The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is gearing up to administer the 2023 Federal Employee Benefits Survey (FEBS) this fall to a random sample of 100,000 Federal employees across the government.
The FEBS is a powerful platform for Federal employees to provide input on the benefits available to them. The survey is administered every other year, and was last administered in 2021.
The FEBS is different from OPM’s annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), which is an organizational climate survey that assesses how employees jointly experience the policies, practices, and procedures characteristic of their agency and its leadership.
The 2023 FEVS closed for Federal employees earlier this summer, and the results are expected to be available on OPM’s new online dashboard this fall.
The purpose of the FEBS is to measure the importance, adequacy, and value of employee benefits to assess if employees believe the available benefits meet their needs, OPM said. The FEBS will also help OPM to evaluate whether Federal employees understand the flexibilities and benefits available to them.
In addition to ratings of the core benefit programs, OPM said the survey also features new content focused on the Biden administration’s priorities – including access to behavioral and mental health care, treatment of long-term impacts of COVID-19 infections, fertility benefits, gender-affirming care, and obesity treatment.
For the first time in the administration of the FEBS, reporting will be expanded to include some agency-level results. Historically, FEBS results have only been reported at the governmentwide level. This additional reporting will allow more in-depth analyses to better meet the needs of Federal employees, the agency noted.
The 2021 FEBS results show that Feds retirement and health benefits have a high impact on recruitment and an even higher impact on retention within the government workforce. That survey also found that telehealth became an invaluable tool for Federal employees.
The 2023 FEBS will be administered by email to a random sample of approximately 100,000 Federal employees in the coming weeks. OPM said the survey will be available online for approximately four to six weeks.
