The political environment, poor relations with bosses and a troubled workplace culture are the leading reasons that senior federal executives leave their agencies, departing officials have told the government.
The federal Office of Personnel Management conducted a first-of-its-kind exit survey of officials who were leaving their jobs in the Senior Executive Service — the layer of about 8,000 high-level government employees between the Civil Service and political appointees.
What the survey found was a group — about 800 of whom work in Maryland — who largely felt underpaid, underappreciated and poorly led by those at the top of their agencies.
"The impetus to leave becomes stronger than the impetus to stay," said Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association.
It's a feeling Mark Wallace knows well.
After a 37-year career with the Suitland-based Census Bureau — more than 11 of them in the senior executive ranks — the Gambrills man decided to retire from the government in 2012 and start his own business.
Wallace said he saw a lot of himself in the survey. While he had no complaints about senior leadership or the culture at the Census Bureau, the political environment was a big factor in his decision to leave.
"A lot of it had to do with the upcoming budget cuts," he said. "By the end of 2012, we saw the sequestration coming."
Sequestration, he said, would have forced his division to reorganize and "do less with less."
"I had been through a number of reorganizations before in the past and I really wasn't up for another one," Wallace said. He went on to co-write a book titled "We are Not the Enemy: Restoring Honor to the U.S. Civil Service."
In about 70 percent of senior executive departures, the survey showed, the agency makes no attempt to encourage the officials to stay.
Wallace said he was part of that majority.
"They knew I was going to leave and they would have wanted me to stay, but they didn't give me any incentive to stay by giving me a retention bonus," he said.
John Palguta is vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service, which encourages careers in government. In well-run agencies, he said, top officials keep up steady communication with their valued executives.
"In organizations where there's good communication, part of that communication is focused on where things are not going well and trying to do something about it," he said.
The survey was based on exit surveys of 211 executives who were leaving their agencies between April 2013 and July 2014. It showed that about half of the executives planned to work for pay after leaving their government jobs or intended to start looking for work. Only about a quarter had decided to leave the work force for good.
Of those who expect to take new jobs, almost 60 percent said they would receive higher pay than they did from Uncle Sam.
When asked about the factors that led to their decisions to leave their agencies, 42 percent said the "political environment" contributed to a great extent. Thirty-eight percent pointed to "senior leadership" and "organizational culture."
Twenty-nine percent said insufficient pay greatly contributed to their decision to leave.
Pay in the senior executive ranks runs from about $122,000 to $183,000, a range that in some cases means they earn less than the high-ranking GS-15 civil servants who work under them.
That, in turn, has made many GS-15s reluctant to advance into senior positions, which bring greater stress and offer less job security, Wallace said.
Several factors scored higher than pay as reasons for senior executives to leave. They included lack of recognition of accomplishments, job stress, better job offers and a "desire to enjoy life without work commitments."
The survey uncovered mixed feelings among the departing executives about their employers. Sixty-three percent said they would recommend their agency as a good place to work, but that left more than one-third with either neutral or negative feelings about the workplace.
Craig College of Derwood in Montgomery County retired in 2012 after 21 years in high-level positions at the Defense Department. He said he would enthusiastically recommend a career at the department and in the senior executive ranks.
He said defense executives might have experienced a better political environment than those in other agencies.
"Generally speaking, those of us that lived that life absolutely loved it," he said.
But Palguta said the 63 percent positive response was hardly a robust endorsement of a federal career.
"In the private sector, it's closer to 72 percent who will recommend the organization as a good place to work," he said.
Wallace said he's glad to see the personnel management agency asking the right questions.
"It's a very timely survey right now because the SES corps needs to be built up," he said. "Perhaps this will be an attention-grabber for people," he said.