2010 Census: Census Bureau Should Refine Recruiting and Hiring
Efforts and Enhance Training of Temporary Field Staff (27-APR-07,
GAO-07-361).
The success of the 2010 Census depends, in part, upon the U.S.
Census Bureau's (Bureau) ability to recruit, hire, and train over
half a million temporary workers at peak. Under the Comptroller
General's authority, GAO reviewed the extent that the Bureau's
(1) recruiting and hiring processes for these staff are
consistent with selected human capital principles and (2)
training delivery and content take into account known challenges.
To answer these questions, GAO analyzed relevant reports and past
recommendations to select principles for evaluating these
activities, reviewed related Bureau documents, observed the 2006
Census Test in South Dakota and Texas, and interviewed Bureau
officials.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-07-361
ACCNO: A68856
TITLE: 2010 Census: Census Bureau Should Refine Recruiting and
Hiring Efforts and Enhance Training of Temporary Field Staff
DATE: 04/27/2007
SUBJECT: Census
Data collection
Employee training
Federal employees
Hiring policies
Human capital
Performance measures
Policy evaluation
Strategic planning
Temporary employment
Training utilization
2010 Decennial Census
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GAO-07-361
* [1]Results in Brief
* [2]Background
* [3]The Bureau Should Revise the Recruiting and Hiring of Its Te
* [4]The Bureau Plans Improvements to Its Recruiting and Hiring
* [5]Opportunities Exist for the Bureau to Refine Its Recruiting
* [6]The Bureau May Modify Some Tools and Processes to Hire Staff
* [7]The Bureau Gives Little Consideration to Previous Performanc
* [8]The Bureau Has Not Changed Training Delivery or Content for
* [9]Bureau's Training Content Largely Unchanged Despite Recommen
* [10]Conclusions
* [11]Recommendations for Executive Action
* [12]Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
* [13]GAO Comments
* [14]GAO Contact
* [15]Acknowledgements
* [16]GAO's Mission
* [17]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony
* [18]Order by Mail or Phone
* [19]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
* [20]Congressional Relations
* [21]Public Affairs
Report to Congressional Addressees
United States Government Accountability Office
GAO
April 2007
2010 CENSUS
Census Bureau Should Refine Recruiting and Hiring Efforts and Enhance
Training of Temporary Field Staff
GAO-07-361
Contents
Letter 1
Results in Brief 4
Background 6
The Bureau Should Revise the Recruiting and Hiring of Its Temporary Field
Staff 11
The Bureau Has Not Changed Training Delivery or Content for Temporary
Field Staff to Fully Address Known Challenges 23
Conclusions 32
Recommendations for Executive Action 33
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 34
Appendix I Comments from the Department of Commerce 39
GAO Comments 55
Appendix II GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 59
Related GAO Products 60
Table
Table 1: Results of OPM's 1997 Evaluation of Competencies Needed for
Different Field Staff 18
Figures
Figure 1: The Bureau's Planned Temporary Field Infrastructure for the 2010
Census, Numbers at Peak 9
Figure 2: The Bureau's Recruiting and Hiring Timeline for Temporary Field
Staff during the 2010 Census 10
Figure 3: Visual Created by Harris for Use in Training 26
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Abbreviations
OIG Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General
OPM Office of Personnel Management
United States Government Accountability Office
Washington, DC 20548
April 27, 2007
The Honorable Thomas R. Carper
Chairman
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information,
Federal Services, and International Security
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
United States Senate
The Honorable Henry A. Waxman
Chairman
The Honorable Tom Davis
Ranking Member
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
House of Representatives
The Honorable Wm. Lacy Clay
Chairman
The Honorable Michael Turner
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
House of Representatives
The success of the U.S. Census Bureau's (Bureau) constitutionally mandated
task of counting the nation's population every 10 years is contingent in
part upon its ability to recruit, hire, and train a peak workforce of more
than 500,000 temporary field staff needed to collect data through various
operations. Of the $11.3 billion that the Bureau expects to spend for the
2010 Census, it estimates that over $2 billion will be used to employ
temporary field staff for its major field operation--nonresponse
follow-up--where enumerators visit households that did not return the
mailed census forms to collect that data in person. It also plans to spend
over $350 million to employ staff for another large field operation,
address canvassing, where field workers verify the addresses of all
housing units. These field staff contribute to the Bureau's efforts to
produce data to be used to reapportion the seats of the U.S. House of
Representatives; realign the boundaries of the legislative districts of
each state; allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal financial
assistance; and provide a social, demographic, and economic profile of the
nation's people to guide policy decisions at each level of government. The
success of the U.S. Census Bureau's (Bureau) constitutionally mandated
task of counting the nation's population every 10 years is contingent in
part upon its ability to recruit, hire, and train a peak workforce of more
than 500,000 temporary field staff needed to collect data through various
operations. Of the $11.3 billion that the Bureau expects to spend for the
2010 Census, it estimates that over $2 billion will be used to employ
temporary field staff for its major field operation--nonresponse
follow-up--where enumerators visit households that did not return the
mailed census forms to collect that data in person. It also plans to spend
over $350 million to employ staff for another large field operation,
address canvassing, where field workers verify the addresses of all
housing units. These field staff contribute to the Bureau's efforts to
produce data to be used to reapportion the seats of the U.S. House of
Representatives; realign the boundaries of the legislative districts of
each state; allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal financial
assistance; and provide a social, demographic, and economic profile of the
nation's people to guide policy decisions at each level of government.
Despite a historically tight national labor market during Census 2000, the
Bureau met its recruiting goals to hire field staff it could train for the
decennial. However, the Bureau has the same daunting task of meeting its
recruiting, hiring, and training goals for the 2010 Census, while faced
with significant challenges. These challenges include demographic shifts
whereby the population is increasingly diverse and difficult to locate, as
well as newer challenges, such as the Bureau's reengineered approach,
which incorporates the use of handheld computers for data collection in
the field.
Because the effectiveness of field workers is critical to the success of
the census, we reviewed, under the Comptroller General's statutory
authority to initiate evaluations, the Bureau's recruiting, hiring, and
training processes for temporary field staff during the 2010 Census. As
agreed with your offices, we are providing this report to you because it
contains information that will be useful for your oversight
responsibilities. Specifically, we reviewed the extent to which the
Bureau's (1) recruiting and hiring processes for temporary field staff are
consistent with selected human capital principles and (2) training
delivery methods and training content take into account known challenges
as observed and recorded in previous decennial operations.
To determine whether the Bureau's recruiting and hiring practices in the
field are consistent with selected human capital principles, we reviewed
reports on leading human capital practices from a variety of sources,
including our strategic human capital model,1 as well as documents from
external sources, such as the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). We
then identified and selected principles to use as criteria that we
determined to be relevant and applicable to the Bureau's efforts to
recruit and hire a temporary field staff based on our reports and that of
the Department of Commerce (Commerce) Office of Inspector General (OIG),
which made recommendations based on experiences during Census 2000 and
tests in preparation for the 2010 Census. These principles include
developing human capital strategies that can be implemented with the
resources reasonably expected to be available;2 evaluating and identifying
critical skills needed by an agency facing a changing environment;3 using
employee insights to develop responsive human capital practices;4 and
matching the right people to the right jobs in such a way that would allow
agencies to maximize economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the face of
finite resources.5 We also reviewed Bureau documents on recruiting and
hiring, including scripts used by recruiting staff, selection tests for
temporary workers, and recruiting reports developed for local offices. We
interviewed recruiting staff and other temporary field staff about their
experiences with the recruiting and hiring process during the Bureau's
2006 Census Test, conducted at the Cheyenne River Reservation in South
Dakota and in parts of Austin, Texas, in Travis County. We also obtained
and analyzed personnel data on recruiting and hiring from the 2006 Census
Test. Finally, we spoke with Bureau officials regarding our observations
in the field and about plans for conducting recruiting and hiring during
the upcoming 2008 Dress Rehearsal and the 2010 Census.
1GAO, A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management, [22]GAO-02-373SP
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 15, 2002).
2GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce
Planning, [23]GAO-04-39 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003).
