Based on what federal employees report, and have reported over the past several years, we know that effective leadership drives employee satisfaction at all agencies.

We’re interested to see what the effects of the salary freeze and the threat of a government shutdown had on employee satisfaction and commitment this year as part of our annual survey of Best Places to Work in the Federal Government.

Employee satisfaction and commitment are two necessary ingredients in developing high-performing organizations and attracting top talent.

The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings are an important tool in recognizing the importance of federal employee satisfaction and ensuring that it is a top priority for government managers and leaders.

When agencies are badly managed and workers are unhappy, a low level of engagement and poor performance often follow, and the public suffers.

Designed to help a broad audience of federal employees and government leaders, job seekers, and researchers the Best Places to Work rankings draw on responses from more than 263,000 civil servants to produce detailed rankings of employee satisfaction and commitment across 290 federal agencies and subcomponents.

The Partnership for Public Service with Deloitte and the Hay Group use data from the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey to rank agencies and their subcomponents. Agencies and subcomponents are ranked according to a Best Places to Work index score, which measures overall employee satisfaction, an important part of employee engagement and, ultimately, a driver of organizational performance. The Best Places to Work score is calculated both for the organization as a whole and also for specific demographic groups.

In addition to this employee satisfaction rating, agencies and subcomponents are scored in 10 workplace categories such as effective leadership, employee skills/mission match, pay and work/life balance.

The rankings also offer a snapshot overview of each agency and subcomponent, trend data on changes from past analysis and rankings, tips and information for job seekers, and expert analysis of what the results mean. In addition, users are able to generate customized reports by selecting certain agency features and conduct side-by-side comparisons of how agencies or their subcomponents ranked in various categories.

The complete Best Places to Work rankings are available at bestplacestowork.org. The 2011 rankings will be released this fall.