For federal agencies, the next iteration of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) poses a dilemma. Operating without finalized guidance — the Office of Personnel Management is expected to publish final guidance around the time you read this article — agencies are nonetheless expected to run their own employee surveys by the end of calendar year 2026. The clock is ticking, and agencies are asking themselves: What, exactly, should we do about this right now?
We have been talking with leaders across government, and we understand the pressures they are facing. For many, the tempting answer is a minimalist one: Conduct a short employee engagement survey sticking to the 10 OPM-proposed mandatory questions, satisfy the requirement, report the results and move on.
It is not difficult to understand why. Budgets are constrained. Staff are stretched. Agencies are dealing with enormous organizational disruption and change fatigue. There is uncertainty about what OPM will ultimately require and how the resulting data will be used. It is tempting to simply check the box on this, at least for now.
That instinct is understandable. But it carries risks.
Treating the employee survey as a required administrative exercise risks undermining organizational culture. Employee engagement surveys have become an industry standard practice because they foster dialogue, at scale, between an organization and its workforce. When employees are asked for their perspectives, they reasonably expect that their voices will matter, and that organizational improvements will result. If an agency asks for feedback and employees see little follow-through, or if they do not understand why the information is being collected in the first place, the exercise can actively erode trust rather than build it.
The risk of seeing this year’s engagement survey as a compliance exercise is not just to organizational culture: Agencies could also squander an important opportunity to understand their workforce at precisely the moment when that understanding is most needed. OPM’s proposed rule at 5CFR 250 requires agencies to use data to inform their annual staffing plans. But without a clear understanding of what is driving employees out, and what could convince them to stay, agencies risk designing a staffing plan without accounting for the very thing that plan is about — their workforce.
Think beyond the engagement survey
The employee engagement survey should also serve as the beginning of a research plan for understanding workforce readiness.
At a time when agencies are reassessing missions, organizational structures, staffing levels, skills and capabilities, they need actionable workforce intelligence, not simply a scorecard.
Consider some of the questions agency leaders are already being asked to answer:
- Where are we likely to experience significant attrition?
- Which occupations, roles or organizational units are most vulnerable to losing critical talent?
- Where do we have skill gaps?
- How is new technology likely to shift our workforce needs?
- Which capabilities will we need in two or three years that we do not have today?
Those are not abstract employee engagement questions. They are questions about workforce readiness. And the answers can inform decisions that agencies need to make right now.
Start with the decisions, then determine the data you need
This suggests a different way of approaching employee engagement. Instead of starting with, “What questions should we put on our survey?” start with, “What do we need to know to make better workforce decisions and build a high-performance organization?”
For example, an agency tasked with developing a staffing plan may have data on current headcount, vacancies, hiring activity and retirement eligibility. But those data alone may not tell the agency how many employees it is likely to lose, which skills may walk out the door, or which geographical locations will see more attrition. Operational data also cannot uncover the workplace experiences that need to be fixed to keep the new hires agencies are working hard to recruit. Combined with workforce demographics and other administrative data, information about employees’ intent to stay can help leaders develop more evidence-based estimates of potential attrition and identify where retention risks are concentrated. Similarly, an agency considering whether to hire or upskill may need to understand not just whether employees are engaged, but whether they possess, or are interested in developing, the capabilities required for the future workforce.
The point is not to turn annual engagement surveys into an enormous new data-collection exercise. The objective should be to collect less data but make the data more useful.
A pulse can be more valuable than a longer questionnaire
As OPM itself has pointed out, the traditional model of a lengthy, annual survey is not necessarily the best fit for this environment. Research repeatedly demonstrates that workforce engagement, performance and intent to stay increase when organizations listen more frequently. Agencies should consider a more targeted approach built around shorter pulse surveys that address specific questions at specific points in time. One pulse might examine intent to stay. Another could explore confidence in an organizational transition. Another might examine whether employees believe they have the skills and resources needed to execute a new mission. Managers could receive targeted questions about workload, staffing challenges or emerging capability gaps.
This approach has several advantages.