To determine whether training for temporary field staff takes into account
known challenges, we reviewed prior recommendations on training that we,
the Bureau, OIG, and others made. We also reviewed our guide for strategic
training and other human capital reports for principles relevant to the
Bureau's training efforts.6 For example, one key principle is that
agencies should consider refinements to human capital initiatives,
including training, in light of changing organizational needs.7 We
attended training sessions at both 2006 test sites and spoke with field
staff about their impressions of training. We also accompanied field staff
as they conducted their work to observe whether they were following the
Bureau's prescribed protocol. We reviewed Bureau training manuals, scripts
for instructors, and workbooks used by field staff during Census 2000 and
the 2006 test. We also spoke with Bureau officials about our observations
of training and operations in South Dakota and Texas. We obtained
information about plans for the 2008 Dress Rehearsal and the 2010 Census
as well as actions taken as a result of previous recommendations. Finally,
we interviewed project staff at the Harris Corporation
(Harris)--contracted by the Bureau to develop handheld computers for field
operations and training materials for those handheld computers. We
obtained and reviewed Harris's planning documents and samples of materials
being developed for the 2008 Dress Rehearsal and 2010 Census.
3 [24]GAO-04-39 .
4GAO, Human Capital: A Self-Assessment Checklist for Agency Leaders,
[25]GAO/OCG-00-14G (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 2000).
5 [26]GAO/OCG-00-14G .
6See, for example, GAO, Human Capital: A Guide for Assessing Strategic
Training and Development Efforts in the Federal Government,
[27]GAO-04-546G (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 2004) and [28]GAO-02-373SP .
7 [29]GAO-02-373SP .
We conducted our work from March 2006 through April 2007 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.
This report contains recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce to
improve the Bureau's recruiting, hiring, and training of its temporary
field staff. This report is also the latest in a series of evaluations
that we have issued on the Bureau's preparations for the 2010 Census. See
the Related GAO Products section at the end of this report for a list of
selected reports we have issued to date.
Results in Brief
The Bureau has taken some steps that are consistent with selected human
capital principles, such as identifying the critical skills its field
staff need to properly use handheld computers in the reengineered census
and using employee insights to improve its recruiting and hiring
processes. Overall, the Bureau plans to use an approach similar to the one
it took during Census 2000 to recruit and hire its temporary workers for
the 2010 Census. During Census 2000, that approach allowed the Bureau to
recruit 3.7 million qualified applicants. The recruiting expenditures for
fiscal years 1998 through 2000 were estimated to be $250 million, or about
$66 per applicant. However, opportunities exist for the Bureau to improve
and refine its recruiting and hiring of temporary workers for the 2010
Census. Specifically, the Bureau could better target its recruiting and
hiring through an analysis to identify the characteristics of employees
who are successful at census work and less likely to leave census work
before an operation ends. This evaluation would allow the Bureau to seek
workers with the skills, interests, and likelihood to be successful at
census work. Employing such field staff could reduce or better control
operational costs as well as recruiting and hiring expenditures. Further,
the Bureau has not differentiated its hiring tools--written tests and
phone interviews administered to each qualified applicant--to distinguish
skills needed by people serving as crew leaders from those skills needed
by other staff. Moreover, while Bureau policies recommend that former
employees are rehired first before selecting individuals without prior
census experience, the Bureau does not fully consider the past performance
of these individuals. Rehiring, in this case, applies to field staff who
left their positions--due to the end of an operation or for other
reasons--but then were rehired for a subsequent operation in the same
decennial. The Bureau does not use certain information that could help
assess these applicants' competence nor does it prepare employee
performance evaluations that could be used later when considering rehiring
former employees. Bureau officials explained that, in their view,
recruiting and hiring was effective in Census 2000 and will be effective
again during the 2010 Census. However, refinements to the Bureau's
approach for the 2010 Census could help it more efficiently recruit and
hire.
The Bureau has taken some actions to examine or enhance the delivery and
content of the training it provides to temporary field staff to address
challenges previously identified by the Bureau, us, and the OIG. The
Bureau is providing some computer-based training on using the handheld
computers for the nonresponse follow-up and address canvassing operations
and will include visual aids to enhance training on using the handheld
computers. Nonetheless, the Bureau's standardized approach to delivering
training, including reading training scripts word-for-word over the course
of several days, has remained largely unchanged. The Bureau has not
evaluated alternate training delivery approaches, such as providing video
segments, as has been recommended by us and the OIG. While, the Bureau
will be including visuals created by a contractor that show how to use the
handheld devices, it has not otherwise incorporated visual aids, such as
posters or pictures, to enhance training on census work, as the Bureau and
the OIG have recommended. Finally, the Bureau has not provided adequate
training on the challenges field workers are likely to face, such as
dealing with reluctant respondents and location-specific issues. The
Bureau already collects data it can use to assess ways in which reluctance
to respond to the census is increasing and areas where additional content
may be necessary given location-specific conditions, but the Bureau has
not used these data to enhance its training. Bureau officials stated that
their training is effective and that their approach is necessary to ensure
the consistency of training nationwide. However, the Bureau has not
evaluated the effectiveness of its approach to training in comparison with
alternate approaches, nor does its emphasis on consistency prepare staff
for situations they are likely to face in the geographic areas in which
they are working.
We are making seven recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce to
improve the Bureau's recruiting, hiring, and training processes. These
recommendations are (1) refining its recruiting and hiring approach by
collecting and analyzing information on the factors that explain worker
success, such as worker characteristics and performance evaluations; (2)
determining the best way to gather and use field staff performance data
that could be collected during the address canvassing operations of the
2010 Census and that could be used to inform hiring decisions for
subsequent operations; (3) modifying recruiting and hiring tools to better
identify applicants with the skills needed to serve as crew leaders; (4)
evaluating the effectiveness of alternate approaches to training, such as
the use of video segments; (5) incorporating visual aids illustrating
decennial concepts; (6) modifying or revising training content to enhance
material on dealing with reluctant respondents; and (7) preparing training
modules that reflect prototypical location-specific challenges.
The Deputy Secretary of Commerce forwarded written comments from the
Bureau on a draft of this report dated April 4, 2007. The comments are
reprinted in their entirety in appendix I. Commerce generally either
pointed to actions that it is taking that are consistent with the
recommendations, or questioned the need for taking action. It agreed fully
with one of our recommendations. We believe that additional refinements to
its overall recruiting and hiring approach, such as collecting information
to better target its efforts, could help the Bureau better identify the
workers it needs for the 2010 Census. Further, we continue to believe that
enhancements to the delivery and content of the Bureau's training, such as
considering alternate approaches to delivering training--as has been
previously recommended by us, OIG, and the Bureau itself--would better
prepare staff to collect data in the field. We reflected Commerce's
comments in the report and, where appropriate, provided additional
context.
Background
For the 2010 Census, the Bureau has reengineered its approach to
collecting census data by developing three interlinked strategies, which
it refers to as a "three-legged stool."
o The American Community Survey will collect long-form from
250,000 housing units each month and will provide such data on an
annual basis, eliminating the need for a long-form as part of the
decennial census.
o The Map and Address File Modernization will update Bureau files
with geographic coordinates to provide more accurate location data
on the nation's households.
o The 2010 Census will survey the nation for the upcoming
decennial using a short-form-only census, enhanced by handheld
computers and electronic maps for key operations to promote
increased responsiveness and reduce costs.
The Bureau estimates the 2010 Census to cost $11.3 billion, an increase
from the $6.5 billion it took to carry out Census 2000. The Bureau
believes that its reengineering will help contain the cost of the 2010
Census. It expects to increase the response rate, thereby reducing the
cost of nonresponse follow-up, through a short-form-only census. The use
of handheld computers for nonresponse follow-up and address canvassing is
also expected to yield cost savings. In the past, field staff collected
data on housing units and nonresponding households using cumbersome
pencil-and-paper processes. According to the Bureau, handheld computers
will allow its field workers to more quickly collect information for each
housing unit and reduce costly data collection activities. The handheld
computers will also eliminate the need to visit households that return
their questionnaires late because the cases can be deleted from the
workload on a real-time basis. The Bureau has a testing and development
program to hone these new methods for the 2010 Census. It included field
tests in Georgia and New York during its 2004 Census Test, as well as
field tests in Texas and South Dakota for the 2006 Census Test. The Bureau
plans to hold the 2008 Dress Rehearsal in California and North Carolina,
which is to be a demonstration of the operations and systems planned for
the 2010 Census. The Bureau has already started to recruit and hire in the
two dress rehearsal locations for the address canvassing operation, which
is scheduled to begin in May 2007.
Although the census is a national undertaking, it is locally implemented
by a temporary workforce hired to complete work. To gather data from all
households, the Bureau opens temporary offices across the country and
employs several different data collection methods. Local census offices
are opened for approximately 2 years and all field staff employed in these
offices are considered temporary, with jobs as long as the entire 2-year
period or as short as a few weeks. Some field staff work on several
different operations during the decennial. For example, one could work on
address canvassing, an early operation, and be rehired again to work on
the nonresponse follow-up operation later on in the decennial.
