Methodology & Privacy

Data Source & Sampling

All U.S. local government (i.e., state, county, or city) employees are eligible to participate in Public Servant Pulse. Public Servant Pulse relies on a convenience sampling approach, recruiting respondents through a combination of direct email contacts, social media outreach, professional networks, and partner agencies and organizations. To verify that respondents are eligible, we ask a series of short screening questions at the beginning of the survey to confirm they are at least 18 years, work for a state, county, city, or other local government. Following best practices, we also remove duplicate and illegitimate responses.

Weighting

Survey weights are constructed using a raking approach (iterative proportional fitting), which aligns our sample distribution with the national population of state and local public-sector employees across age, gender, race, educational attainment, and region. Population benchmarks are drawn from the American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS).

Data Use and Privacy Protections

Protecting respondents' privacy is a top priority. As researchers at Harvard University, we follow rigorous data security and research ethics standards. This study operates in alignment with Harvard's Research Data Security Policy and has received approval from the Harvard University Institutional Review Board (IRB25-1530).

Personally identifiable information collected in the survey will only be accessible to the immediate research team responsible for survey administration, and will only be used for creating a longitudinal data set and data quality validation purposes. All survey responses will be securely stored and encrypted.

Only aggregate information will be shared with governments and all survey data will be anonymized prior to the release of public use datasets such that no individual respondent can be re-identified. To further protect confidentiality, we suppress or aggregate results for small groups (n < 20) in all reporting, including the online data explorer.

Survey Measures

Workforce Health Indicators

Public Servant Pulse measures five key workforce health indicators: workplace satisfaction, employee engagement, organizational pride, burnout, and intent to leave.

By drawing on questions from existing surveys like the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, the OECD/EU Survey of Public Servants, and the UK Civil Service People Survey, as well as from validated scales like the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory and the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, Public Servant Pulse generates national workforce health benchmarks that allow for comparisons across state and local governments and internationally.

Workplace Satisfaction

Workplace satisfaction is measured as the average of three workplace satisfaction questions: (1) I recommend my organization as a good place to work; (2) Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your job; (3) Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your organization? These questions are used in the Partnership for Public Service’s annual "Best Places to Work" ranking for federal government employees has measured role, job, and organizational satisfaction since 2003 – first in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and, more recently, in the Public Service Viewpoint Survey. Two of the three workplace satisfaction questions also appear in the OECD/EU Survey of Public Servants.

Each question is rescaled from 0 to 100 and then averaged to create the overall score, where 100 indicates the most satisfied. For analysis and reporting, we categorize scores of less than 33.3 as dissatisfied, more than 66.6 as satisfied, and more than 83.3 as highly satisfied.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is measured as the average of three questions: (1) I find my work to be a positive challenge; (2) I am willing to do extra work for my job beyond what is expected of me; (3) I am motivated to do my best work in my job. These questions were selected to capture cognitive, emotional, and physical engagement (Kahn, 1990). Two of the three employee engagement items can be found in the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory and the OECD/EU Survey of Public Servants, respectively.

Each question is rescaled from 0 to 100 and then averaged to create the overall score, where 100 indicates the highest engagement. For analysis and reporting, we categorize scores of less than 33.3 as disengaged, more than 66.6 as engaged, and more than 83.3 as highly engaged.

Organizational Pride

Organizational pride is the percentage of respondents that report being proud to tell others where they work – capturing feelings of positive emotional identification with and attachment to one’s organization (Mowday, Steers, and Porter, 1979). Public Servant Pulse includes one item on organizational pride adapted from Mowday, Steers, and Porter (1979), which also appears in the UK Civil Service People Survey.

Burnout

Burnout is a workplace phenomenon characterized by emotional exhaustion, psychological distance from one's job, and reduced feelings of personal accomplishment (Demerouti, 1999; Maslach, 1981). Burnout reflects a chronic response to sustained work-related stress. To measure burnout, Public Servant Pulse uses three items – one adapted from the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory and two adapted from the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory. A respondent is considered to be experiencing burnout if they at least somewhat agree with one or more of the items, which capture each of the three burnout dimensions.

Intention to Leave

Public Servant Pulse’s intent-to-leave indicator reflects the percentage of respondents who report that they are considering leaving their current job within the next year. To measure this, we use a question that is drawn from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, the Public Service Viewpoint Survey, and the OECD/EU Survey of Public Servants. In addition, Public Servant Pulse includes a follow-up question to capture the specific reasons employees report for considering leaving.

Employee Experiences and Perspectives

Drawing on the public management literature, existing national and international surveys, and questions developed for this survey, Public Servant Pulse also measures key predictors of employee well-being, including whether one's basic psychological needs are met, feeling understood at work, psychological safety, team cohesion, belonging, red tape, pay expectations, workplace harassment, supervisor relationships, role conflict, and scope for innovation. These measures allow leaders to go beyond measuring the overall health of their workforce to pinpoint which underlying psychological mechanisms may be associated with the outcomes they observe, and identify both success stories and room for improvements.

Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness

Self-determination Theory suggests that employees are more motivated when their basic needs for autonomy, competence, and perceived social support are met at work. Public Servant Pulse captures these three dimensions of self-determination theory through survey items based on work by Ryan & Deci (2000) and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Quality of Worklife Questionnaire.

Feeling Understood

Feeling understood is the subjective impression that one is known by another person, and that the other person understands their experience (Reis et al., 2017). Public Servant Pulse includes questions developed for this survey on feeling understood by different groups that influence public sector employee experience, including colleagues, supervisors, and residents a public servant is called to serve.

Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is a belief that the work environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking, including whether employees feel comfortable speaking up, asking questions, or making mistakes without fear of negative consequences. Public Servant Pulse includes one item from the psychological safety scale developed by Edmondson (1999).

Supervisor Relationship

Supervisor relationship items measure the quality and effectiveness of the working relationship between employees and supervisors, which can be a key predictor of employee engagement and performance. Public Servant Pulse includes one item from the LMX-7 Questionnaire (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995) on relationships with direct supervisors.

Team Cohesion and Belonging

Belonging is a sense of inclusion, acceptance, and interpersonal trust at work. Relatedly, team cohesion refers to interpersonal closeness, effective cooperation, and social support within work teams. Public Servant Pulse includes an item to measure team cohesion from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, and an item to measure belonging, based on work by Walton & Cohen (2007).

Innovation

Innovation reflects the extent to which employees are able to develop new ideas, improve processes, and respond to changing technology and needs at work. Public Servant Pulse includes two items from the OECD/EU Survey of Public Servants on how public servants experience opportunities for and barriers to innovation.

Red Tape

Red tape refers to excessive, unnecessary, or otherwise constraining rules, procedures, and regulations that individuals may face in their work (Bozeman, 1993). Red tape is often cited as a feature of government work and a challenge for both government workers and those they serve. Public Servant Pulse includes an item on red tape developed for this survey to measure how public servants view the level of red tape in their own work environments.

Role Conflict

Role conflict is a form of role stress that occurs when employees face incompatible, competing, or unclear expectations associated with their job responsibilities (Kahn et al., 1964). Role conflict arises when fulfilling one set of expectations makes it difficult or impossible to meet others, and it is often linked to stress, dissatisfaction, and reduced job performance. Public Servant Pulse includes two items developed for this survey to assess how and whether public servants experience role conflict.

Pay Expectations

Pay expectations include satisfaction with pay and expectation of pay compared to similar roles in the private sector. Public Servant Pulse includes two items on pay expectations, one developed for this survey and one from the OECD/EU Survey of Public Servants.

Workplace Harassment

Workplace harassment is unwelcome conduct that creates an intimidating, hostile, or abusive work environment. Public Servant Pulse includes an item adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Quality of Worklife Questionnaire on experiences of workplace harassment.

Public Service Mindsets

How public servants identify with their work, view the role of government, and perceive the residents they serve links employee experience to resident-government interactions. Public Servant Pulse includes mindset measures to connect direct and indirect employee experiences to the broader picture of what it means to be a public servant in the United States.

These measures, drawn from existing literature and surveys or developed for Public Servant Pulse, also predict outcomes like workplace satisfaction, engagement, burnout, and recruitment and retention in the public sector, but more directly reflect how public servants view their role in government.

Public Sector Identification

Public sector identification reflects employees' perceptions of their own role in public service. Research by Sciepura and Linos (2024) finds that viewing government as the best place to make a difference is associated with lower psychological distress, including burnout and compassion fatigue. Public Servant Pulse includes one item on public sector identification adapted from Sciepura and Linos (2024).

Recruitment and Retention

Understanding why employees join and stay in the public sector may help government leaders better understand how motivation changes over time and across groups of employees, and develop strategies for improving recruitment and retention. Public Servant Pulse includes two items, developed for this survey, that ask public servants to reflect on why they joined and why they stay in the public sector.

Burden Tolerance

Burden tolerance is an individual's willingness to accept the imposition of administrative burdens—such as documentation or work requirements—on residents in interactions with the government (e.g., in order to access public services or benefits). Public Servant Pulse includes one item from a burden tolerance scale developed and validated by Baekgaard et al. (2025).

Role of Government

Role of government captures the varied beliefs that public servants may have about what role the government should play in people's lives. Public Servant Pulse includes one item from the World Values Survey measuring employees' perspectives on the overarching role of government.

Trust

Trust in others is often measured across three dimensions—trust in one's integrity, competence, and benevolence (Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman, 1995). Public Servant Pulse includes four questions that measure how and whether public servants trust the residents they are called to serve, adapted from Grimmelikhuijsen and Knies (2017) and one adapted from the American National Election Studies.