supporting statement

OMB Control #0693-0033

Expiration Date: 09/30/2025

NIST Generic Clearance for Program Evaluation Data Collections

INSERT THE TITLE OF YOUR COLLECTION

2023 Parenting Resources Program Survey

FOUR STANDARD SURVEY QUESTIONS

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

In partnership with the NIST the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Office (DEIO), the Parents Network (ParentsNet) will pilot the NIST Parenting Resources Program (PRP) to give NIST staff access to virtual resources in support of their well-being.

The Parents Network (ParentsNet) is an employee resource group (aka voluntary employee organization) for the NIST community launched during the early months of the 2020 pandemic. ParentsNet was created to empower a community of parents and caregivers within NIST to promote a healthy work-life balance, learn about updated workplace policies, and provide a voice to advocate for caregivers' needs to NIST management.

ParentsNet leaders will conduct a survey of NIST employees (both Federal and nonfederal) to capture their preferences regarding a variety of virtual services available in the market to support parents in the workplace. This submission covers the non-federal workforce at NIST, with a separate submitted for the federal workforce. The survey for both groups is the same.

While ParentsNet has an email distribution list and a Slack channel, which could be used as the target audience for the survey, distributing the survey NIST-wide is beneficial and necessary because there might be parents working at NIST who have not signed up for ParentsNet or do not know it exists. In addition, there might be some staff who are considering becoming a parent or trying to get pregnant. In addition, being a biological parent is not the only avenue to become a parent. There might be staff who are in the process of becoming a guardian, or staff who are considering adopting a child.

The information gathered in the survey will be used to prepare a statement of work in the procurement of services for the NIST PRP. This clearance is sought to appropriately cover PRA implications of surveying non-federal employees, which account for over half of the entire NIST workforce and are critical to NIST mission delivery.

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

The survey was prepared by two ParentsNet members representing different business units within NIST. The survey questions are a result of market research of available virtual services to support parents in the workplace. The survey was reviewed by the NIST DEIO. The IT Security Officer for the Director’s Office was made aware that the survey is not collecting identifying information.

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.

The current NIST non-federal workforce is approximately 4800 (as of FY23 Q4). https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2020/demo/families/cps-2020.html>, the expected response rate is 20%, or approximately 960 responses.

The survey will be conducted electronically using Google Forms and will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. The survey will be anonymous and will not collect any identifying information. Information collected is not maintained in a Privacy Act System of Records, therefore SORNS and PIA do not apply.

The survey collection will be open for two weeks. An invitation email will be sent with the link on week 1 and a reminder email will be sent on week two.

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

Data collected under this survey will be used to inform and prioritize the selection of services available in support of the pilot NIST Parenting Resources Program (PRP). No identifying information will be collected. The only data to be collected are preferences over available services based on market research. The survey will include both “select all that apply” and “ranking” questions. Responses will be aggregated to determine the most popular services. For “select all that apply,” frequencies in response options will be used to select the top K services. For ranking questions, response options with the most favorable responses will be used to select the top K services (Typically K = 5 for questions with more than 11 choices, and K = 3 for questions with 10 choices or less). As discussed in response to Q1, the top K services will be used to prepare a statement of work for the procurement package for the PRP.