Operations for the 2010 Census will begin in April 2009, with address
canvassing, a field operation for verifying and correcting addresses for
all households and street features contained on decennial maps. Almost a
year later, the Bureau will mail census questionnaires to the majority of
the population in anticipation of Census Day, April 1, 2010. Those
households that do not respond will be contacted by field staff through
the nonresponse follow-up operation to determine the number of people
living in the house as of Census Day, among other information. In addition
to address canvassing and nonresponse follow-up, the Bureau conducts other
operations, for example, to gather data from residents of group quarters,
such as prisons or military bases. The Bureau also employs different
enumeration methods in certain settings, such as remote Alaska
enumeration, when people living in inaccessible communities must be
contacted in January 2010 in anticipation of the spring thaw, which makes
travel difficult, or update/enumerate, a data collection method involving
personal interviews and used in communities where many housing units may
not have typical house number-street name mailing addresses. The Bureau
has a quality control (or reinterview) process that involves rechecking a
sample of completed work performed by an individual and rectifying that
work if significant problems are detected. Approximately 5 to 10 percent
of the work is to be checked during the quality control process.
Some positions in local census offices include
o field operations supervisors who coordinate, supervise, and
oversee the work performed by crew leaders, crew leader
assistants, and enumerators, as well as train assigned crew
leaders;
o crew leaders who supervise and train a crew of enumerators or
listers and meet daily with the crew to distribute work
assignments, monitor progress, and review finished work for
accuracy and completeness;
o crew leader assistants who help crew leaders in guiding and
directing the work of a group of enumerators or listers engaged in
field data collection; and
o enumerators or listers who perform field activities in and
around their respective neighborhoods, including verifying
addresses, canvassing and listing addresses, and interviewing.
Conducting the census is a tremendous task given the hundreds of thousands
of field staff8 the Bureau hires and trains in just a few weeks. (See fig.
1.) Further, field workers often have little or no prior census
experience, and are expected, after just a few days of training, to do
their jobs with minimal supervision, under sometimes difficult and
dangerous conditions. Moreover, crew leaders are usually recent hires
themselves, with little, if any, experience as instructors or with
decennial issues. Overall, few, if any, organizations face the hiring and
training challenges that confront the Bureau with each decennial
population count.
8Throughout this report, we use the term field staff to refer to crew
leaders, crew leader assistants, enumerators, and listers--the frontline
staff collecting data for the Bureau.
Figure 1: The Bureau's Planned Temporary Field Infrastructure for the 2010
Census, Numbers at Peak
The census is the nation's largest peace-time mobilization. For the 2010
Census, the Bureau plans to recruit and test 3.8 million applicants and
hire nearly 600,000 field staff for address canvassing and nonresponse
follow-up. During Census 2000, the Bureau also hired about half a million
enumerators at peak, which temporarily made it one of the nation's largest
employers, surpassed by only a handful of big organizations, such as
Wal-Mart and the U.S. Postal Service. For the 2010 Census, the Bureau
expects to hire almost 75,000 temporary workers during address canvassing
to verify and identify the addresses of an estimated 130 million living
quarters over the course of about 6 weeks in 2009. During nonresponse
follow-up, the Bureau expects to hire almost 525,000 temporary workers to
visit an estimated 39 million housing units over the course of 12 weeks in
2010. (See fig. 2.)
Figure 2: The Bureau's Recruiting and Hiring Timeline for Temporary Field
Staff during the 2010 Census
Each regional census center creates a recruiting plan based on a template
developed by headquarters, which allows for variations to reflect
characteristics of different regions. The Bureau has developed a Planning
Database that local and regional offices use to prepare recruiting plans.
The Bureau expects those offices to use the database to identify areas
where field staff are more difficult to recruit and other areas where
certain skills--such as foreign language abilities--are needed. The Bureau
will update the Planning Database for every census tract in the United
States for the 2010 Census, using many variables from Census 2000. These
variables include Census 2000 mail return rates; household size; median
household income; percentage of persons living in poverty; number of
single person households; highest level of education achieved; percentage
of linguistically isolated households (i.e., where no person 14 or over
speaks English at least "very well"); and percentage of persons on public
assistance.
The Bureau has employed essentially the same approach to training since
the 1970 Census. To conduct training, the Bureau solicits free or low-cost
training spaces from local organizations, such as churches or libraries.
Training classes typically include 15 to 20 students. Crew leaders usually
train their crews, with the help of at least one crew leader assistant,
using a verbatim training approach, whereby crew leaders read training
scripts word-for-word over the course of several days. Similarly, the crew
leaders were themselves trained by their supervisors in a
"train-the-trainers" approach. The length of training varies by operation;
for nonresponse follow-up, training took almost 42 hours over the course
of 6 days during the 2006 test.
The Bureau Should Revise the Recruiting and Hiring of Its Temporary Field Staff
For the 2010 Census, the Bureau plans to use a similar approach to recruit
and hire workers as it used during Census 2000. Some broad approaches the
Bureau will take in the 2010 Census that it successfully implemented
during Census 2000 include
o exercising the flexibility to raise pay rates at local census
offices that were encountering recruiting difficulties;
o recruiting five times more applicants than the needed number of
field workers to ensure a considerable depth in the applicant pool
from which to hire;
o "frontloading," or hiring twice the number of people needed to
do the work in anticipation of high levels of turnover;
o launching a recruitment advertising campaign, which cost over
$2.3 million for Census 2000; and
o working with federal, state, local, and tribal officials who
manage existing government programs to obtain waivers that will
expand the pool of applicants by making census jobs available and
attractive to certain populations, such as allowing individuals to
simultaneously work two federal jobs and obtaining exemptions from
state governments so that individuals receiving Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, and selected other types
of public assistance would not have their benefits reduced when
earning census income.
We have noted that these strategies, in part, made the Bureau a more
attractive employer to prospective candidates and helped to ensure a
steady stream of applicants during Census 2000, when the Bureau was able
to recruit 3.7 million qualified applicants.9 In particular, the
flexibility to raise pay rates at those local census offices that were
encountering recruitment difficulties helped local offices obtain the
staff they needed. Bureau officials found that being able to set
competitive, locally-based pay was the Bureau's most important strategy
during Census 2000.10 We have identified the recruitment advertising
campaign as another key ingredient of Census 2000's recruitment efforts as
it emphasizes the ability to earn good pay, work flexible hours, learn new
skills, and do something important for one's community.11 This message was
conveyed in a variety of languages through traditional outlets, such as
newspapers, as well as more novel media, including Internet banners and
messages on utility and credit card bills. The Bureau's recruiting and
hiring approach allowed it to surpass its recruitment goals in Census 2000
and officials believe it could be successfully used in the 2010 Census as
well.
9GAO, 2000 Census: Best Practices and Lessons Learned for More
Cost-Effective Nonresponse Follow-up, [30]GAO-02-196 (Washington, D.C.:
Feb. 11, 2002).
The Bureau Plans Improvements to Its Recruiting and Hiring
The Bureau is making changes to how it will recruit and hire its temporary
workforce during the 2010 Census. While still employing frontloading,
Bureau officials said they plan to exercise caution in this approach, in
part because census funding could result in more limitations in 2010 than
in 2000. According to Bureau documents, local offices may not necessarily
invite twice the number of needed staff to training as they did in 2000;
however, these final numbers have not yet been determined. According to
Commerce in its response to a draft of this report, the Bureau is also
preliminarily examining whether varying recruitment goals by area is a
viable alternative to its current fixed goal. Using recruiting and hiring
data from its 2004 and 2006 Census Tests, the Bureau plans to determine
whether a variable recruiting goal for each local census office
participating in the tests would have produced enough qualified applicants
to complete the census workload.
The Bureau has also conducted and incorporated information collected from
employee debriefings that could improve its recruiting and hiring
processes. During the 2006 Census Test, the Bureau collected information
from employees to evaluate its operations, including the effectiveness of
its recruiting and hiring processes, by (1) debriefing field staff at the
end of each operation to gain a broader understanding of their thoughts on
operations and procedures and (2) conducting exit interviews to understand
why certain enumerators, crew leaders, and crew leader assistants left
before field tests were completed. Bureau officials said that feedback
from employees could be helpful in evaluating and refining its recruiting
and hiring processes and intend to incorporate some of that information
for the 2008 Dress Rehearsal. For example, the Bureau intends to include
in its recruiting manuals the strategy of better utilizing the recruiting
staff by establishing and assigning specific groups--like faith-based
groups and community-based organizations--for recruiters to focus on, as
was suggested to the Bureau during a debriefing. Bureau officials said
that they plan to conduct these debriefings and exit interviews during the
2008 Dress Rehearsal as well. Specifically, information from exit
interviews will be used to gain additional insight into why employees
leave before an operation was completed. Finally, officials also told us
that a small amount of money was allocated to improve their recruiting
efforts, for example, through conducting focus groups on diversity.
