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The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) in the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) serves to “protect workers, promote diversity and enforce the law.” Accordingly, OFCCP is dedicated to ensuring that federal contractors and subcontractors comply with their responsibility to take affirmative action and offer equal employment opportunity to job seekers and wage earners. Through its compliance efforts, OFCCP seeks to expand access among hard-to-reach populations to employment opportunities with federal contractors, inform workers of their rights, increase awareness of violations of these rights, and facilitate compliance with federal contractor regulations.

Since fiscal year 2012, OFCCP has expanded engagement with community-based organizations as stakeholders to support the agency’s mission. In this capacity those stakeholders potentially could serve as channels of communication to reach protected classes, as well as partners in activities to increase the likelihood of contract compliance and employment opportunities. In 2014, DOL contracted with Abt Associates to (1) examine the current status of the stakeholder network by conducting a Needs Assessment and Feedback (NA/F) Survey, (2) identify potential opportunities to strengthen the network through enhanced communication, and (3) develop, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of a communications and outreach demonstration. The report provides an overview of the initial phases of the project and provides the detailed results of the communications and outreach demonstration.

Research Questions

• What is the current status of communication and outreach between OFCCP and its stakeholders?
• What is the current nature and scope of partnership between OFCCP and its stakeholders?
• What does the current level of OFCCP’s communication and outreach mean for stakeholders’ (a) awareness of, (b) knowledge of, (c) partnership engagement with, and (d) satisfaction with OFCCP?
• To what extent has a carefully designed demonstration been effective in (a) increasing the reach of OFCCP’s communication, (b) improving stakeholder awareness and knowledge of OFCCP, and (c) prompting stakeholders to seek out additional information on OFCCP resources and offerings?

Key Takeaways

• The findings from the demonstration highlight the importance of continued research to refine the demonstration’s messaging strategies, including exploring (1) opportunities to further segment the stakeholder population, (2) determinants of variation in levels of engagement across the regions, (3) opportunities to further refine experimental messaging strategies that yielded inconclusive effects, and (4) characteristics of organizations that consistently did not engage with the demonstration.
• Stakeholder network. Both the NA/F and the demonstration findings suggest that a solid foundation for this network has already been laid. OFCCP could further capitalize on investments to date and the momentum it has generated by continuing to grow, maintain, and formalize the stakeholder network.
• GovDelivery-based outreach. Relative to industry benchmarks, GovDelivery has proven to be an effective and efficient communication platform through which to engage the stakeholder network.
• American Job Centers (AJCs). The demonstration indicated that the AJCs are as interested in, and engaged with the monthly eblasts as are other stakeholder organizations.
• Workplace factsheets. Given the significant interest in the fact sheets, OFCCP could consider using them as an anchor for additional communication and strategically packaging other messages and materials with these links in order to capitalize on the high level of interest.
• Contact between OFCCP and the network of stakeholders. The demonstration suggests that recent contact is associated with a higher likelihood of engaging with this type of email-based outreach.
• Brand awareness and recognition. Based primarily on feedback obtained from stakeholders during a pre-testing phase, the demonstration found no evidence that the opportunity-themed branding required immediate refinement.
• Writing style and formatting. Monthly experimentation indicated that correspondence should consider regularly including the use of a highly personalized writing style, use of a personal “From” mailing address, and instructions to “please forward” in the subject line.
• Updated survey results. This project began by establishing a baseline set of metrics nearly two years ago. To document progress and the challenges that remain in building an engaged network of community stakeholders, OFCCP could consider administering a second wave of the NA/F Survey.

Research Gaps

• While the demonstration reported on outcomes like open and click-through rates, additional research could be conducted to confirm the extent to which engaging with The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) communications (e.g., opening and clicking on resource links) is linked to more mission driven outcomes (e.g., identifying affected class members or employers who are out of compliance). This research could explore the mechanism by which outreach translates into outcomes that extend beyond the communication-related behaviors the current demonstration examined. (page 8)

Citation

Epstein, Z., Schneider, G., Klein, C., Bloomberg, C., Meneses, M., Hashizume, M., Rosenthal, L. (2017). Abt Associates. Communications and Outreach Demonstration Final Report: OFCCP Community-Based Organization Outreach Evaluation. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.