More positively, employees are willing to seek ethics advice. Employees generally sought out agency ethics officials as their resource for advice. On a 5-point scale, they rated the helpfulness of agency ethics officials 4.28, as compared with an average of 3.57 for other resources consulted. On questions relating to program effectiveness, filers consistently gave higher ratings than non-filers. Supervisors gave higher ratings than non-supervisors.
Ratings suggest employees perceive agency ethical culture as neither positive nor negative.
These results suggest employees perceive some commitment to ethics in their agencies. This finding is consistent with the high level of awareness about the program reported by employees in connection with the Program Awareness measure. It is significant because increasing employee awareness of ethics issues is one of the primary objectives of the executive branch ethics program. Consistent with other findings, financial disclosure report filers reported a more positive perception than did non-filers. Similarly, supervisors reported a more positive perception than did non-supervisors.