California Conducts Its First State Work Survey

So, what do you really think about your job, state workers? California’s state government is issuing a first-of-its-kind anonymous “engagement survey” to measure how much employees care about their work and how connected they feel to what they do.

Responses to the questionnaire going out to 5,000 randomly-selected state workers Tuesday “will establish a baseline on how our employees think about the work that they do,” said Government Operations Secretary Marybel Batjer in a prepared statement. “We want to build on these results as we look toward improving the state’s civil service system.”

Gov. Jerry Brown has made civil service reform a centerpiece of his agenda, but leadership turmoil and bureaucratic hiccups have slowed change so far. Still, the administration has made some headway, such as paring down the number of job classifications in state government.