FRA Workforce Development Interview/Focus Group on Performance Management Systems and Organizational Culture and Diversity

Hello,

You are receiving this email because you are a rail stakeholder. KEA Technologies and Hile Group would like to interview you to understand how performance management systems within the rail industry can impact organizational culture and diversity. We will interview individuals at various entities such as freight, passenger, transit organizations and carriers, professional organizations (e.g., APTA, LRW, ASLRRA, etc.), and academic or research institutions. Additionally interviewees will be individuals at different levels of employment, including those in leadership, about performance management systems within their organizations. Findings may identify how well performance management systems function in practice, where the day-to-day differs from its design, and to what extent those differences benefit or hinder its efficacy in retaining diverse talent. We may also ask questions related to the survey we administered to get more detailed perspectives on trends and/or themes that appear in the survey responses.

Participation in interviews is voluntary. We will ask semi-structured interview questions regarding your experience and observations as an employee of the rail industry. The interview or focus group will be hosted using web-conferencing software and will take up to 1 hour to complete. While complete confidentiality cannot be guaranteed, interview or focus group notes will be kept anonymous. We will not tie your name or other personal identifying information to your responses. Instead, we will assign each interviewee a unique participant ID number and in report themes across interviews to the FRA. If quotes from interviews are used, they would be de-identified. This will include omitting rail carrier or organization names, dates, etc. We will retain responses for up to five years for any report writing related to this project.

Interviews will be digitally recorded and will not be using any personally identifiable information to link to the interviewee. The digital recording and interview notes will be stored on a password-protected and encrypted database on a server affiliated with KEA. Technologies. Permission to these files will be limited to the research team who have certifications and experience in research and confidentiality. The FRA will not have access to the raw data and will receive aggregated results in a report.

This aggregate data may be used by industry stakeholders to identify and address gaps or issues within performance management systems. This may have a benefit in recruitment and retention of diverse individuals within the rail industry. This research will not be used to make regulations. The purpose is to explore and make some preliminary recommendations on how industry stakeholders can most effectively hire, develop, promote, and retain diverse and quality talent. The project team will provide the FRA with recommendations and best practices to enhance workforce development initiatives.

Please let us know if you are interested in participating. We are scheduling all interviews and focus groups by DATE (MO-DAY-YY). Thank you in advance for your contributions.

Best,

KEA Research Team