The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has officially cancelled the 2025 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), a long-standing tool used to gauge morale, engagement, and workplace satisfaction among civil servants.
A Survey in Flux
Earlier this year, OPM had signaled its intent to modify the 2025 FEVS in accordance with two executive orders issued by President Trump. These orders—Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government—mandated the removal of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) content from federal programs and communications.
In response, OPM announced in March that it would:
- Eliminate 13 DEIA-related FEVS questions added in 2022.
- Remove survey items referencing gender ideology.
- Delay the survey’s release from May to an unspecified later date to reduce administrative burden on agencies.
- Update the FEVS website to scrub DEIA-related features and mark past reports (2012–2024) as inconsistent with the new executive orders. The 2024 FEVS governmentwide report, for example, includes two redacted pages which say “[Redacted in response to EO 14151 Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.]”
Going From Planned Changes to Full Cancellation
Despite these planned revisions, OPM ultimately chose to cancel the 2025 FEVS altogether, according to a report by Politico.
Federal News Network reported that the cancellation was done in part so that OPM could “thoughtfully recalibrate the FEVS to align with administration objectives” and resume administering the survey on its regular schedule next year.
OPM Director Scott Kupor told Politico that the survey would return “new and improved” in 2026, though no details have been provided about its future format or content.
Doubts About FEVS Impact
Past comments from some FedSmith readers indicate that they do not have a lot of faith in the FEVS as a whole in terms of it being used to make improvements in agencies. For example, a commenter wrote on a past article, “These viewpoint surveys are way too long and generally not implemented by senior management.”
This sentiment is reflected in the survey results themselves. Positive responses failed to top 50% governmentwide for the last five years, although they did improve over the last three years:
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I believe the results of this survey will be used to make my agency a better place to work. | 43% | 40% | 43% | 48% | 49% |
Concerns Raised About the Decision
Cancelling the 2025 FEVS means federal employees will not have an opportunity to formally share their workplace experiences this year and will leave a gap in the annual reporting data. With so many changes taking place in the federal workforce this year, that could be a missed opportunity to get feedback from employees about the impact of the changes.
OPM’s decision has also been criticized as an attempt by the administration to hide feedback that is critical of the cuts and other changes it has been making to the federal workforce.
Since the Trump administration took office in January, there has been a focus on cutting the size of the federal workforce through the deferred resignation program, VERAs, and layoffs, and recent estimates are that the federal workforce may be reduced by as many as 300,000 employees.
Federal employee unions have been a target as well. President Trump’s executive order would significantly weaken their influence by targeting official time and collective bargaining rights.
What has your experience with the FEVS been in the past? Did you see any efforts on the part of your agency to make changes based on the feedback shared by employees? Share your experience in the comments below.
