Justification for Emergency Processing - Pulse Surveys

March 14, 2022
MEMORANDUM
TO:

Michael McManus, USAID Desk Officer
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Office of Management and Budget (0MB)

FROM:

Ruth Buckley, Office Director

SUBJECT:

Justification for Emergency Processing

From the start, President Biden has emphasized the importance of our Federal public servants—
our dynamic and committed workforce. The strength of any organization rests on its most
important asset— its people. Taking the President’s lead, the President’s Management Council
(PMC), together with the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel
Management, and the General Services Administration, launched a pilot of a first-ever,
Government-wide pulse survey, inviting roughly 2 million civilian employees across the 24
agencies represented by the PMC to respond with a quick “pulse check,” so that agency
leadership could hear from employees on three timely topics:
Navigation of the ongoing pandemic and the safe, increased return of Federal employees
to physical workplaces
● Equity and inclusion
● Employee engagement and burnout
●

This is a valuable exercise, however, considering USAID’s workforce comprises various hiring
mechanisms, including US Direct Hires (USDH), Personal Services Contractors (PSC),
Institutional Support Contractors (ISC), and other categories, the survey unfortunately only
reached an estimated 36 percent of our workforce as non-USDH staff represent approximately 64
percent of our workforce. As such the data is not representative and can not be the basis for
decision making.
In order to promote this Administration priority, USAID needs to collect information from all
categories of staff to achieve quick “pulse checks” that can help leaders hear directly from our
workforce. The pulse surveys contain 10-11 questions that cover three topics: employee
engagement, inclusion, and the reentry process.
USAID considers all staff with a usaid.gov email address as our collective workforce. To
conduct inclusive pulse checks that produce useful, and real time data for decision making on

how to strengthen, empower and support our global workforce and to respond to issues raised, it
is essential that the identical survey questions include responses from all members of our
workforce. Exclusion of the non-USDH workforce does not provide valid responses. Without
more representative and holistic data, USAID cannot meet the full intent of the President
Management Agenda Pillar I. We need this data to take action to increase morale and retention,
and ultimately facilitate our Agency’s ability to carry out its important development and
humanitarian assistance objectives. Failure to include these valuable members of our workforce
skews survey results and leads to the unintended consequence of 64 percent of our workforce
being excluded and potentially feeling undervalued.
Therefore, USAID requests emergency approval to extend the survey to all staff who have a
usaid.gov email address irrespective of their employment status to be administered as quickly as
possible. As such, USAID requests OMB approval to conduct this information collection with a
total of up to an estimated 7,000 respondents. The information obtained in the surveys would
inform agency leadership and support decision making in delivering on the President’s
expectation, to create a supportive, inclusive work environment that respects diversity and
promotes equity and accessibility.
The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995 requires that agencies obtain OMB approval
before requesting most types of information from the public ("information collections" include
forms, interviews, and record keeping). USAID seeks emergency approval of information
collection associated with administering this survey. USAID cannot reasonably comply with the
normal clearance procedures under the PRA because complying would delay the Agency's
efforts to assess and provide ongoing, real-time input to our workforce and act appropriately to
any findings to ensure all the workforce feels supported and empowered. As such, we request
expedited approval of this information collection. The Agency will issue a Federal Register
Notice notifying the public of this request.
Signed by:
3/14/2022
Ruth Buckley, Office Director
USAID Bureau for Management, Office of Management, Policy, Budget and Performance