WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 4, 2013) -- The Army Civilian Attitude Survey, the Army's primary attitude and opinion poll of its DA civilian workforce, is open by email invitation worldwide.
The online survey, which opened Feb. 3, aims to confidentially tackle tough questions on job satisfaction, performance management, and other topics. To date, more than 40,000 civilian employees have responded to the survey.
"A survey is one of the few ways a commander can gauge the pulse of what's going on in their command workforce," said Murray Mack, from the Office of the Assistant G-1 for Civilian Personnel. "Surveys really fill the need for reliable information."
The survey has been administered every few years since 1977. In the past, the Army could only poll a small random sample of the civilian workforce due to the cost of survey administration. Through recent technology, the entire Army civilian workforce, including foreign nationals -- more than 250,000 personnel -- are now invited to participate via the Army Training Requirements and Resources System survey tool.
Survey feedback reports are prepared for every Army organization that contains at least 50 people with at least 10 people responding. The reports will be distributed approximately six weeks following the end of the survey administration period, on or about March 31, 2013.
Mack expects a high response level this year due to civilian workforce concerns such as the impact of pending budget reductions and the sequestration. While the timing of the survey may not be the best, gathering this information will be beneficial for employees and the Army.
While the answers about employees' work environments may give commanders insight into opinions, it is up to commanders and senior leaders to make changes when necessary. Leaders often use the information gathered from the surveys to hold focus groups with their employees to obtain additional information.
"A survey can't tell you why people responded the way they did; it will only tell you how they responded," said Mack.
The survey has a core set of questions in order to track employee trends over time, but questions pertaining to current issues are added with each survey administration, such as telework and alternative work schedules.
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