VA All Employee Survey

VA's Authoritative Data Source for Employee Engagement

It takes an engaged workforce to live up to Lincoln's vision of caring for our nation's Veterans.  The VA All Employee survey (AES) helps improve engagement across VA, and we're excited to share our data and our story!

AES at a Glance

VA has known for a long time that a key step in creating an engaged workforce is to survey employees and act on their feedback. The All VA Survey was launched in 1997, rebranded as the All Employee Survey (AES) in 2001, and VA has administered the AES every year since 2006. Although the questions and framework have evolved to match VA's specific needs, the overall purpose of improving employee engagement has remained consistent. 
The AES is:
  • Inclusive - all VA employees are invited to participate
  • Voluntary - no one in VA is able to see who did or did not participate
  • Anonymous - responses are not tied to specific individuals in any way
  • Constructive - the data are for developmental purposes and team-level action planning
  • Transparent - results are shared quickly with everyone in VA, down to the team level
  • Comprehensive - 60+ questions that cover a wide variety of workplace experiences and leader behaviors
  • Popular - response rates are usually around 60 - 70%, twice as high as typical surveys
  • Efficient - VA saves millions of dollars a year by doing the work in-house 

Best Places to Work

Best Places to Work (BPTW) is one of the most important indicators of how employees feel about working for VA. BPTW is a composite score produced by the Partnership for Public Service and is a weighted average of job satisfaction, organization satisfaction, and whether people would recommend VA as a good place to work (these questions are included in the AES).
Scroll below to see a variety of metrics, trends, and rankings for VA as reported by PPS (source: https://bestplacestowork.org/rankings/detail/VA00).

AES Datasets

Here, you can download current and historical AES data in various formats.
Aggregate Public Release AES Data File - These files have average scores for all core AES items at the following levels of VA (availability begins in 2020):
  • Administration - Functional groupings of VA by service
  • VISN/District - Geographic groupings of VHA, VBA, and NCA service providers
  • Site/Office - Specific VA groups (e.g., hospitals, administrative offices)
  • Occupation - For VHA hospitals, data are available at the occupation group level (e.g., physicians, nurses)
Deidentified Individual-level Public Release AES Data File - In 2018, VA merged the AES and the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), which is a government-wide employee-perception survey conducted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The merge means the included FEVS items are offered to all employees and benefit from the AES's high response rate, and we can quickly share results down to the small-team level where they're most actionable. These files have deidentified individual responses for all FEVS items.
AES-FEVS Percents Public Data Report - These files have FEVS items reported as percents (as required by Federal statute). 

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How We Get to Engagement

We know that engaging workplaces don't just happen - it takes a lot of hard work to create a great place to work. VA research has identified five key drivers of employee engagement that, when present, help create a workplace that people can easily engage with.

This infographic shows how highly engaged employees have higher scores on decisional involvement, sr. leader honesty, talents used, innovation encouragement, and skill development.

AES - FEVS Engagement Item Maps

The maps below show VHA facilities' scores on BPTW and the five engagement drivers. These items are included on both the VA All Employee Survey and the government-wide Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS). Darker green indicates higher, more favorable scores. Drag, zoom, or click the maps to see more detail. 
Best Places to Work
Overall job satisfaction composite developed by the Partnership for Public Service
Decisional Involvement
"How satisfied are you with your involvement in decisions that affect your work?"
Innovation
"I feed encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things"
Skill Development
"I am given a real opportunity to develop my skills in my organization"
Sr. Leader Ethics
"My organization’s senior leaders maintain high standards of honesty and integrity."
Talents Used
"My talents are used well in the workplace"