10Janet Cummings, Census 2000: Staffing the Nation's Largest Data
Collection Workforce, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, Aug. 2001).
11 [31]GAO-02-196.
Opportunities Exist for the Bureau to Refine Its Recruiting and Hiring Efforts
Opportunities exist for the Bureau to hone its recruiting efforts to
identify individuals who would be more likely to be effective at census
work and willing to continue working throughout an operation. Presently,
the Bureau casts a wide net to recruit its temporary workforce to ensure
it has a large enough applicant pool from which to hire. The Bureau
selects field staff on the basis of how well they score on the
standardized hiring test each applicant takes. The written test consists
of basic cognitive skills required for the job, such as clerical skills,
number skills, and organizational skills. Additional points are provided
to applicants with veteran's preference. Applicants who score 70 or above
on the written test12 and pass a Federal Bureau of Investigation
background check are interviewed on the phone by office clerks. This
interview assesses the extent to which the applicant can speak and
understand English. Additionally, the applicant's availability, access to
transportation and phone lines, willingness to travel from house to house
to gather data, and other logistical questions of this nature are asked
during the interview. Other than applicants achieving a passing score on
its written test, however, the Bureau has not targeted its recruitment
toward approaches that are likely to hire successful employees willing to
complete a census operation.
We understand that when recruiting and hiring for so many positions, it is
a challenge to assess an applicant's potential success or willingness to
work. However, Bureau officials have also stated that refining this
approach could allow them to recruit more efficiently. To do so, the
Bureau could evaluate the factors associated with and predictive of
employee acceptance of census work, performance on the job, and commitment
to completing census operations. The Bureau possesses much of the
information needed to identify the factors that would characterize an
employee who would be successful at census work and willing to work
throughout an operation.
12Local census offices experiencing difficulties in recruiting applicants
are able to lower the cutoff score on the written test.
o Through the employment application form, the Bureau collects
information about how field staff learn about census work to
understand the most effective ways to reach out to potential
applicants.
o Also through the application form, the Bureau collects
information on the characteristics of every temporary employee,
such as education level and language skills.
o As previously described, the Bureau's Planning Database will be
updated for every census tract in the nation for the 2010 Census,
using such variables as Census 2000 mail return rates, household
size, and percentage of linguistically isolated households, among
others. The database might allow the Bureau to adjust its analysis
of employee productivity across locations by holding constant
factors that affect productivity in different areas.
o Through its personnel database, the Bureau knows whether
employees completed the operation they were hired for, which could
provide information about commitment of field staff and
willingness to work in the census.
The Bureau could collect or extract other data to evaluate factors to help
determine the likely success of an applicant.
o The Bureau does not have data about the attrition rates of its
field staff, which could provide information on what type of
workers are more likely to commit to census employment and thereby
would stay long enough to complete census operations. However, the
Bureau already gathers personnel data during each of its tests,
including dates of the hiring and termination of each applicant,
and plans to collect them for the 2008 Dress Rehearsal and 2010
Census. Attrition data could be extracted from an analysis of
those data.
o The Bureau does not have a direct measure of an employee's
effectiveness. However, the Bureau could begin collecting such
information as early as the 2008 Dress Rehearsal. Further, the
Bureau also could compile information about individual performance
using data collected from its quality control operation.13 The
Bureau does collect productivity data, which indicate the number
of housing units for which a field worker successfully collected
data from each hour, and could be an indicator of employee
performance.14 However, Bureau officials said this information
does not adequately reflect worker performance because the
situations in which workers do their jobs vary considerably.
Nevertheless, information from the Planning Database may allow the
Bureau to adjust these data for differences in employee
productivity between locations. With this adjustment, productivity
data might better inform the Bureau about employee performance
after controlling for location-specific differences.
o The Bureau does not have information about other characteristics
of field staff, such as employment status and history. However,
these data can be collected on the application form workers
complete when they apply for census work, as well as before the
employees leave the Bureau's employment.
Analysis of these data would allow the Bureau to refine its recruiting and
hiring strategy. Multiple regression or other statistical methods can be
employed to analyze these data to determine likely predictors for
successful field staff. Although local and regional factors can affect how
successful a worker will be, such as working in urban or rural settings
and unemployment rates, information from the Planning Database and other
such data may be useful in controlling for these variations. In addition,
analyses can be conducted at the regional or local level to further tailor
recruiting and hiring. There are several ways that the Bureau can define a
successful worker. Productivity data and attrition rates can be used to
measure employee success. But there may be better measures of performance
that could be identified by using information collected in the quality
control operation. However, without conducting such analysis, the Bureau
does not know what types of workers are more likely to be successful at
census work.
The Bureau noted that it has done or plans some analyses of worker
effectiveness and turnover. For example, during the 2006 Census Test, a
contractor examined the Bureau's selection tools to see which employee
attributes are most highly associated with success, tenure, and
performance. However, the Bureau could not produce the results of the
contractor study at the time of this report. The Bureau also plans to
identify factors that might affect turnover and job tenure from its
employee debriefings and exit surveys.
13As stated earlier, the quality control process involves rechecking a
sample of completed work an individual performed and correcting it if
significant problems are detected. Approximately 5 to 10 percent of work
completed is checked in all operations.
14Officials said productivity data are primarily collected and used for
budgetary purposes.
Officials provided various reasons for why the Bureau's recruiting and
hiring processes remain substantially unchanged. First, they said the
Bureau focused on achieving cost containment through the reengineering of
the census, including a short-form census and use of handheld computers,
which left few funds to make improvements in other areas, such as
recruiting and hiring. Second, in commenting on a draft of this report,
Commerce noted that it does not believe that significant cost savings
could be achieved through refining its recruiting and hiring approach.
Third, Bureau officials said that the recruiting and hiring during Census
2000 was a success and the same approach will be effective during the 2010
Census. Lastly, Commerce noted in its comments that making any changes to
the Bureau's current approach would reduce its ability to find the people
needed to complete operations within the statutory deadlines. We agree
that the Bureau needs to recruit and hire staff in time to meet these
deadlines; however, Bureau officials told us that they have not invested
resources into making recruiting and hiring more effective.
Regarding evaluating factors that would allow the Bureau to target
potential applicants and hence improve recruiting practices, Bureau
officials said that doing this could prevent the Bureau from forming
community-based census crews that, in their view, are more likely to be
familiar with the local environment, build trust with nonrespondents, and
hence elicit their participation in the census more easily than would
other field staff. However, the Bureau has not conducted analyses to
indicate that targeting recruitment would preclude it from hiring
community-based field staff.
Moreover, according to Bureau officials, having a large applicant pool
provides the Bureau with assurance that it can meet its recruiting goals;
however, they agree that this approach may not be the most cost-effective.
Specifically, in an evaluation of the Census 2000 recruiting effort, a
contractor found that the goal of creating an applicant pool of five
individuals for each needed field staff position was more than adequate
for staffing the nonresponse follow-up operation.15 The contractor
suggested that the Bureau develop methods to recruit for the 2010 Census
without the resulting applicant pool exceeding the number it plans to hire
by such large amounts. Nevertheless, the Bureau does not plan to modify
this approach and will continue to recruit five times as many individuals
as it plans to hire. Officials told us that as a result of the Bureau's
inability to hire enough field staff during the 1990 Census--which delayed
the address canvassing operation--the Bureau would rather overrecruit than
underrecruit. The statistical analysis discussed above would be one method
the Bureau could use to target its recruiting, thereby potentially
decreasing both the size of the applicant pool and the number of persons
who would need to be hired.
15Westat, Inc., Factors Affecting Census 2000 Recruiting (Rockville, Md.:
Jan. 7, 2002).
A more targeted approach to recruiting and hiring for the 2010 Census
could allow the Bureau to recruit and hire staff with the necessary skills
and interests for census work, and identify applicants who would be more
likely to commit to completing an operation and be successful throughout
census operations. Having these workers could help reduce or better
control operational costs as well as recruiting and hiring expenditures.
