Ensuring Excellence: A Guide for Cultivating Healthy High-Performing Agencies
In October 2024, the National Academy of Public Administration* (the Academy) released Ensuring Excellence: A Guide for Cultivating Healthy High-Performing Agencies. This report, commissioned by the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration, is a playbook for federal agencies seeking to build healthier and higher-performing organizations.
In today's fast-paced and ever-evolving work environment, federal agencies must continuously strive to enhance their organizational health and performance. In 2023, the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration asked the National Academy of Public Administration* (the Academy) to update our organizational health and performance framework from 2018 and create a practical set of recommendations for federal agencies.
Here, we summarize the key strategies outlined in the report.
1. Strengthening Organizational Health Starts with a Bold Vision that is Tied to the Mission of the Agency
Strengthening an agency’s organizational health is critical to delivering meaningful, measurable results to the people it serves. Agency leaders are encouraged to develop a bold vision that is closely tied to the mission and promoted throughout the organization.
2. Creating a Supportive Environment Focused on Psychological Safety
Highly effective organizations implementing successful organizational change need to foster a supportive environment that provides psychological safety for employees and establishes inclusive leadership, which are critical elements for their transformation.
3. Establishing Effective Communication and Engagement with Employees
Effective communication is crucial for strengthening organizational health and performance. Agency leaders should ensure that their strategy is communicated to all levels of the organization and take steps to receive meaningful feedback from employees. Developing action plans to address issues identified from surveys and other sources of feedback is also important.
4. Institutionalizing a Culture of Continuous Learning
To foster a culture of continuous learning, agency leaders should expand access to collected data for operational unit managers and teams. This increases transparency and accessibility. Additionally, dedicating resources to employee development through career pathing, mentoring, and training programs is essential.
5. Modernizing Federal Agency Recruitment, Retention, and Development Efforts
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of recruitment efforts is vital for modernizing federal agencies. Leaders should identify and adopt practices that streamline the hiring process and implement strategies to improve employee retention.
6. Gaining Support of the Central Management Agencies
The critical role of the central management agencies (the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management, and the General Services Administration) in fostering organizational health and performance should focus on supporting agencies to build capacity and adopt successful practices. Central management agencies should adopt a facilitative role by granting individual agencies sufficient flexibility to manage within broad government-wide strategic guidance and sharing cross-agency information.
By implementing these strategies, federal agencies can enhance their organizational health and performance, ultimately improving service delivery and mission achievement.
For more information and to access the full report, visit the National Academy of Public Administration's website.
*The National Academy of Public Administration (the Academy) is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization established in 1967 to assist government leaders in building more effective, accountable, and transparent organizations. Chartered by Congress to provide nonpartisan expert advice, the Academy's unique feature is its over 1,000 Fellows—including former cabinet officers, Members of Congress, governors, mayors, and state legislators, as well as prominent scholars, business executives, and career public administrators. If you would like to find out more about how the Academy can support your organization, please visit us at www.napawash.org.
