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Washington, D.C.—The unveiling today of the list of the best places to work in the federal government featured the Department of Homeland Security at the bottom of the rankings, which comes as “no surprise” to National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen M. Kelley.

The actions taken by DHS management since the department was created have caused morale to plummet and are putting at risk the ability of DHS to hire and keep the trained and skilled employees necessary to carry out its vital missions, Kelley said.

“NTEU has been both warning DHS leadership of the detrimental morale crisis and urging them to work with us to improve the situation,” Kelley said.

The union leader said she has “little doubt” that the dissatisfaction of DHS employees can be traced back to one issue—the attempt by DHS management to install a new personnel system that does not respect these employees and the work that they do.

“From the start, I told DHS that any new personnel system that ignored the experienced voices of front-line employees would fail,” Kelley said. Instead of working with NTEU to create a system that had credibility with employees and increased their ability to be successful DHS pushed forward with a system that has caused confusion and dismay among both front-line employees and managers.

“The result of DHS’s efforts is a demoralized workforce and plenty of anecdotal evidence indicating that experienced employees are eager to jump ship through retirement or moving to another law enforcement agency,” Kelley said.

“I hope that the administration and DHS management take a good hard look at the results of today’s ranking and make the connection that an engaged workforce is necessary to an effective department,” Kelley continued. She also reiterated NTEU’s long-standing offer to work with DHS management to craft a personnel system that allows that to happen.

The focus and direction of DHS have been called into question recently, Kelley said. “It is the hope of NTEU, along with the rest of the country, that DHS overcome any issues it has that may prevent the department from being successful and I believe that starts with respecting and listening to its own workforce.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal employee union representing 150,000 federal employees in 30 federal agencies and departments, including 14,000 CBP employees in the Department of Homeland Security.