Better performing workers could complete fieldwork more expediently,
thereby potentially decreasing the time needed to complete operations.
During Census 2000, the recruiting expenditures for fiscal years 1998
through 2000 were estimated to be $250 million, about $66 per applicant.
Efforts to target applicants likely to continue throughout an operation
could decrease the need to recruit and hire additional workers. Improving
recruiting and hiring could also reduce training costs to replace staff
who have quit, which add to the Bureau's training expenses. For example,
during the 2006 test, the Bureau paid each enumerator in Texas $605 to
participate in 1 week of training.
The Bureau May Modify Some Tools and Processes to Hire Staff with the Right
Skills, but Should Also Differentiate Those Tools for Various Field Positions
The Bureau uses the same set of hiring tools--written tests and phone
interviews administered to each qualified applicant--to hire individuals
for crew leader and other field positions, although the skills needed for
those positions differ. The Bureau hired a contractor to assess whether
the tools used during the 2006 Census Test selected individuals with the
skills necessary to conduct fieldwork using handheld computers. According
to comments provided by Commerce, this contractor plans to conduct a
comprehensive study to review the validity and reliability of new
selection tools during the 2008 Dress Rehearsal to assess whether they
appropriately address the new skills needed in the reengineered census
environment. While updated hiring tools may be implemented during the 2010
Census, Bureau officials said that, overall, they do not expect major
changes to be made. Changes made to the hiring process will be to account
for the automation of field data collection, and not to differentiate
hiring tools for crew leaders and other field positions.
In 1997, OPM found that the competencies needed by a crew leader were
different from those required in other field positions.16 For example,
while it was important for field staff working in the nonresponse
follow-up operation to have arithmetic and visual identification skills,
crew leaders need skills such as management, leadership, and creative
thinking (see table 1). Bureau officials stated that crew leaders are also
responsible for providing on-the-job training where necessary and will
accompany workers who are facing problems. Further, with the reengineering
of the 2010 Census, crew leaders are responsible for troubleshooting the
handheld computers that other field staff use to collect census data.
Table 1: Results of OPM's 1997 Evaluation of Competencies Needed for
Different Field Staff
Competencies rated as important for Competencies rated as important for
crew leaders and not enumerators enumerators and not crew leaders
Creative thinking Number manipulation
Manages and organizes information Arithmetic
Leadership Perceptual speed
Teaching others Visual identification
Managing human resources Foreign language
Managing diverse workforce
Geography
Source: GAO analysis of OPM data.
Applicants interested in census fieldwork take one of two hiring tests, a
supervisory or nonsupervisory one. Individuals who wish to be considered
for field operations supervisor or office operations supervisor take the
supervisory test. Those people interested in all other positions,
including crew leaders, enumerators, and clerks, take the nonsupervisory
test. Individuals that score highest on this test are supposed to be
selected as crew leaders. A selection guide for crew leaders is used to
conduct phone interviews with qualified applicants, but the two sets of
additional questions asked of individuals applying for the crew leader
position do not assess the specific skills needed of crew leaders. During
their phone interviews, crew leader applicants are asked to broadly
describe the nature and scope of their leadership responsibilities,
including organizing materials, scheduling activities, and leading others.
16Office of Personnel Management, A Test Validation Study of the Bureau of
the Census: Decennial Census Non-Supervisory and Supervisory Selection
Aids, PRDC-97-02 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 1997).
OPM also examined whether the Bureau's hiring tools adequately identified
individuals with the abilities needed for those positions during Census
2000. It found that the hiring tools adequately assessed the cognitive
competencies of field staff but were limited in assessing interpersonal
competencies. OPM validated the hiring tools for use in Census 2000 but
suggested that the Bureau incorporate interpersonal assessments into the
hiring tools.
We reviewed the Bureau's hiring tools during the 2006 test and found that
they do not differentiate between crew leaders and other field positions.
Bureau officials said they do not expect to revise these tools for the
2010 Census because the selection guide used during phone interviews has
two sets of questions for the crew leaders. However, these two sets of
questions do not specifically ask whether applicants have experience in
providing training or using computers. One set of questions asked
candidates if they were familiar with the area in which they live and the
second set of questions asked about their leadership experiences and
willingness to lead others. Officials told us that the selection tools the
Bureau plans to use in the 2010 Census will be largely unchanged from
those used in Census 2000 and the 2004 and 2006 tests. That is, the Bureau
does not plan to hone its tools to target the skills needed by crew
leaders, a key position for decennial field activities.
During the 2004 Census Test, the OIG reported that Bureau officials said
the multiple-choice test does not capture the technical or supervisory
skills needed by crew leaders. Several field operations supervisors also
commented that enumerators in training were more managerially and
technically competent to be crew leaders than the crew leaders who were
training them.17 Furthermore, during debriefings conducted with field
staff (including field operations supervisors, crew leaders, and
enumerators) during the 2006 test, participants commented about the
ability of crew leaders to carry out their duties.18 There were a few
comments that were positive, such as one that noted that crew leaders were
able to resolve their problems about census procedures immediately.
However, most other comments regarding crew leaders remarked upon the need
for them to be better skilled or prepared. The following observations were
made about individuals in the crew leader position:
17Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General, Improving Our
Measure of America: What the 2004 Census Test Can Teach Us in Planning for
the 2010 Decennial Census, OIG-16949 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 2004).
o they did not have the skills necessary to perform the duties
required in that position,
o they did not feel comfortable providing training to enumerators
and asked their assistants to deliver the training,
o they did not have the appropriate leadership skills, and
o they should not be hired based on their test scores but based on
whether they possess specific skills needed for that position.
Without using hiring tools that distinguish between skills needed for the
crew leader position, the Bureau does not have assurances that it is
selecting crew leaders who can best perform duties like providing
training, managing other field staff, and troubleshooting handheld
computers. In commenting on a draft of this report, Commerce noted that a
contractor hired by the Bureau is examining whether there is a need to
replace the current written tests and interview selection guides used for
hiring all field positions, including crew leaders. Depending upon the
contractor's finding, the Bureau may modify these selection tools.
Nevertheless, the Bureau still does not collect information about the
performance of individual crew leaders nor does it collect information on
turnover of crew leaders. Without this information, the Bureau is limited
in its ability to assess the effectiveness of its hiring tools in
selecting able crew leaders for the 2010 Census.
18These sessions aimed to obtain information that will improve Bureau
procedures, including training. We reviewed summaries of debriefings
conducted for three operations--nonresponse follow-up, update/enumerate,
and address canvassing. The Bureau's debriefing documents did not specify
how many participants were included during debriefings for
update/enumerate and address canvassing. During nonresponse follow-up
debriefings, Bureau officials spoke with 3 field operations supervisors, 9
crew leaders, 5 crew leader assistants, and 18 enumerators. These
statements reflect the opinions of a sample of individuals who completed
the operation. Field workers who left the census before the end of the
operation were not included in these debriefings.
The Bureau Gives Little Consideration to Previous Performance When Rehiring
Former Workers
When hiring, Bureau policies recommend that former employees are rehired
first before selecting individuals without prior census experience. Over
the course of the 2006 Census Test, almost 15 percent of all field staff
were rehired. In other words, these individuals left their field
position--due to the end of an operation or for other reasons--but then
were rehired for a subsequent operation of the 2006 test. However, the
Bureau does not fully consider past performance. When rehiring field
staff, the Bureau does not use certain information that could help assess
an applicant's competence, nor does the Bureau prepare employee
performance evaluations that could be used later when considering rehiring
former employees. Bureau officials say they try not to rehire those
individuals who were terminated for cause. In comments on a draft of this
report, Commerce noted that OPM has exempted most of the Bureau's
statutory field staff from its requirement that all federal employees
undergo a performance evaluation.
The Bureau rehires former employees using the same procedures it uses to
hire those with no prior census experience. Office clerks conduct
telephone interviews of former employees using the same hiring scripts
used to assess all other applicants. Individuals who could comment on the
performance of an individual, such as crew leaders, field office
supervisors, or local office managers, are not consulted during the
rehiring process. Bureau officials said that they try to exclude rehiring
former employees who were terminated for cause. The actions that would
result in a worker being terminated for cause are severe conduct or
performance problems--such as striking another person or selling alcohol
or drugs on Bureau premises.
