid-sized agencies, is also preparing for an imminent executive order that will dismantle the agency and reassign its functions.
The National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) ranked at the bottom of the Best Places to Work list for 2024 for mid-sized agencies. USAID was an early target of the Trump administration and has already lost a majority of its workforce.
Findings on federal telework, employee performance
The 2024 Best Places to Work findings also reveal insights into federal employees’ perspectives on telework and remote work. The Partnership’s data analysis found that employees who teleworked full-time had the highest employee engagement and satisfaction score of 76.5 out of 100. In contrast, those who work fully on-site had an engagement and satisfaction score of 49.1.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is pushing forward on a governmentwide return-to-office mandate. Many agencies have already started requiring fully onsite work for the majority of their employees. Other agencies’ plans will take place in the coming weeks.
“We ordered all federal workers to return to the office,” Trump said Tuesday. “They will either show up for work in person or be removed from their job.”
Of federal employees who indicated in 2024 that they plan to leave their agency within the next year, 40% responded that their decision will be influenced by remote work options, the Partnership found.
And more broadly, every category of the federal workforce that the Partnership measures increased between 2023 and 2024. That includes an uptick in a measurement of how much federal employees feel recognized for their performance and their contributions at work.
The Partnership also reported increases in 2024 on how federal employees view their connection to their agency’s mission, their satisfaction with pay, their work-life balance and their leadership’s effectiveness.
The Partnership’s rankings largely rely on data from the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, which is administered by the Office of Personnel Management. Though the survey is typically fielded each spring, OPM announced last week that it’s delaying the timeline for the 2025 FEVS until later this year.
Federal employees who take the 2025 FEVS will also not see any questions related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, according to OPM. The DEIA index that the Biden administration added to the survey in 2022 will be removed for this year’s FEVS. The 2025 survey will also bring back a question asking federal employees in more depth about poor performers in their work unit.
For the Partnership, the delayed FEVS timeline means the 2025 Best Places to Work rankings will also likely be pushed back. At the same time, the Partnership itself has recently faced internal workforce cuts. The non-profit organization laid off more than a quarter of its staff last week.
Ultimately, Stier said he believed the Trump administration’s continuing actions to reduce the size of the federal workforce through RIFs will cause “unnecessary” harm to agencies’ missions, as well as federal employees themselves.
“This is not being done in any way, stretch or means thoughtfully,” Stier told reporters during a press conference Monday. “I predict this is going to be a mess on a much larger scale than the mess we’ve already seen with respect to the firings of the probationary employees. That’s going to cause even more harm and put us more at risk.”
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