Employee morale across the National Park System is about the worst in the Interior Department, according to a new survey/NPS file
National Park Service employees are not convinced the agency is succeeding with its mission, according to the latest Best Places To Work In The Federal Government rankings.
The Park Service stood 406th out of 427 federal agencies when employees were asked if their agency was accomplishing its mission, a question new to the annual survey. Within the Interior Department, only the Bureau of Indian Education and the Bureau of Indian Affairs ranked lower than the Park Service in this category of the survey that has been gauging the sentiments of federal workers since 2003. The Interior Department overall ranked 14th out of 16 agencies when that same question was asked.
National Park Service staff in Washington, D.C., did not respond Thursday when asked for comment on the survey's results.
Overall, Park Service employees' responses to the 2021 survey placed the agency 370th out of 432 agencies in terms of "engagement and satisfaction." That ranking was derived from employee responses to three questions:
- I recommend my organization as a good place to work.
- Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your job?
- Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your organization?
The Park Service's score for its workforce's "engagement and satisfaction" showed a slight drop from 2020, though it was an improvement from the 2013-2019 surveys. Still, there were other troubling scores compiled from questions Park Service employees answered for the survey. Overall, the agency ranked:
- 390th out of 431 agencies on the question of whether "leadership at all levels of the organization generates motivation and commitment, encourages integrity and manages people fairly, while also promoting the professional development, creativity and empowerment of employees;"
- 404th out of 432 agencies on the "level of respect employees have for senior leaders, satisfaction with the amount of information provided by management and perceptions about senior leaders’ honesty, integrity and ability to motivate employees;"
- 408th out of 432 agencies on whether "employees consider their workloads reasonable and feasible, and managers support a balance between work and life;"
- 386th out of 428 agencies on whether employees "believe they communicate effectively both inside and outside their team organizations, creating a friendly work atmosphere and producing high-quality work products;"
- 384th out of 428 agencies on whether employees thought they were adequately compensated for their work.
Park Service Director Chuck Sams, during his confirmation hearing last October, acknowledged morale of the agency's employees was low and that improving it would be his top priority.
At the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, Chair Mike Murray was not surprised by the survey's findings.
"It is disappointing but not surprising that the National Park Service continues to rate low in employee satisfaction," he said in an email Thursday. "The agency has been mired in the bottom 10-20% of the rankings for the past 20 years."
Why morale is so low was explored through a 2017 project, the NPS Voices Tour, which was designed to give NPS leadership a better understanding of employee concerns. The "Tour" evolved from face-to-face and web sessions, along with more than 200 anonymous submissions. Overall, the authors of the report met with or had correspondence from 1,249 Park Service employees.
A key point made in the report was that "[P]erhaps the strongest message that emerged from the Voices Tour was that participants need to see a response to what they have shared. We heard voices from people wearing thin from being asked to perform at a high level in the face of inadequate resources, competing demands, and in some cases, work environments rendered extremely stressful due to interperson behavior."
Authors of the report also stated that "[E]ven those who found the experience valuable expressed concern about whether any real action would come out of all the effort. Many expressed a sense of futility in participating as 'NPS keeps bringing people down here to get our opinion and nothing happens.' They say they have 'been through enough surveys and trainings' and now want to see tangible actions."
Sams was alerted to the contents of the report. Tim Whitehouse, executive director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, wrote Sams last November after he was concerned to say "the challenge of raising those dashed hopes will fall to you. It is not to late to answer the alarm sounded in the NPS Voices 2018 report."
"There is definitely an element in recent years of employees feeling overworked and undervalued as many parks have become busier than ever while budgets and staffing have not grown to meet the needs of serving visitors, maintaining facilities, and protecting park resources," Murray wrote in his email. "My observation has been that the vast majority of NPS employees are incredibly dedicated to the NPS mission of protecting park resources and serving visitors. However, these chronically low rankings sound the alarm that many in the workforce doubt that 'conserving the well being and satisfaction of its human resources' is much of a priority for the agency.
"The problem is bigger than any one leader and it will take multiple actions over a sustained period of time for the workforce to gain confidence that the agency is serious about addressing their concerns," he added.
Phil Francis, the past chair of the Coalition, agreed with Murray's points.
"I think the people who are there are working hard to achieve our mission," Francis said during a phone call. "I think people who work for the National Park Service remain dedicated public servants who love the national parks, love serving people, and are really wed to the mission of the service. The problem is we've lost over 3,000 jobs. With hundreds of millions of visitors, small staffs, budgets that are not adequate for day-to-day operations, it's hard to have good morale."
While the report said the Park Service's workforce jumped to more than 21,000 employees in 2021 from 12,556 the year before, Francis said the addition of park units in recent years necessitated even more employees.
"It's still short of the 23- or 24,000 people that once were there, even before the extra parks were added to the system," he said. "And so, you're still asking people to do more with less, and then throw in Covid, throw in inadequate housing levels. It's pretty hard to have good morale."
Comments
Compare this survey of Park Service employees who have rated their managers among the worst in the federal government for over a decade to surveys of the general public who consistently rank the National Park Service as one of the top federal agencies. The NPS rank & file are mostly excellent, often highly skilled, civil servants that Americans are lucky to have working in their parks; NPS managers, not so much.