Commerce also stated that the Bureau's Decennial Applicant Personnel and
Payroll System contains termination data about each applicant--such as
whether a worker left an operation due to cause, resignation, or lack of
work--and have controls that do not allow employees who were terminated
for cause to be rehired. However, officials we interviewed during the 2006
Census Test told us that not all employees with conduct problems or who
performed poorly were terminated. Further, the OIG found that during
Census 2000, managers were reluctant to terminate poor-performing workers,
but instead would refrain from assigning them new work. Some of these
managers were concerned that separated employees would be unable to find
new jobs; others were put off by the amount of time and paperwork involved
in terminating workers. In addition to collecting termination data, the
Bureau also collects productivity data on field workers. According to
officials, the Bureau does not use this information when rehiring former
employees, because productivity data do not adequately describe the
performance of a temporary worker, as the situations in which workers do
their jobs vary considerably.
Despite the limitations of using productivity data discussed above, the
Bureau does not collect other data that could allow it to quickly evaluate
the prior performance of applicants reapplying for census work, such as
individual performance evaluations that could be prepared at the
completion of employment. Bureau officials said that the policies for
rehiring former employees should be sufficient to hire and maintain a
competent workforce because the process worked during Census 2000.
Furthermore, they said that the pace of the decennial, particularly the
nonresponse follow-up operation, is such that local census officials have
insufficient time to consider past performance in making hiring decisions.
Bureau officials do not prepare performance evaluations of employees
because field operations supervisors do not have the time to conduct this
assessment and crew leaders do not have the training needed to provide a
relatively objective assessment of field staff.
Although officials believe they lack sufficient time to consider past
performance when rehiring, we believe that the Bureau does have enough
time. For example, performance data could be collected during the address
canvassing operation to be used to assess previous workers for the
nonresponse follow-up operation, which occurs nearly a year later.
Moreover, during the 2006 Census Test, information from supervisors on the
performance of their workers was readily available, as crew leaders we
spoke with were able to identify the relative strengths of their crew
members; however, that information is neither collected nor used. Bureau
officials believed that such information is inherently subjective.
Nonetheless, the Bureau appears to recognize the value of collecting such
information. Specifically, the contractor validating the hiring tests
intends to collect similar information during the 2008 Dress Rehearsal by
asking supervisors, "Would you be willing to rehire this individual for
the next operation?" Collecting and using responses to a question as
simple as this could inform the Bureau about the performance of former
employees and help ensure that rehired workers are competent.
If 15 percent of the field staff were to be rehired during the 2010
Census, as was the case during the 2006 Census Test, the Bureau would not
have performance data to meaningfully evaluate whether to rehire
approximately 90,000 individuals. Without preparing employee performance
information, the Bureau cannot ensure that the weakest performers are not
rehired.
The Bureau Has Not Changed Training Delivery or Content for Temporary Field
Staff to Fully Address Known Challenges
The Bureau is providing some computer-based training on using the handheld
computers in key operations. However, overall, the Bureau has made limited
changes to the approach it uses to deliver training and has not evaluated
alternate approaches to providing training. In addition to having trainers
read a script verbatim, nonresponse follow-up training in 2006 included
(1) scripted role play exercises, where trainers and trainees read from
prepared materials; (2) a few hours of practice in the field with actual
housing units and residents, although not all field staff we spoke with
had this opportunity; (3) opportunities for enumerators to answer scripted
questions from the crew leader, though instructions for trainers
discouraged class discussion because such discussions would disrupt the
training schedule; and (4) limited use of visual aids, created by crew
leaders rather than the Bureau or local census office staff. Although in
commenting on a draft of our report, Commerce stated its commitment to
continuously improving training through the incorporation of trainee
self-assessment and practice questions, role-playing, and focusing on
practical applications it has largely retained its verbatim approach.
Bureau officials stated this was to preserve the consistency of the
training it delivers nationwide. Additionally, officials stated that a
verbatim approach is necessary because crew leaders, who usually provide
their crews' training, may have been employed only a few weeks and have no
practical decennial experience in the field. Commerce also pointed to the
challenge of holding 40,000 training sessions simultaneously.
Many field staff we spoke with during the 2006 test said their overall
impression of training was generally positive. Nonetheless, many said that
videos or visuals would or might improve training. Further, according to
Bureau summaries of debriefings it conducted, field staff indicated that
the verbatim training was slow-paced and redundant; they said training
would have been improved by videos or other media.19 These comments are
bolstered by observations during the 2004 and 2006 tests, which showed
that field staff may have missed important parts of training. When
Harris--the contractor developing the handheld computers--observed
training during the 2006 test, it saw students playing games on their
handheld computers during training.20 Moreover, in 2004, OIG observers
found students not paying attention and even falling asleep during class
and concluded that some enumerators may have failed to learn how to
conduct census operations.21 The OIG attributed some enumerator
deficiencies to the Bureau's verbatim training method, as enumerators they
spoke with said training was slow and uninteresting and that lapses in
their concentration occurred.
19These sessions aimed to obtain information that will improve Bureau
procedures, including training. We reviewed summaries of debriefings
conducted for three operations--nonresponse follow-up, update/enumerate,
and address canvassing.
20The handheld computers developed by Harris will not include software
that will allow field staff to play games during training.
The Bureau and others, including us, have reported that the Bureau should
consider alternate approaches to training delivery. Our review of the 2004
Census Test found that, as a result of the demographic and technological
changes that have taken place since 1970, the Bureau might want to explore
alternatives to its verbatim approach to training.22 Moreover, in 2004,
the OIG suggested the Bureau explore the use of interactive training
methods, as the Bureau does for other nondecennial surveys.23
Specifically, the OIG noted that the Bureau should consider using
multimedia or computer-based training. The Bureau has also conducted, or
contracted for, several evaluations of its nonresponse follow-up training,
though none of these evaluations assessed whether alternate delivery
approaches would improve training. Bureau officials claim the training
they provide is effective so evaluations comparing alternate approaches
are not necessary. Officials indicated that the primary criterion they
used to judge the effectiveness of training was whether operations were
completed on time. However, timeliness does not take into account the
quality of data collected by these field staff and therefore is not an
appropriate measure of training effectiveness. In an evaluation of
training for nonresponse follow-up in Census 2000, for example, the Bureau
found that field staff struggled to read questions as worded, show
flashcards to respondents, and consistently ask questions about Hispanic
origin and race.
Our guide for strategic training recommends that agencies compare various
training approaches by weighing their estimated costs and anticipated
benefits,24 but Bureau officials said they did not explore alternate
approaches because they could not think of any feasible improvements. In
particular, Bureau officials explained that audiovisual equipment was not
always available at training sites, so video segments could not be
scheduled during training. Further, they said wealthy areas are more
likely to have greater access to video equipment, which may lead to
better-prepared field staff in those neighborhoods. However, the Bureau
has not collected data to show that video equipment was unavailable at
training locations during Census 2000 or either of the tests conducted in
2004 and 2006. In fact, for some training sites in the reengineered
environment, the Bureau has increased requirements such as having
sufficient electrical outlets to power trainees' handheld computers and a
dedicated phone line for transmitting census and payroll data. As a result
of having to meet increased Bureau requirements, training sites may be
more likely to have audiovisual technology.
21OIG-16949.
22GAO, 2010 Census: Basic Design Has Potential, but Remaining Challenges
Need Prompt Resolution, [32]GAO-05-9 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 12, 2005).
23OIG-16949.
24 [33]GAO-04-546G .
Commerce's comments also cited concerns about the cost of buying or
renting audiovisual equipment. However, several options exist that could
allow video content to be used more broadly without renting or purchasing
new technology. Further, evaluations could show that video segments are
more efficient than verbatim training, thus reducing the time needed for
training and mitigating the cost of audiovisual equipment. One option the
Bureau could pursue is providing video content to its field staff to watch
during their self-study as homework assignments. In an OIG report on the
2004 Census Test, Bureau officials agreed that distributing videos as a
homework assignment might be beneficial and feasible, as a large number of
homes now have VCRs or DVD players, but did not distribute this type of
content in the 2006 test. Alternatively, given increased Internet access,
Web-based material may be a practical way to present video content. If
only a few training sites lack access to audiovisual technology, crews
could be invited into the local census office to view video segments. If
more training sites lack such technology or the local census office is
located a great distance from the training site, field operations
supervisors, who we observed visiting each of their crews every day during
training, could show video segments on their laptops. However, the Bureau
has not evaluated whether any or all of these options would be feasible.
Officials explained that they could not know the extent to which
technology is available prior to opening local census offices, but this
information could be compiled during early operations for use during
nonresponse follow-up training, which occurs more than a year after the
local census offices open.
