When FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the new leadership team and I came to the FCC a year ago, we had one mission in mind – work with the great staff of the FCC to do all that we could to make the FCC a "model of excellence" in government. This was a worthwhile but daunting challenge – during transition, we had learned that the FCC placed 28th out of 32 small agencies in the Partnership for Public Service's 2009 "Best Places to Work" report based on OPM's Federal Employee Survey. Over the course of the last year we set out to make the FCC a great place: We improved employee communication and openness through technology and new media, specifically creating the FCC "Reboot" intranet site which focuses on sharing information, gathering information, blogs and anonymous feedback. Chairman Genachowski established an SES "Senior Counsel on FCC Reform" – a position that focuses on openness and transparency at the agency and reports directly to the Chairman (Note: The creation of this position also marked the return of Mary Beth Richards to the FCC which, if you know Mary Beth, surely accounted for improved morale). In the last year, we worked to make management accountable for employee satisfaction, specifically briefing management on results and establishing goals in key leadership areas as well as coaching managers; and we worked on leadership development, specifically the establishment of executive leadership forums. This is all in addition to working through low-cost upgrades around the building, a focus on greening the agency, focus on charitable giving and community outreach, and much, much more.
As you can imagine, we were delighted when we got the results of our 2010 OPM Employee Survey and the FCC was the most improved agency in the Federal Government. OPM tracks four categories in the survey: Leadership, Results Orientation, Talent Management, and Job Satisfaction. Across all Federal Agencies, we were in the top 10 for the first two categories and the FCC was most improved in three of the four, and tied for second in the fourth.
We know we still have a lot more to do and evolution of an organization is never easy, but are excited that employees of the FCC are validating the work we are doing, and these results send us the clear message to keep moving forward on the path we have laid out to be a "model of excellence in Government". Onward.