May 2006 SOFC Captures Attitudes of NSPS Employees

The May 2006 Status of Forces Survey of DoD Civilians (SOFC) is the first to capture attitudes of NSPS workers on a wide variety of human capital management topics including the work environment, organizational leadership, the job, compensation, and NSPS.

The survey - conducted between late April and early June 2006 - randomly sampled employees throughout the Department of Defense, including Spiral 1.1 employees who converted to NSPS on April, 30, 2006. Results show that NSPS Spiral 1.1 employees have an overall greater level of satisfaction on many of work-related topics compared to non-NSPS employees. Employees in NSPS were more likely to agree that NSPS will have a positive impact on personnel processes overall.

Employee responses in the May 2006 SOFC provide baseline data that will be considered along with responses in future surveys, during NSPS program evaluations.

About DMDC Surveys

Under the Human Resources Strategic Assessment Program, the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) regularly conducts surveys of the civilian workforce to support the personnel information needs of DoD in areas such as the DoD Civilian Human Capital Strategic Plan, evaluation of the National Security Personnel System (NSPS), and topical areas of interest (e.g., safety, Office of Personnel Management requirements). DMDC surveys use state-of-the-art sampling and weighting techniques.

Important Findings

A set of some key survey topics and responses from the May 2006 SOFC is available. CLICK HERE to see these responses.

Results from the May 2006 SOFC show that when compared to non-NSPS civilians, NSPS Spiral 1.1 employees were more likely to be satisfied with:

• Organization's preparedness to perform the mission
• Opportunities for promotion
• Quality of coworkers and supervisors
• Leadership and management
• Total compensation and pay

The survey also shows that NSPS workers were more likely to agree that NSPS will improve specific personnel processes, including: job classification, rewarding good performance, correcting poor performance, linking pay to performance, linking individual work to the Department's mission, and supervisor/employee communication. Employees in the NSPS pay band system were:

• Nearly twice as likely to agree that communication between supervisors and employees will be improved under NSPS
• Nearly twice as likely to agree that NSPS will improve the hiring process

The November 2006 SOFC will further measure employee attitudes. For NSPS, the survey results will help measure Spiral 1.1 employee attitudes at the close of their first performance appraisal period (October 31, 2006) but prior to the first NSPS pay pool process.