AJC Manager pre-visit calls

INSTRUMENT 2
GUIDE FOR PREVISIT CALLS

This page has been left blank for double-sided copying.

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF AJCs

OMB SUPPORTING STATEMENT: INSTRUMENT 2

GUIDE FOR PREVISIT CALLS WITH AJC AND LWIB CONTACTS



Italics indicate instructions for the study team.

Introduction

Thank you for agreeing to participate in the Institutional Analysis of American Job Centers
AJCs, a study that we are conducting for the U.S. Department of Labor, Chief Evaluation Office.
As you know, members of the study team will visit and to gain an in-depth understanding of how this AJC is structured,
managed, staffed, and funded, as well as the full range of services offered to meet the varying
needs of different customer populations.
To help us prepare for our visit, I wanted to talk with you to
collect basic information about the . What we learn during our discussion now will
ensure that we have a productive site visit. We want to make sure:
1.

We schedule site visit interviews with the organizations and staff who can best
inform our study.

2.

We conduct those interviews efficiently.

At the end of our discussion, I will want to identify some possible dates for our site visit. We
expect that the visit will take three days, and would like to schedule it for some time in the next
.
Confirming basic information

We have been collecting initial information about the AJC and LWIB from your website and
other publicly available sources.
As a first step, I wanted to confirm the basic information that we have:


Review with respondent the information that you have already collected about the site.



Update your notes as necessary.

Collecting other information

We also want to ask you about other basic aspects of the AJC’s/LWIB organization.


Ask about topics for which you need to know in order to identify respondents and plan your
visit.

Partner information

An important goal of this study is to understand the relationships among the various
organizations that are partners of the AJC.

2.1

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF AJCs

OMB SUPPORTING STATEMENT: INSTRUMENT 2

Which organizations do you consider to be partners of ?


Ask this question of the AJC and LWIB respondent; note on the form any disparities
between the answers from the two types of respondents.



Record partner information; for each partner identified by the respondent, ask about the
type of agreement or arrangement, colocation, hours, services, and the partner’s contact
information.

Request documents and forms to inform site visit and study

We are also interested in learning about the AJC’s financial structure and the sources and types
of service information collected across programs. The information could be collected for
different reasons, including requirement of funder, use for performance management, and so on.
We would like to collect documents that will help inform us about these issues. These documents
include the following:


Documents that outline the AJC’s funding and resource-sharing structure, such as:
- AJC memorandums of understanding (MOUs)
- Resource-sharing agreements (RSAs)
- AJC operating budgets
- Other existing financial documents that contain this information



Performance management reports, such as:
- Data outputs and/or reports that present aggregate figures on such things as
(a) customer characteristics, (b) total customers served, (c) percentage of customers
receiving select services, and (d) performance outcomes
- Complementary materials, such as (a) data system procedures and training manuals;
(b) data dictionaries; (c) data system guidelines and procedures; (d) data-mapping
documents; and (e) data, management, and performance reports

We’d appreciate it if you could share whatever existing documents that you have that could
provide the necessary information.
In addition, we’d like to know who would be the best person or people—at the AJC, the LWIB,
or both—to follow up with regarding these topics. We might want to speak with them before our
site visit, and will want to make sure we meet with them during the visit.
Identify possible dates for the visit

I anticipate that we will want to spend about <2.5> days meeting with staff of the AJC and
various partners, and a half day meeting with staff of the LWIB. Interviews will typically last 45
minutes to an hour, with no single interview exceeding two hours. And we hope to conduct this
visit within the next months.

2.2

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF AJCs

OMB SUPPORTING STATEMENT: INSTRUMENT 2

Based on our schedule, we’d like to suggest these possible weeks:


Suggest possible weeks for visit.

Do you think that any of these dates would work?
Next steps

Based on the information you’ve provided, we will develop a list of the people we’d like to meet
with during our site visit. We will share that list with you.
Following this meeting, I’d like to email you a summary of what we discussed and the next
steps, including the documents and other information we’d like to collect.
It would be great if we could set a time on the calendar now for a follow-up discussion about any
materials, possible site visit dates, and schedule.
When would be a good time for you?

Public burden statement. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to,
a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control
number. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to take an average of 1 hour per
respondent, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and
maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments
regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for
reducing this burden, to [mailing address for DOL Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration
Management]. The OMB control number for this project is ; expiration date .

2.3

This page has been left blank for double-sided copying.