Group Interview Protocol-- American Job Center Staff

OMB Control No.: 1290-XXXX

Expiration Date: XX/XX/2021

Analysis of Employer Performance Measurement Approaches

American Job Center Group Interview Discussion Guide [DRAFT]

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response (group interview), including time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. The obligation to respond to this collection is voluntary. Send comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to [email protected] and reference the OMB Control Number 1290-XXXX. Comments can also be mailed to: U.S. Department of Labor, Chief Evaluation Office, 200 Constitution Ave., NW, S-2312, Washington, DC 20210. Note: Please do not return the completed interview guide to the email or mailing address.

Introduction/Purpose of the Study

Hello, my name is _______________, and I’m a researcher from [The Urban Institute, a non- profit research organization located in Washington, DC; George Washington University, located in Washington, DC; Capital Research Corporation, located in Arlington, VA]. With me today is [name and affiliation]. Thank you for participating in the group discussion today.

The Urban Institute and its partners are under contract with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) to conduct an analysis of new performance measures for assessing the effectiveness of employer services in the public workforce system. As part of data collection, we are conducting site visit interviews with state and local WIOA administrators and other workforce development staff in eight different states. We’re also interested in getting feedback from American Job Center staff, which is why we are speaking with you today. The information collected during this discussion will inform our recommendations to DOL regarding measurement of services to employers in the public workforce system.

We are interested in learning about your experiences related to providing services to employers and your perspectives on how to measure the effectiveness of those services. This discussion should last about an hour.

Privacy Statement

Before we begin the discussion, we want to let you know that, although we will be taking notes, when we write our reports and discuss our findings, information from all the AJC staff we speak with as part of our study will be compiled and summarized in aggregate form without identifying individual respondents or identifying information such as your state, local area or organization. We also want to make it clear that your participation is strictly voluntary, and you may choose to not answer questions at any time.

We do not think there are any risks to you for being part of this conversation. However, in case anyone shares something sensitive, it is important that what all of us say today stays in this room. We have promised not to share who-said-what and we ask that you do the same. However, as you know, none of us can control what other people will do, so please keep that in mind when you are talking today. The main benefit is to help us understand the ways that you provide employer services, challenges in providing and counting services, and how you think the provision of employer services could be measured effectively, so that DOL receives the best possible information on how measure the effectiveness of employer services across the country.

Instructions

The way this interview will work is that I will ask a question of the group. I hope that one or more of you will volunteer to answer the question from your own perspective and experience. If several of you wish to speak at the same time, I’ll call on you by name so that everybody will get a chance to talk. We hope to cover a lot of ground in the conversation today, so I may ask the group if we can move along to the next topic or question if we seem to be spending a lot of time in one area. If you still have something that feels important to you, please tell me that you still have a comment you want to make.

There are no right or wrong ways to answer; we want to understand your experiences and perspectives. All comments are important. We want to hear about each of your perspectives. We also hope to hear from each of you at least once during the discussion.

Finally, we will be taking notes, but to help us accurately capture the information you share, we would also like to record this discussion. The recording is just a back-up for our notes and will be kept within our small research team. The recording will be deleted once we have developed a full set of notes from the discussion. Is it okay with you if we begin recording? [SEEK CONSENT FROM EVERYONE IN THE ROOM] Do you have any questions before we begin?

[BEGIN RECORDING IF CONSENT GRANTED]

Discussion Group Guide

1. Please introduce yourselves, give your job title, a little bit about your role, including the customers you serve, and an overview of your job duties.

2. What types of information and services does your AJC provide for local employers? Which of these services are provided by AJC staff and which are contracted out?

3. What are your goals in interacting with employers? How well do you feel like you are able to meet those goals?

4. How often do you interact with employers? In a given day? Week? Month? Do you generally interact with the same employers multiple times?

5. Do you ever get requests for information or services from employers that you can’t provide? What are some examples?

6. Do you collect or report data on the information and services you provide to employers? How long have you been collecting and reporting that data?

7. Does your AJC have any kind of measures of the services you provide to employers and how successful you are in reaching employers or meeting their needs? Describe. How is data collected for those measures (e.g., via an employer survey, or another data collection tool)?

8. Are you familiar with the US Department of Labor’s national pilot study for measuring employer services? [If anyone isn’t familiar, briefly explain]

[Whether familiar with the pilot or not]

• Retention with the same employer: Is it important that job candidates that are placed with an employer are still employed with the same firm 12 months after they were hired? Why or why not.

• Repeat business customers: Is it important to have repeat business customers, where the same firm is requesting services from the workforce system multiple times? Why or why not.

• Employer penetration rate: Is it important to understand the percentage of all employers in your locality or state using workforce program services? Why or why not.

To your knowledge, have you been collecting or reporting data specifically related to any of these indicators? How is this different from the data you were already collecting and tracking before?

9. Have you received any communication from your state or local administrator's office about this pilot/the performance measures?

• [If yes] What guidance or training have you received on collecting and reporting these data or other data collection related to the delivery of services to employers?

• Who provides or has provided this communication, information or training?

• Have you had any other interactions with the state/local area surrounding this pilot, such as trainings, webinars, etc.?

10. Does your state or local workforce agency share statistics or other information with you related to businesses’ use of the public workforce system in the state? Or in your local area? If yes, how do you use this information?

11. Is there information about employers’ use of the public workforce system in your area that you would like to have access to that is not currently captured? How might this information help you do a better job engaging or serving employers in your local area?

12. How does the process of collecting and reporting on the data work here? Are there any processes that could be put in place to make it easier to collect data on employer interactions at your center?

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Analysis of Employer Performance Measurement Approaches

AJC Focus Group Discussion Guide