This week, in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA), the National Academy of Public Administration (the Academy) released a new report on enhancing organizational health to achieve results in federal agencies, Ensuring Excellence: A Guide for Cultivating Healthy High-Performing Agencies.
The Academy report provides a playbook, or how-to guide, for federal agency leaders and managers, and highlights concrete strategies, evidence-based practices, and case studies that can be used to continually assess and respond to evolving work environments in ways that will improve organizational health and performance.
This study continues the work that began with the Academy’s review in 2018, which focused on strengthening the government’s organizational health and performance. It also follows concepts of organizational health that were introduced in concert with the Federal Performance Framework through OMB memorandum M-23-15: Measuring, Monitoring, and Improving Organizational Health and Organizational Performance in the Context of Evolving Agency Work Environments, which established common definitions and examples of key indicators for measuring organizational health and performance.
In 2023 and 2024, OMB strengthened the integration of organizational health measures into the existing performance framework by conducting strategic review meetings with the Deputy Secretaries of major agencies. These meetings reviewed how agencies have integrated organizational health metrics into their planning processes. Routines of data-driven organizational health and performance reviews are supported by a joint collaboration between OMB, the Office of Personnel Management, and GSA. They provide each agency’s senior leadership team, and the implementation leads of agency-identified major operating units, with existing data and insights on current indices and indicators related to their organizational health and performance to support agency efforts in identifying areas of strength as well as opportunities for improvement.
Best Practices and Key Recommendations
The 2024 Academy report emphasizes the need for collaboration between central management agencies, federal agency leaders, and operational unit managers to modernize recruitment, retention, and development efforts across the Federal Government. Focusing on capacity building and encouraging the adoption of successful practices will help central management agencies strengthen organizational health and performance.
Some key recommendations include:
- Developing a bold vision tied to the agency’s mission and promoted throughout the organization.
- Creating a supportive environment focused on psychological safety and inclusive leadership.
- Effectively communicating and engaging with employees.
- Institutionalizing a culture of continuous learning.
Stay Informed
For further Performance.gov information, we encourage you to follow our X and LinkedIn, and to subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates.