A big problem is overhead. A large portion, perhaps almost half, of the NPS annual appropriation never makes it out of DC or past the top-heavy regional offices to the actual parks, 'the field' as they call it.
Another is frequent transfers, what commenter 'Smokies Backpacker' calls "the itinerant manager class." Just as they are maybe starting to know their parks in some detail after 2-3 years, it's time to get their career ticket punched at a new stop.
It seemed to me that this careerism had flipped the script, causing managers to put most of their energy into filling the eye of their superior, rather than correcting and assisting those they supposedly supervised.
The petty theft that 'chris' commented about is really a NPS management failing that most businesses and even the military have to expend a lot of managerial effort to control. Olympic park's sawyers felt that they were entitled to personal saw chains for being the best in the Park Service. The locals here at Mount Rainier have noticed that few of their 'parkie' neighbors pay for trash pickup. When I spent a month as acting supervisor, the desk drawer of my boss was full of his 'CYA' leave slips, filled out, but not submitted.
The biggest impediment to good management, though, was that hiring was often rigged, with pre-selection, cronyism, even nepotism more the rule rather than the exception.
Nothing should be surprising about the Best Places to work survey due to the persistent toxic culture of NPS. NPS has been under the gun for years to clean up it's management and bullying problem but the white male dominated management has no interest in even talking about it. The agency could benefit from a wholesale OIG investigation of superintendents and division chiefs. I left the agency after being physically threatened by a co-worker and NOTHING was done at the park level even after decades of complaints against him.
NPS corruption is in part due to a mostly male supervisor staff but it does not exclude females. The housing directer at a majory NPS park denied the entire trail crew housing until her son was hired on to work a trails season. Only then did she comply with request to house the NPS trail crew seasonal workers. Her son washed out in days. I can think of several NPS workers who got jobs just because they were relatives. jobs were often filled long before they were aired on USA JOBS gov
That said as male who-mostly- behaved properly I empathise with the women in the NPS who have been harrassed. Though I also saw some use it to their advantage. But that has nohting to do with the NPS
Agreed that bullying, harassment, nepotism, pettiness, etc is not gender specific in NPS. The same park that I reference in my comment above has a district LE ranger who supervisers her common-law-marriage husband with whom they have children. Although this is common in NPS, they both have track records of being problem employees within the park, have long-standing complaints against them, numerous 1-year letters of reprimand (that they boast about), and they willfully antagonize State officials while in uniform and on duty. Mosty alarming is that both have strong anti-government and anti-science sentiments...all while carrying a 9mm. The federal paycheck and benefits is just to good to pass up. NPS used to be such a great organization to work for but it's a comedy of it's former self.
Living in Moab, I know lots of park employees - neighbors, friends, etc. Knew a ranger who was holed up in a temp. rental until he could get discharged for his PTSD from hauling in dead bodies from Lake Powell. There seems to be an attitude among park managment that eveyone working for the parks should be happy being paid in sunsets. Lots of sexism, favoritism, and disrespect, and not just from management, but from fellow employees. It's not the dream job one might think. And this attitude has seeped into the park natural history association that exists to support the parks here. Elitism that you're associated with a national park while sensible people who know the behind the scenes wouldn't want the job. I'm not a Reddit fan, but a read of r/parkrangers will open a few eyes, though it's not all bad. The ones I know who managed to make it to retirement are pretty well set.
What gets me is that the media seems completely disinterested in covering this story.
It's easy reporting and juicy. It's the structural/political story of how defending an agency impacts real people on the ground, it's the visceral story of a culture of harassment emerging because of a scarcity mindset, and it's the relatable story of skilled professionals too poor to have families or homes because their managers at the upper level are too cowardly to tell Congress and the OPM that park rangers deserve fair pay for their work, the park service needs more staff to fill the new national parks it creates and adjust for increased visitation. But this publication right here did one largely derivative article on the "voices" report, one article every year.on the viewpoint survey and continuously devoted more column inches to "pretty pictures of pretty parks" than the actual existential structural issues that impact the workforce that makes national parks function.
One would have thought that the coverup of the voices.report would merit major national media attention but apparently the abusive culture of the national park service, the low pay and broken career ladders that it's workers endure, and the threat this faces to the survival of our national parks doesn't merit much coverage
Your comment makes no sense. Yes, volunteers are mostly happy with their opportunities of working in the parks. But volunteers are NOT NPS employees. Nature and beauty only goes so far when the overwhelming percentage of employees have negative views of their agencies.
NPS needs a complete makeover. The agency is top heavy with superintendents that pull three figure salaries but lack leadership skills to organize and retain good employees. I saw this first hand which is now being handled by EEOC. Smaller parks are not only understaffed but managers and superintendents rely heavily on volunteers and contractors to maintain some parks. Incoming applicants have lasted less than two days when they see how disorganized management had become. A colloge degree, followed by an intership sponsed by NPS resulted in frustration a removal of one manager to another postion along with retaliation from management for filing a complaint. So no, the agency can have a few bright spots, but is completely inept on too many levels to maintain a workforce. The rankings speaks for itself.