But the survey, which was taken between May and July, before the full facts of Yovanovitch’s ouster were known and before news of the Trump administration’s interactions with Ukraine were public, shows there were warning signs for Pompeo well before Democrats announced the impeachment probe in September. It also suggests that the early goodwill he had when taking over State from the deeply unpopular Tillerson has long faded.
The results were especially stark in a subcategory of the rankings that covered those who work in the Office of the Secretary of State. While in 2018, the “engagement score” for the secretary’s office was 50.5 out of 100, that fell nearly 9 points to 41.6 in 2019. Pompeo and his top aides saw drops in several areas measured, including “effective leadership,” “teamwork,” and “support for diversity.”
But morale at the State Department as a whole, at least at the time of the survey, appeared to have stabilized, the data shows . The department was still in the bottom half among the large agencies, ranking 13th out of 17. Still, that engagement score of 61.3 was higher than the 60.7 it scored in 2018. That slight tick upward ended a fall in scores since 2016.
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