CEO Library

In 2023, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and commissioned contractor Westat Insight to conduct a study to explore approaches to measure and increase equity in ETA’s discretionary grantmaking programs. This study sought to explore how grantmakers – such as Federal agencies, State and local government agencies, and philanthropic organizations – define, assess, and increase equity in their grantmaking process.

The 2024 Veteran Employment Data Catalog is a document-based catalog of existing datasets that could be used to answer research questions related to veterans’ employment outcomes. The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) collaborated with the Veterans’ Employment and Training Services (VETS) to commission Insight Policy Research (now Westat) to identify both public and restricted datasets that align with topic areas derived from VETS’ mission.

The report summarizes findings from a study examining the implementation of a series of training courses offered to compliance officers (COs) within the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The study captures the perceptions of COs and managers about the trainings and looks at the accuracy and efficiency with which COs processed cases in the period following the trainings.

The brief summarizes the input on research priorities gathered from stakeholders and experts by the WIOA Research Portfolio project team between November 2020 and April 2021. The timing of these discussions provides important context for the findings. Many discussions were held during a surge in cases of COVID-19, when social distancing measures were widespread. Other discussions were held after the vaccines were becoming widely available and restrictions were being lifted. The conversations also spanned two different presidential administrations.

The report focuses on implementation of key changes to governance of the workforce system and how state and local workforce boards engage in planning across the core programs. Discussed here are the successes and challenges, promising practices, and possible areas for further technical assistance related to WIOA for workforce system governance and planning.

The report focuses on implementation of key changes to financial and management requirements for the American Job Center (AJC) system in order to seamlessly deliver services to all workforce customers across various partners. Data for this report are drawn primarily from site visit interviews, conducted in early 2019, with administrators, board chairs and members, employer and agency partners, and frontline staff in 14 states and 28 local areas. Other sources of information include administrative data and relevant state and local documents.

The report presents findings from the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Deficit Financing Study. While the study is retrospective in nature, the report is designed to inform states’ decision making about UI-related borrowing activities in the future, discusses the rationale for the study, the research questions addressed and methods used, and a roadmap for the report.

The technical appendix to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Implementation Study that focused on the core workforce programs authorized under WIOA Title I (Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth Services) and Title III (Employment Services) and examined integration with programs under Titles II (Adult Education and Family Literacy) and IV (Vocational Rehabilitation), and other partners.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2014 included multiple provisions to strengthen service quality, access, accountability, and coordination across many programs. The report describes early WIOA implementation efforts, based on data collected during pilot site visits to four states and eight local areas in fall 2017. The purpose of the site visits was to help inform the design of the WIOA implementation study and to identify key stakeholders’ initial perspectives on WIOA requirements across five domains.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2014 included multiple provisions to strengthen service quality, access, accountability, and coordination across many programs. The report focuses on implementation of WIOA’s changes to various aspects of performance accountability and in other data-driven areas under the law, as related to the “core” workforce programs for Titles I and III.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2014 included multiple provisions to strengthen service quality, access, accountability, and coordination across many programs. The report focuses on implementation of key changes to the Title I Adult and Dislocated Worker programs under WIOA. Discussed are the successes and challenges, promising practices, and possible areas for further technical assistance related to WIOA for these two programs.

Paper that directly addresses the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) topic areas of “Improving Equal Employment Opportunities for Targeted Populations” and “Innovative Approaches to Evaluating the Impact of Department of Labor Worker Protection Programs and Policies Using Existing Administrative or Other Data” through each of its three main objectives. Multiple meetings with Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) staff helped to shape and refine the components of this study to best address the current needs of OFCCP, employers, and individuals with disabilities.

The report provides intervention and evaluation designs for two behavioral intervention (BI) trials that, if implemented, would test whether webinar registrations increase when behavioral strategies are applied to emails targeting a given industry. To design the study, researchers followed a six-step process developed by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for designing and conducting BI studies that has resulted in trials that produce meaningful evidence.

The report examines information from a literature and database review that identified knowledge gaps, discussions with Wage and Hour Division (WHD) about compliance strategies, and discussions with a panel of experts about compliance strategies. The researchers then developed a framework for WHD and other agencies to consider when designing processes for monitoring and evaluating strategies and outcomes.

The report supplements the Wage and Hour Division’s (WHD) Compliance Strategies Evaluation by exploring whether and how data that are housed outside of WHD could be integrated with WHD’s administrative data. The researchers explored how external data can be integrated with WHD’s case management system, the Wage and Hour Investigative Support and Reporting Database (WHISARD), and the limitations of doing so.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)’s Chief Evaluation Office (CEO), in partnership with the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to synthesize existing literature and data related to WHD compliance strategies.

To better understand the efficiency and practicality of the State Exchange on Employment and Disability (SEED) initiative, the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO), in collaboration with the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), conducted a formative evaluation. The formative evaluation would engage with stakeholders as the initiative was being developed and implemented through identifying fidelity of implementation and providing midstream assessments so that the implementers could make real-time adaptations.

In 2018, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) and funded contractor Summit Consulting to conduct Return-to-Work Outcomes for Federal Employees in the Office of Workers’ Compensation Disability Management Program under the Administrative Data Research and Analysis portfolio of studies.

The report provides descriptive statistics and associations between case characteristics (injury, claim, and claimant characteristics) and the outcomes of interest (return-to-work and disability management duration). Process diagrams and survival models complement the descriptive statistics. This report also assesses the similarities and differences in return-to-work rates and duration in disability management across case characteristics and timing and sequence of disability management services.

This study includes a systematic review of existing evidence on the intersection of the opioid epidemic and workers’ compensation programs administered by public and private payers. The study will analyze existing evidence and identify innovative interventions and initiatives that may be relevant to the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA) client/customer population, and will develop research and evaluation design options for generating new evidence in the field.

In 2015, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) to fund contractors Coffey Consulting, LLC and American Institutes for Research to conduct the State Exchange on Employment and Disability (SEED) Evaluation.

The report of a 2-year formative study to gain understanding of promising implementation strategies adopted thus far in the State Exchange Employment and Disability (SEED) model. This report on the formative evaluation provides background on the initiative and the evaluation. It also provides a description of SEED’s progress at roughly the halfway point of the evaluation and offers implications for continuation of the initiative.

Webinar describing the high-level results of the Using Behavioral Interventions to Increase Retirement Savings Technical Report.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Behavioral Interventions (DOL-BI) project adds to a growing body of evidence indicating that relatively small changes in how programs operate can lead to striking improvements in their performance. In three trials that tested applications of behavioral science, the project team found substantial benefits for three DOL programs. The brief provides details on the design and findings of each trial. This brief focuses on the lessons learned by the team as it identified opportunities for behavioral trials and implemented each one.

The playbook was developed to give program administrators and managers at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and other social programs an overview of how they can use insights from behavioral science to improve the effectiveness of their programs and services. This playbook is a step-by-step guide on how to identify behavioral problems and use strategies informed by behavioral science.