Regardless of whether the Bureau considers alternate approaches to
training, training could be enhanced by the addition of visual aids to
illustrate census concepts. In fact, the Bureau has shown support for
using visual aids during training, as it will incorporate visual aids
developed by Harris that will help illustrate how to use the handheld
computers (see fig. 3).
Figure 3: Visual Created by Harris for Use in Training
A Bureau evaluation of nonresponse follow-up training in Census 2000
recommended creating additional media, such as flip charts or posters, for
use in training.25 The OIG found that some trainees had trouble following
the verbatim instructions and might have benefited from the use of visual
aids.26 Finally, an external contractor that reviewed the Bureau's
training in 2004 recommended that the Bureau develop visual aids for use
during training.27 During our observations of the 2006 test, we also noted
instances where visual aids might enhance training. For example, field
staff had difficulty distinguishing between vacant and occupied housing
units in rural South Dakota. Training materials suggested field staff
speak with a knowledgeable person and observe some visual cues, such as
uncut grass or boarded-up windows. In that regard, a series of pictures
illustrating such features might enhance the ability of field staff to
make judgments about vacant houses consistently.
25U.S. Census Bureau, 2003.
26Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General, Valuable Learning
Opportunities Were Missed in the 2006 Test of Address Canvassing,
OIG-17524 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 2006).
Bureau's Training Content Largely Unchanged Despite Recommendations Calling for
Change
The content of the Bureau's training for field staff has not changed
substantially since Census 2000, despite the fact that collecting data
from the nation's population has become increasingly complex, as people
become more reluctant to participate in the census and the nation has
continued to become more diverse. According to Bureau officials, the
Bureau is finding it increasingly difficult to locate people and get them
to participate in the census. Field workers we spoke with during the 2006
test noted two related issues on which they had not received sufficient
training--dealing with reluctant respondents and handling
location-specific challenges.
Field staff may not be sufficiently prepared to encourage reluctant
respondents to participate in the census. In 2004, the OIG found that
field staff complained they felt unprepared to deal with reluctant
respondents and the report recommended the Bureau consider adding content
to enhance training on this topic.28 In 2006, the Bureau included one
role-play example of a reluctant respondent in nonresponse follow-up
training in Texas, but none in update/enumerate--the comparable operation
conducted at the more rural South Dakota test site. Despite this
improvement, dealing with these reluctant respondents continued to be a
problem for field staff in 2006. For example, an enumerator in Texas told
us that the Bureau should more directly explain that most respondents are
likely to be reluctant. She said she was surprised by how many reluctant
respondents she encountered. During the debriefing discussions the Bureau
held with field staff, many participants indicated that respondent
reluctance was challenging.29 When asked, enumerators at the debriefings
said respondent refusals were something they were least prepared to handle
after training. Crew leaders echoed this sentiment when asked about it
during the debriefing, saying that overcoming respondent reluctance was
the most difficult task enumerators faced.
27Eagle International, Inc., 2004 Census Test: Review and Evaluation of
Training Efficacy (Rochester, N.Y.: Oct. 21, 2005).
28OIG-16949.
The nonresponse follow-up training provided in 2006 has more material on
how to deal with reluctant respondents than did the Census 2000
nonresponse follow-up training. However, much of the new material concerns
how enumerators enter data on the handheld computers and not about
training field staff on how to best elicit cooperation. A relatively small
portion of training time is dedicated to working with reluctant
respondents and this section begins "most of the people you have to
interview will cooperate." Officials explained to us that households in
nonresponse follow-up have already chosen not to participate--by not
mailing in their surveys--and therefore may be more likely to be reluctant
to respond when field staff visit their homes. Finally, as the OIG noted
in 2004, training materials generally advised field staff to be prepared
to explain why the census was necessary and how data would be used, but
offered no special guidance for convincing respondents to cooperate.30
This kind of guidance was also not contained in training materials for the
2006 test.
Although data are available to help the Bureau refine its material on
reluctant respondents, the Bureau is not making use of this resource. The
Bureau's Planning Database, used mainly for recruiting purposes and
enumeration planning, highlights areas where the Bureau believes it would
be hard to enumerate, such as where many migrant workers reside or where
there is a large number of public assistance households. Those conditions
could be used to assess whether the responsiveness of households to
respond to the census over time indicates a need to increase training on
handling reluctant respondents. For example, reasons for respondent
reluctance could vary based on whether the population of migrant workers
or people living in public assistance housing has increased. The necessary
changes to training should vary based on how the population has changed.
Bureau officials said that they had not used the database to inform
changes made to training.
29As previously discussed, these sessions aimed to obtain information that
will improve Bureau procedures, including training. We reviewed summaries
of debriefings conducted for three operations--nonresponse follow-up,
update/enumerate, and address canvassing.
30OIG-16949.
The increasing reluctance of the nation to participate in the census makes
it important for field staff to be trained in the skills needed to
complete census work accurately and effectively. We also saw a notice
created by an enumerator that informed residents they needed to provide
census data or federal marshals would come to arrest them, which local
officials told us will not happen. Without adequate preparation, field
staff may develop their own strategies when confronted with these
difficult situations, resulting in inconsistent and sometimes
inappropriate data collection methods. For example, when unable to contact
respondents, one Texas enumerator we observed looked up respondent
information online, tried to find a phone number for another respondent
from a neighborhood cat's collar, and even illegally went through
residents' mail. Another enumerator told us she sat in front of housing
units for hours waiting for residents to come home from work. Bureau
procedures as outlined in training indicate that field staff should make
six attempts to contact residents, either in person or by phone, before
seeking another knowledgeable person from which to obtain data.
Another issue on which field staff said they needed additional training
was with challenges that were specific to their local areas. In South
Dakota, for example, an enumerator told us that Abbotsville, Oklahoma--the
hypothetical city the Bureau used for role playing and other exercises in
the training class--did not reflect the rural conditions of the Cheyenne
River Reservation.31 This sentiment was also mentioned in the Bureau's
debriefing following the operation.32 Field staff participating in these
meetings also commented on the challenges related to enumerating empty
mobile home sites and working under dangerous rural road conditions. In
Austin, Texas, on the other hand, one crew leader explained that training
spent a lot of time on mobile homes--which did not exist in his area--but
very little time on apartment buildings, which are common there. Other
field staff mentioned problems collecting data from the large college
student population in Austin--which had already vacated their Census Day
residences for summer vacation by the start of nonresponse follow-up. In
debriefings from the nonresponse follow-up operation in Texas, field staff
also mentioned a need for additional information on obtaining data in
apartment buildings and dealing with large families.
31The example of Abbotsville, Oklahoma, was not used in nonresponse
follow-up training. It was used to train field staff in South Dakota to
carry out the update/enumerate operation. That operation targets
communities with special enumeration needs and where most housing units
may not have house number and street name mailing addresses. These areas
include resort areas with high concentrations of seasonally vacant housing
units and selected American Indian reservations. The training provided for
this operation is different from that provided during nonresponse
follow-up.
32As previously discussed, these sessions aimed to obtain information that
will improve Bureau procedures, including training. We reviewed summaries
of debriefings conducted for three operations--nonresponse follow-up,
update/enumerate, and address canvassing.
To address these kinds of location-specific challenges, the Bureau works
with regional offices to develop 10-minute training modules for specific
locations. For example, in 2000, Bureau officials said enumerators in Los
Angeles were trained to look for small, hidden housing units, such as
apartments in converted garages. Commerce's comments on a draft of this
report stated that the Bureau also provides guidance on how long these
modules should be and at what point they should be presented. However,
officials told us they were not sure how often this kind of training took
place, nor had they allocated time during training to present specialized
information. On the basis of observations of the 2004 test, we suggested
that the Bureau supplement the existing training with modules geared
toward addressing the particular enumeration challenges that field staff
are likely to encounter in specific locales.33 The National Academy of
Sciences also recommended in 2004 that the Bureau develop special
enumeration methods for locations that might face unique challenges, such
as irregular urban areas, gated communities, rural areas, and
colonias--unincorporated and low-income residential subdivisions lacking
basic infrastructure and services along the border between the United
States and Mexico.34
The Planning Database may be helpful in determining whether modules
focused on particular enumeration challenges may be needed, in that it
includes detailed information on small geographic areas. For example, the
database contains information on the prevalence of difficult terrain,
student populations, and trailer parks, among other variables. However,
the Bureau has not used information from the Planning Database to
determine where a local census office may need to use location-specific
training modules nor taken any steps to develop this type of module
centrally to ensure the consistency of content.
33 [34]GAO-05-9 .
