Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson is looking to give DHS a morale makeover before a new administration takes over in January, and Step 1 starts with a new mission statement.

The new statement is a mere 15 words—down from the previous 71 words—reads, "With honor and integrity, we will safeguard the American people, our homeland, and our values."

Johnson debuted his agency's newer, more concise mission statement in a May 11 email, saying that it was intended to unify the 226,000 employees and numerous components of DHS.

"This statement is intended to reflect the views and the values of our employees, and to be in their voice, not mine," he said in the email.

The previous statement was a detailed and expansive explanation of the agency's mission, which said: "We will lead efforts to achieve a safe, secure, and resilient homeland. We will counter terrorism and enhance our security; secure and manage our borders; enforce and administer our immigration laws; protect cyber networks and critical infrastructure; and ensure resilience from disasters. We will accomplish these missions while providing essential support to national and economic security and maturing and strengthening both the Department of Homeland Security and the homeland security enterprise."

Johnson noted that mission statement was crafted with input from some 3,000 DHS employees who submitted to a survey, as well as the previous the three previous Homeland Security secretaries.

The move comes as the Obama administration winds down, and Johnson tries reverse plummeting morale within the agency.

DHS has seen its engagement scores decline for the past five years in the Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey and has ranked at the bottom of large agencies in The Partnership for Public Service's The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government.

At a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on employee engagement last month, DHS was repeatedly held up as a work-in-progress for employee morale, due in part to the complexity of its mission and its numerous components.

Johnson said that across the agency, the terms "honor," "integrity" and "safeguard" were consistently repeated in submissions and that he hopes the new mission statement will bring together the agency's many elements in a unified effort.

"This statement is intended for all our components and all our approximately 226,000 personnel across the entire department," he said. "My hope is that our people will see it as the capstone of our Unity of Effort initiative, and our unifying mission statement for now and long after I am Secretary of Homeland Security."

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