PAWPA Applicant Evaluation IC - Supporting Statement

OMB Control No. # 0693-0033 – NIST Generic Clearance for Program Evaluation Data Collections.

Pledge to America’s Workers Presidential Award (PAWPA) Applicant Information Collection

FOUR STANDARD SURVEY QUESTIONS

1. Explain who will be surveyed and why the group is appropriate to survey.

Based on a collaboration with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and the White House, NIST is submitting this Information Collection Request (ICR) to permit the issuance of a new information collection instrument in connection with Section 7(b) of Executive Order 13845 Establishing the President’s National Council for the American Worker, which the Secretary of Commerce co-chairs and which calls for a national strategy to ensure that America’s students and workers have access to affordable, relevant, and innovative education and job training that will equip them to compete and win in the global economy. Section 7(b) calls for the establishment of, “a plan for recognizing companies that demonstrate excellence in workplace education, training, and re‑training policies and investments, in order to galvanize industries to identify and adopt best practices, innovate their workplace policies, and invest in their workforces.” The White House asked that the Department of Commerce create and administer this program. NIST was asked to administer the program. As a part of successfully administering the program, NIST is now evaluating programmatic elements to improve future offerings of the award program.

The 31 organizations who applied in March of 2020 for the Pledge to America’s Workers Presidential Award (PAWPA) will be surveyed. This award, and therefore award process, has never been offered before. We wish to survey the applicants to learn how to improve our award materials (i.e. application form) and processes for future offerings. Information gleaned will allow for better use of future applicants’ time and energy.

2. Explain how the survey was developed including consultation with interested parties, pre-testing, and responses to suggestions for improvement.

The survey was based on the Malcom Baldrige Performance Excellence Program’s Examiner Preparation Course Evaluation Survey. Questions were selected based on their ability to gain information about key aspects of the application process.

3. Explain how the survey will be conducted, how customers will be sampled if fewer than all customers will be surveyed, expected response rate, and actions your agency plans to take to improve the response rate.

All PAWPA applicants (31) will be sent the survey via email. We expect a large response rate given the amount of communication we’ve had back and for with applicants up to this point. We also expect most applicants will provide feedback as they will benefit from an improved/streamlined process for future applications.

4. Describe how the results of the survey will be analyzed and used to generalize the results to the entire customer population.

We had a broad array of applicants, from small businesses and manufacturers to very large corporations. We hope to gain information from both ends of the spectrum in order to provide an application and process that works well for all types of businesses. We specifically hope to learn about areas of improvement in the application form itself.