Form 6 State Agency Interview Guide

Implementation Study Instrument

Implementation Study Instrument

UI-Work Share¹ Staff Interview Guide:

RCT Iowa and Oregon and QED Outreach Oregon

INTRODUCTION: Introduce interviewers.

Your responses are private. Only those persons present and a few of the research team’s staff will have access to the notes and we have signed a privacy confirming that the responses will not be disclosed with personal identifiers and that information for reports and publications will combine answers so individual identities are protected. In order to ensure the accuracy of the notes, we would like your permission to tape-record this interview. If you agree, please let us know if at any time you want us to turn off the recorder either for a portion or the remainder of the interview.

QUESTION: Please describe any changes to your role at [state agency] and with the Work Share program in the last year.

OBJECTIVES/CONCEPTS & QUESTIONS
1. Work-share Program Background: Political and Economic Context	Leader-ship	Manage- ment	Tech- nical2	Outreach3
Please describe any changes in the [State name] political climate toward Work Share (WS) in the last year (at various levels-legislature, agency, unions, etc.)?	x	x
1.2 Please describe the economic climate in [State name] in the past year and any ways it has affected the WS program? Projections for economic climate and effects?	x	x		x
1.3 Now, after more than a year after the new WS legislation, were there changes in the program that affected your administration of the program or employer participation?	x	x	x	x
2. Fidelity and Monitoring: Features and Operations— Barriers, Solutions, and Promising Practices
2.1 Does the agency monitor employer compliance with any of the WS requirements --providing health and other job benefits, restrictions on a secondary part-time job, availability for training?	x	x	x	x
2.2 What questions and challenges have arisen about changes in the UI tax rate? To what extent has this impacted participation? Suggestions?	x	x	x	x
2.3 Overall, how did the demonstration go from your perspective? Benefits? Challenges? Best Practices? Lessons Learned?	x	x	x	x
2.4 What have been the challenges and lessons learned from the demonstration trainings for the business representatives and other staff who have direct contact with employers?		x	x	x
2.5 In terms of responding to inquiries and providing assistance to employers (e.g., phone or in-person, developing a plan, entering hours of employees, submitting claims), what were the major questions asked? What key points do you convey? What barriers to usage emerge? Solutions?		x	x	x
2.6 Regarding the outreach efforts for the demonstration, describe challenges and solutions to startup, ongoing implementation, and monitoring of these efforts.4	x	x	x	x
2.7 How easy has it been to compile and report the participant tracking information (logs of queries, contacts, analytics on websites, events)? Does the reporting adequately capture the major activities, milestones, and responses? Do you have any suggestions to improve the reporting?		x	x	x
2.8 How easy has it been to track and report the time spent on various demonstration activities and WS program? Do you have any suggestions to improve the reporting?		x	x	x
2.9 How have the UI data retrieval tasks for the Study Team gone so far? Suggestions for improvement?		x	x
2.10 Did the time and cost of running the demonstration present a challenge to the Agency [or your unit]?	x	x	x	x
2.11 Do you foresee a continuation of efforts along the lines of the demonstration after the end of the project (specify aspects)? Why or why not?	x	x	x	x
3. Reactions and Feedback from Employers and Employees
3.1 What is the most common type of industry/firm that you have been in touch with about WS? How would you characterize the type of firm that uses WS the most?		x	x	x
3.2 What if any feedback did you receive from employers regarding the specifics of the various outreach and assistance interventions of the demonstration (e.g., emails, mailers, banner, phone calls, events)?5		x	x	x
3.3 In your efforts to assist employers after receiving intervention materials, what feedback and issues did employers most commonly bring up?		x	x6	x
3.4 What important factors were mentioned by employers that led them to (or not to) participate (e.g. bad economy, fear of the competition, retaining valued employees, UI tax rate, benefits)? Did these change once the employer joined the program? Any feedback or suggestions from employers on program features or operational improvements?		x	x	x
3.5 Regarding the change in reimbursement policy (tailor for IA and OR), was this a major factor in employer decisions to participate for first time or repeat users of WS? What kinds of firms were most concerned or affected?	x	x	x	x
3.6 How have the unions reacted?	X	X		x
3.7 When and how do employers communicate with employees about applying to the Work Share program? Do you receive any direct or indirect feedback from employees? Do you have a sense of employee reactions?		x	x	x
4. Perceived Impact and Sustainability of Intervention
4.1 What, if anything, do you think was most successful or worthwhile about the demonstration? Benefits? Disadvantages (time/costs)? Suggestions?	x	x	x	x
4.2 Regarding the Federal STC grant [State name] received, what aspects of the demonstration are most helpful in providing lessons for the grant?	x	x
5. Recommendations for Program, Operations Promising Practices
5.1 What, if any, improvements would you like to see to the WS program (features and operations)?	x	x	x	x
5.2 Do you have a method for calculating or keeping a record of the number of jobs saved by the program? If no, can you envision how this could be done?	x	x	x
5.3 What do you think could be done to increase employer participation?	x	x	x	x
5.4 What solutions/promising practices would you like to see to address the barriers to implementation or participation? Which would you recommend to other States?	x	x	x	x
5.5 Any other thoughts about the Demonstration or the WS program?	x	x	x	x
5.6 In addition to the staff that we are planning to see (enumerate), are there any significant state stakeholders involved in the program or demonstration that we have not identified? Should we try to see or talk with them?	x	x	x	x
Thank you! We really appreciate your time and effort.	x	x	x	x

1 Oregon refers to its STC program as Work Share (WS) and that term will be used in this document. Iowa refers to its STC program as Voluntary Shared Work (VSW) and the Guides will be tailored accordingly at the time of the interviews.

2 Technical roles and thus, applicability of questions will vary. Sometimes there is a technical staff person with a long history and experience with the program and more questions would be applicable. Most of the technical staff will be asked a few questions pertaining to their specific role on the demonstration and program.

3 Outreach staff in treatment region of the quasi-experimental design study (Oregon only).

4 Interviewers will have a checklist of demonstration outreach activities for each state.

5 Interviewers will have a short checklist of each state’s activities.

6 Technical staff will be asked only about procedures in their purview, e.g. tax or benefits.