First, it reduces the burden on employees. A focused survey that takes a few minutes is easier to complete, and easier for employees to see as relevant, than another lengthy questionnaire.
Second, it allows agencies to connect questions to actual decisions. If an agency is developing a workforce plan, it can gather information specifically designed to inform that plan.
Third, repeated pulses can create a more current picture of the workforce. Rather than receiving one large snapshot once a year, leaders can observe changes over time and determine whether interventions are having the desired effect.
And fourth, pulse data can become much more powerful when combined with other sources of workforce information.
The real opportunity is workforce analytics
The survey itself is only the beginning. The greater opportunity lies in connecting employee feedback with the administrative and operational data agencies already possess and making the resulting information understandable to leaders and managers.
For example, employee sentiment and intent-to-stay data can be analyzed alongside other workforce characteristics. Skill and capability information can be considered alongside mission requirements. Manager feedback can be viewed alongside staffing levels and workload.
Visualization and analytics can help leaders see where risks are concentrated rather than simply receiving an agencywide engagement score.
This approach changes the conversation. Instead of asking, “Did engagement go up two points this year?” Leaders can ask, “Where are we most likely to lose critical capabilities, why are people considering leaving, and what should we do about it?”
Workforce leaders can ask, “Where should we invest in hiring, retention or development?” And agency executives can ask, “Is our workforce ready to execute the strategy we are pursuing?”
Those are much more consequential questions.
But first, do no harm
There is one important caveat. Before agencies worry about sophisticated analytics, artificial intelligence or elaborate survey architectures, they should get the basics right. The most important question may be: How will employees perceive what we are doing?
Communication matters enormously. Employees should understand why the agency is asking for their feedback, what information is being collected, how it will be used, who will see it and, perhaps most importantly, what the agency intends to do with what it learns.
Agencies should be realistic about what they can act upon. Asking employees for feedback about 10 issues and then doing nothing about any of them can be worse than asking about three issues and demonstrating meaningful action on two.
This is particularly important now. Federal employees have experienced extraordinary levels of organizational change and uncertainty. Many are understandably skeptical of new initiatives and new requests for their time.
A poorly designed or poorly communicated survey can reinforce that skepticism. A well-designed feedback strategy can do the opposite.
Don’t squander the opportunity
The decentralization of FEVS creates an opportunity for agencies to take greater ownership of their workforce trajectory and organizational culture. They should take advantage of it.
For some agencies, this may mean starting modestly, and that is fine. But even a modest effort should be designed as the first step in a larger strategy, not simply as a compliance exercise. Specifically, agencies interested in taking this approach should consider starting with the following steps in 2026:
- Meet the annual survey requirement. Confirm governance, timing, platform, privacy, eligibility, reporting and OPM submission responsibilities.
- Identify the decisions the agency must support. Prioritize a small number of workforce questions connected to staffing, retention, skills, change or organizational performance.
- Add only the measures needed to answer those questions. Preserve useful trend measures where possible and avoid unnecessary survey length.
- Plan reporting and action before launch. Determine who will receive the results, what decisions the results will inform, and how employees will hear what happens next.
- Use targeted follow-up listening selectively. Apply pulse surveys, focus groups, or other methods when the annual survey identifies an issue requiring deeper or more timely information.
Agency leaders are being asked to make consequential decisions about staffing, skills, organizational structure and talent, and they need better information to make those decisions. Decentralized FEVS can play a pivotal role in this, if agencies see it for what it really is: not just an engagement survey, but a critical opportunity to understand whether their workforce is ready for what comes next.
Steve Krauss is a principal with SLK Executive Advisory. He spent the last decade working for the General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management, including as the director of the HR Quality Service Management Office (QSMO).
Sydney Heimbrock is the chief industry advisor for public sector at Qualtrics. She was formerly the founding executive director of the Innovation Lab at OPM and the OPM senior executive responsible for 5CFR 250.
Nathan Bailey is a managing director at FMP Consulting, where he leads workforce transformation, workforce analytics, employee listening and organizational effectiveness initiatives. He has supported numerous federal agencies on FEVS, workforce analytics and workforce planning initiatives.
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