NASA photograph by Tom Tschida

The NASA Armstrong staff works at one of the best places to work in the federal government according to the results of a recent survey.

NASA was selected as the best place to work for the fifth straight year in a survey of federal government employees.

NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in California ranked 28 in the list of best places to work in a large agency, which was 3.3 percent better than the previous year with a score of 77.5 percent. Center scores have been increasing every year since 2012 and are significantly better than the first survey tally of 60.7 percent in 2005.

“Thank you all for your feedback,” Center Director David McBride said. “We take it seriously and we will use your responses to make Armstrong an even better place to work. NASA had the highest level of participation in the federal government for employee feedback. My challenge to you to participate in the survey caused all of the other NASA centers to take our challenge to increase their participation.”

Employees awarded the highest marks to teamwork with a 77.2 percent mark, 2.2 percent better than last year. The next two highest areas of approvals were for innovation at 75.2 percent, on par with the previous total of 74.6 percent, and training and development at 72.1 percent, besting last survey’s 70 percent.

The biggest increases from the previous survey were recorded for support for diversity at 69.6 percent, up from 66.7 percent, performance-based reward and advancement at 60.2 percent from 57 percent and effective leadership increased 2.6 percent from 64.9 percent to an approval rating of 67.5 percent.

Across the agency, eight other organizations were recognized including NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ranked 10th with an 81.2 percent approval rating, NASA Johnson Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center ties at 11th with an 80.2 percent favorable tally. Langley Research Center was 21st, with a 78.1 percent approval rating.

NASA photograph by Carla Thomas

A flight crew works together to keep the NASA 747 Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy on course for scientific data collection.

Rounding out the NASA selections representing the top 40 places to work were Glenn Research Center coming in at 32nd with a 76.8 percent favorable rating, Kennedy Space Center at 34th with a 76.5 percent approval rating, Ames Research Center at 39th with a tally of 75.5 percent and NASA Headquarters at 40th with a 75.4 percent approval rating.

The annual results of the Employee Viewpoint Survey are published by the Partnership for Public Service. It ranks nearly 400 federal organizations by overall employee satisfaction and commitment and also evaluates key workplace focus areas such as innovation, training and development, leadership and diversity. Participation increased at all NASA centers in this recent survey.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said he knows why job satisfaction is high at NASA.

“Your passion and dedication to our missions and each other is evident in the results, because every single question increased in favorability,” he said. “This commitment to continuous innovation — whether applied to our missions or to improving our work environment — is what makes NASA so special and is the fuel for our journey to Mars and all of our cutting edge missions in air and space.