The next FEMA: Barack Obama must begin rebuilding federal agencies fast--or risk seeing his entire agenda undermined.

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Federal Emergency Management Agency

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The next FEMA: Barack Obama must begin rebuilding federal agencies fast--or risk seeing his entire agenda undermined.

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Every two years the federal government conducts a "Human Capital Survey" of its own employees. Nearly a quarter of a million civil servants participate, providing anonymous, detailed, and often quite revealing answers to questions about their own agencies: What's the level of morale and teamwork? Do their skills match their missions? Do they have the resources to get the job done? How able and trustworthy are their leaders? Are high-performing employees promoted, and the lazy and incompetent shown the door?

When the answers to these questions are processed and released by the Office of Personnel Management they fuel some watercooler banter, and that's usually about it. Administration officials mostly ignore the results. Congress, which mandated the survey, pays little attention; the press, virtually none. The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service (headed by one of the authors of this article) uses the data, with some statistical refinements, to prepare a more detailed and accessible set of agency rankings dubbed "Best Places to Work in the Federal Governmen...

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