In 2014, people  39 years old and younger represented 44.8 percent of the U.S. employed  civilian labor force and 29.6 percent of the total civilian federal  government workforce (see figure 1). According to results from  OPM’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), government-wide  levels of employee engagement declined from an estimated 67 percent in  2011, to an estimated 63 percent in 2014, and increased to 64 percent in  2015, as measured by a score OPM derived from the FEVS beginning in  2010—the Employee Engagement Index (EEI). As with retirement eligibility, the percent of millennials in the workforce  varies by agency. Agencies that have  high rates of retirement eligibility,  such as the Environmental Protection  Agency, also tend to have low percentages of millennials in the  workforce. Millennial  EEI scores were 0.4 percentage points  lower than non-millennials in 2015, at 63.8 and 64.2 respectively. Key  findings from our analysis include the following:
Millennials  25 years old and younger had the highest estimated EEI  score across all age groups and were 7.6 percentage points higher  than the age group with the lowest score, the 30 to 39 age group. In comparison, employees 30 to 39 years old comprised  21.4 percent of the federal workforce in fiscal year 2014 (see figure 5). Despite low EEI scores for millennials, as  shown above in figure 4, DHS has the highest percentage (39.2  percent) of employees 39 years old and younger in their workforce,  compared to other CFO Act agencies. Millennials Ranked Supervisors Higher than Non-Millennials, But Scored Lower in Intrinsic Work Experience

Among all employees, millennials had similar perceptions of leaders as  non-millennials, but, as shown in table 2, employees’ perceptions of  leaders consistently received the lowest score of the three components  that comprise the EEI. As we have shown in the analysis above, the employee-supervisor  relationship is an important aspect of employee engagement. Lessons Learned for Driving Engagement Could Help Improve Recruitment and Retention

Overall we found that the drivers of engagement were similar for  millennials and non-millennials. At the Department of Education (Education), one case  study agency from our 2015 report on employee engagement, the Office  of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) implemented a process to help  ensure that constructive performance conversations regularly occur. Career development and training. For the remaining 4 drivers, we found that  government-wide, controlling for other factors, someone who answered  “strongly agree” to those questions would have on average an  engagement score that was between 10 and 14 percentage points higher  than someone who answered “strongly disagree.” Those four drivers are  work-life balance (“My supervisor supports my need to balance work and  other life issues”), inclusive work environment (“Supervisors work well  with employees of different backgrounds”), employee involvement (“How  satisfied are you with your involvement in decisions that affect your  work”), and communication from management (“How satisfied are you  with the information you receive from management on what’s going on in  your organization”). Employee involvement. These key drivers can help agencies develop a culture of engagement as  agencies embed them into the fabric of everyday management practices,  rather than simply reacting to the results of the most recent FEVS. Employee outreach. Moreover, while our analysis and the experience of our case study  agencies suggests that developing a culture of engagement does not  necessarily require expensive programs or technology, it does  necessitate effective management strategies such as leadership  involvement, strong interpersonal skills on the part of supervisors, and  thoughtful use of data. This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the  United States.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO's prior work found that skills gaps in government-wide fields such as cybersecurity are threatening the ability of agencies to carry out their missions. At the same time, government-wide trends in federal workforce retirement threaten to aggravate the problem. To help ensure agencies have the capacity to address complex national challenges, agencies need to be competitive for top talent, including those in the millennial generation.
This testimony examines (1) recent employment trends of millennials in the federal workforce and how they compare to other employee cohorts; (2) trends in engagement levels of millennials versus other employee groups; and (3) the drivers of federal employee engagement and the key lessons learned for building a culture of engagement.
This statement is based on GAO's 2015 review of the trends and drivers of government-wide employee engagement and our larger body of work on federal human capital, issued primarily between January 2014 and September 2016, and is updated with more recent information. Millennials are commonly considered as those born between the early 1980s and 2000. However, for the purposes of this statement GAO is including all employees 39 years old and younger as millennials in order to provide a consistent definition across datasets.
GAO is not making any new recommendations in this testimony. We have previously made recommendations to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to improve engagement government-wide, which OPM has implemented.

What GAO Found

Employees 39 years of age and younger represented approximately 45 percent of the United States employed civilian labor force and about 30 percent of the civilian federal workforce in fiscal year 2014. This group includes the millennial generation. The percent of millennials within the federal workforce varies by agency and agencies that have high rates of retirement eligibility also tend to have low percentages of millennials in the workforce.
In 2015, millennial employees in the federal government had an estimated Employee Engagement Index (EEI) score of 63.8 – as derived from the Office of Personnel Management's Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey – which is less than one percentage point lower than non-millennials. Engagement is usually defined as the sense of purpose and commitment employees feel towards their employer and its mission. As shown in the figure below, millennial subgroups had both the highest and lowest EEI scores among all age groups in 2015—employees 25 and younger had the highest EEI score (70.8), while employees 30 to 39 years old had the lowest EEI score (63.3).
Key drivers of engagement can help agencies develop a culture of engagement. GAO's regression analysis identified six practices as key drivers of the EEI, which were similar for both millennials and non-millennials: (1) constructive performance conversations, (2) career development and training, (3) work-life balance, (4) inclusive work environment, (5) employee involvement, and (6) communication from management. As GAO found in a 2015 report on employee engagement, building a culture of engagement involves effective management strategies such as leadership involvement, strong interpersonal skills of supervisors, and thoughtful use of data.