BBG Governor Victor Ashe Raises Employee Morale Issues

In a rare move for a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a struggling federal agency which manages U.S. government-funded news and information broadcasts for foreign audiences, BBG Governor Ambassador Victor Ashe raised the issue of employee morale. Speaking at the open BBG meeting on October 13, 2011, Ambassador Ashe acknowledged that despite a minor improvement in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG remains near the very bottom among all federal agencies in terms of employee morale.

Ambassador Ashe made his comments after meeting with the Voice of America employees who prepare programs for Africa. He also met with staffers who conduct employee training seminars.

Ambassador Ashe pointed out that 45 percent of all VOA employees are contractors, whose views about the management are not surveyed. He described them as "generally an unhappy group of people" who, unlike regular VOA employees, are not entitled to various benefits and do not get regular pay raises. Private contractors working at the Voice of America, also known as POVs (Purchase Order Vendors) cannot even receive flu shots, which are available to other employees.

BBG Watch learned from reliable sources that some BBG members and their executive staff were unhappy about Ambassador Ashe's employee morale comments. BBG officials who implemented many of the existing policies have been consistently rated in the OPM surveys as being the worst managers within the Federal workforce.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Victor Ashe
• BBG
• VOA
• Voice of America
• employee morale