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Washington, D.C.— Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees are highly-motivated and have a strong commitment to their agency and its missions, but their views still reflect a range of problems with senior leadership, along with issues of workplace favoritism and a lack of communication, according to an annual survey of the DHS workforce.

“These results show an agency working to improve itself, but one that clearly still has a long way to go,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents the entire 24,000 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) workforce within DHS, as well as thousands of employees in DHS’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

On the plus side, employees feel a sense of accomplishment, like their work, know how their work relates to the agency’s goals, and believe their work is important.

However, there are a number of troublesome areas as well. These include the fact that only 29 percent of respondents agreed that promotions are based on merit; less than 40 percent believe that creativity and innovation are rewarded; and the answers to many questions indicated employee unhappiness with the administration of the performance management system.

“The critical responsibilities of this department require complete employee engagement so it is not productive to have employees believe that personnel decisions are based on arbitrary factors or personal favoritism,” President Kelley said. “Further, employees should feel as if they can raise issues with their managers without negative consequences but few of them do.”

More than 166,000 DHS employees were surveyed with nearly 68,000—some 41 percent—responding.

According to the survey results, little more than one-third of those responding said they believe their senior leaders are open and honest in their communication; and only four in ten believe their senior leaders create an environment of trust. Low scores also were recorded on agency communication. Only 36 percent said their organization communicates information downward to all levels; and a mere 28 percent said they believe the organization informs employees well about the reasons behind decisions that affect them.

“These results reconfirm what NTEU has been saying from the beginning at DHS: the agency can succeed only when it treats its frontline workforce as a vital and respected element in accomplishing the agency’s missions,” President Kelley said. “Employee voices must be heard and heeded if any agency is to succeed.”

Some of the issues related to senior management, Kelley said, likely spring from the fact that two key DHS components—CBP and TSA—didn’t have senior leadership for a considerable time. TSA still doesn’t, and CBP just recently has a new commissioner in place.

“Without permanent leaders at the top,” Kelley said, “old problems fester and new problems cannot get the attention they require. That serves everyone poorly.”

The NTEU leader said she is hopeful the administration’s backing for labor-management collaboration ultimately will have a positive impact in DHS. “Employee engagement has got to be more than a catch-phrase,” she said. “It requires meaningful attention every day.”

In addition, President Kelley said, the largest group of employees in DHS does not have collective bargaining rights and therefore have no meaningful voice in their workplace. “It is far past time for TSA employees to be granted collective bargaining rights and I renew my call for the administration to grant them immediately,” she said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.