National Park Service employees continue to trail most of their colleagues elsewhere in the Interior Department when it comes to pay, leadership, work-life balance, and other key indicators that help define the best places to work in the federal government. 

Overall, the Park Service stood 322 out of 415 federal agencies covered by this year's Best Places to Work In the Federal Government survey.

The Interior Department as whole slipped a bit in its overall rankings, standing ninth among 17 of the government's "large agencies" in the survey. It showed slight declines in effective leadership, training and development, work-life balance, and support for diversity.

The annual Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings, produced by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, measure employee engagement government-wide as well as at individual departments, agencies and subcomponents. The rankings provide a means of holding leaders accountable for the health of their organizations, shining the spotlight on agencies that are successfully engaging employees as well as on those that are falling short.

The 2018 Best Places to Work rankings, based on the views of more than 847,000 civil servants from 488 federal organizations, present a tale of two governments—one comprising 59.1 percent of federal agencies where employee engagement scores declined and the other where only 39.6 percent registered increases and 1.3 percent stayed the same. These results represent a stark contrast to the previous three years when more than 70 percent of federal organizations experienced gains in how employees viewed their jobs and workplaces. -- Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service

The Park Service's overall score of 57 out of 100 for 2018 was the same for 2017; those two years returned the highest overall score for the agency since 2012, when it reached 61.3. The best Interior Department bureau to work for, according to the survey results, is the Office of Inspector General, which ranked 48th among government agencies.

The index score is not a combined average of an agency’s category scores. It is calculated using a proprietary weighted formula that looks at responses to three different questions in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. The more the question predicts intent to remain, the higher the weighting.

* I recommend my organization as a good place to work.

* Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your job?

* Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your organization? 

"The 2018 data show an urgent need for federal agencies to step up efforts to improve the employee work experience – from training and developing leaders to ensuring employees have a positive work environment and the resources they need to do their jobs," the survey's authors said. "Having a highly-motivated and engaged workforce is critical to a well-functioning government and the success of our country."

Digging into the weeds a bit, the survey showed that the Park Service continues to be a heavily white (78.6 percent), male (62.4 percent) enclave. On average, from 2013-2017 1,058 employees left the agency each year, vs. an average of 418 that joined each year. In 2017, 954 employees quit, while there were 508 new employees, according to the survey.

There was just one category, matching an employee's skills to their job, where the Park Service ranked above the median. In 10 of the 14 categories measured the Park Service was in the bottom 25 percent.