34The National Academies Press, Reengineering the 2010 Census: Risks and
Challenges (Washington, D.C.: 2004).
Bureau officials offered several explanations as to why they have made
limited changes to enhance training on reluctant respondents and
location-specific challenges. They said the Bureau lacks the time and
budget to make systematic changes to its training, and they believe that
the content of training is already effective. They also said that the
Bureau has made changes to training "iteratively" over time, citing
increases to the content on reluctant respondents since Census 2000.
Officials noted that while fieldwork in various locations can be
different, a consistent nationwide approach is necessary and that local
differences were handled by the 10-minute modules that could be created by
regional offices. Further, officials explained that creating
location-specific modules centrally would be time-consuming and expensive.
Finally, officials were opposed to including any additional material on
dealing with reluctant respondents because longer training is costly.
However, as field staff told us, the training contains material on issues
they did not face in their local areas. For example, as we stated earlier
in this section, much time was spent on training on mobile homes in
Austin, Texas, although they are not prevalent in the area. The inclusion
of this material in a standard nationwide training reduces the time
available for other issues, such as strategies for addressing reluctant
respondents.
Developing modules for different types of locations centrally, while
potentially costly, would allow the Bureau to control the consistency and
quality of training throughout the nation and therefore control the cost
of local operations. For example, headquarters staff could centrally
develop modules covering enumeration strategies in a variety of
situations, such as mobile homes, large apartment buildings, and migrant
worker dwellings, which local officials can selectively insert into their
training if there is a need to train their field staff on that topic. In
Census 2000, the Bureau did not know where location-specific modules
created by regional offices were used, nor the quality of instruction
provided in those modules. For example, to collect data from colonias in
2000, the Denver Regional Office provided field staff information about
the layout of the colonias, while the Dallas Regional Office decided to
use a different enumeration method for these housing units. Targeting
training to address those issues field staff are likely to face could also
save time during training by deleting topics that are not needed by field
staff. Moreover, targeted training could enhance the effectiveness of
trainers and field staff by giving greater attention to the challenges
they do face.
Conclusions
For the 2010 Census, the Bureau faces difficulties in enumerating a
changing society, whereby the population is increasingly diverse and hard
to locate. The Bureau has responded to challenges with a reengineered
approach that relies to a much greater extent on new technologies, such as
handheld computers. In addition, it is important that the Bureau evaluate
and improve how it recruits and hires temporary field workers and trains
them on the skills needed to successfully complete the 2010 Census.
The Bureau's overall approach to recruiting and hiring is focused on
ensuring that it recruits and hires a sufficient number of field staff.
However, a more targeted and considered approach would help the Bureau to
more effectively identify the workers it needs. Conducting an analysis of
the characteristics of applicants likely to become effective census
workers or analyzing information about field staff turnover could allow
the Bureau to recruit and hire staff more likely to be successful
throughout census operations and thereby reduce or better control
operational costs, as well as recruiting and hiring expenditures. The
Bureau is making efforts to revise its tools to better identify staff with
the necessary skills in light of the new automated environment. However,
its hiring tools have not adequately differentiated between crew leaders
and their field staff. During the reengineered 2010 Census, crew leaders
will be responsible for training and supervising field staff as well as
troubleshooting the handheld computers used to collect data in the field.
By using the same hiring tools for positions that need different skills,
the Bureau cannot ensure that crew leaders have the skills needed to
fulfill the requirements of those key positions. Finally, the Bureau does
not prepare employee performance evaluations that can be used to make
informed decisions when rehiring former employees, who may be given
preference during hiring for later operations. Such performance
information may also be useful in assessing the characteristics of
applicants likely to be successful at census work.
The Bureau has decades of experience in training field workers, but we and
others made recommendations following Census 2000 and subsequent field
tests that could improve the delivery and content of training. The Bureau
has not evaluated alternate approaches to training like using video
content, nor has the Bureau evaluated the feasibility of such
alternatives. Without these evaluations, Bureau decision makers lack
information they need to determine the best way to deliver training.
Moreover, while the Bureau will be incorporating visual aids on how to use
the handheld computers, it has not developed other visual aids that could
improve the ability of field staff to conduct census operations.
With respect to the content of training, some field staff said they need
more training on how to deal with reluctant respondents. Bureau officials
said that this content has increased since Census 2000, but we found that
field staff still lacked a clear idea of how likely they were to encounter
reluctance and also needed strategies to convince such respondents to
cooperate. Likewise, although the Bureau permits regional or local offices
to provide a very small amount of training specific to their areas, it has
not centrally developed modules on topics field staff are likely to face
in certain areas--such as apartment buildings and mobile homes--for those
offices to incorporate into their standard training. These modules could
improve the training on these situations and increase the consistency of
training content. Without evaluating the way training is delivered,
developing visual aids to enhance training, and making appropriate
modifications to improve content on reluctant respondents and
location-specific situations, the Bureau's temporary field staff may be
less than fully prepared to do their work.
Recommendations for Executive Action
We recommend that the Secretary of Commerce direct the Director of the
U.S. Census Bureau to take the following seven actions to improve the
Bureau's recruiting, hiring, and training of temporary field staff. The
Bureau should
o To refine its approach to recruiting and hiring, evaluate the
factors that are associated with and predictive of employee
interest in census work, performance, and commitment. These
factors may include prior work experience and employment status.
The Bureau should determine the best way to measure employee
performance for the purposes of this analysis. The Bureau should
also consider these findings for better targeting applicants in
subsequent decennial operations. This effort could be conducted
during address canvassing and other early operations during the
2008 Dress Rehearsal and during the 2010 Census. The resulting
information will be useful when recruiting and hiring for the
Bureau's largest decennial operation, nonresponse follow-up, and
subsequent operations.
o Determine the best way to gather employee performance data
during the address canvassing operation in the 2010 Census to
inform rehiring decisions during subsequent operations.
o Modify recruiting and hiring tools, including the skills test
and phone interview, to better differentiate applicants with the
skills and competencies needed by crew leaders from those who
would be better suited for other field positions.
o Evaluate the effectiveness of alternate approaches for
delivering training, including the use of video content, as
compared to the current verbatim approach. If new approaches are
found to be more effective, evaluate the feasibility of delivering
this type of training during subsequent operations.
o Prior to the 2010 Census, incorporate into training visual aids
illustrating how to conduct census work.
o Revise or modify training to enhance material on reluctant
respondents so that field staff are provided with a realistic
impression of the prevalence of respondent reluctance and
strategies for convincing these respondents to participate.
o Prepare training modules addressing prototypical
location-specific challenges that may be selected and used by
regional or local census offices. For example, modules on
situations localities may face--such as enumerating apartment
buildings or dealing with empty mobile home sites--could be
centrally developed by Bureau officials to ensure the consistency
and quality of such modules. Local or regional officials could
then select those modules most appropriate to the local area for
use in training.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
We provided a draft of this report to the Secretary of Commerce for his
review and comment. We received comments from Commerce's Deputy Secretary.
Overall, Commerce agreed with the importance of the key human capital
principles reflected in the draft report, noting that the Bureau believes
it already has implemented strategies relating to those principles for its
permanent workforce, and that, internally, the Bureau has recommended
using similar strategies for the decennial census as well. Commerce
incorrectly asserts that we find the Bureau's overall approach for
recruiting, hiring, and training to be insufficient. Rather, as the report
title indicates, we believe the Bureau can refine its recruiting and
hiring efforts and enhance training. Commerce agreed with one of the
report's recommendations and in commenting on the remaining
recommendations, either pointed to actions that it is taking that are
consistent with the recommendation or questioned the need for taking
action. We describe Commerce's response to the report's recommendations
below. Commerce also provided other comments and concerns, including
technical corrections and suggestions where additional context was needed.
We revised the report to reflect these comments as appropriate. Our
response to these comments and Commerce's letter appear in appendix I.
In response to our recommendation that the Bureau refine its overall
approach to recruiting and hiring, Commerce noted that the Bureau's
selection tools are developed to ensure that all legal and professional
standards for hiring employees are met, while allowing it to select the
large number of persons needed to complete the census. Commerce also
stated that the Bureau's previous and current job analyses would allow the
Bureau to identify the factors most likely to predict success on the job
and that those factors are currently represented in the Bureau's selection
tools and procedures. We agree that the Bureau's recruiting approach
should be designed to ensure it may select a sufficient number of persons
to complete the census. However, we do not agree that the Bureau's
analyses identify the factors most likely to predict applicants' success
and are incorporated in selection tools and procedures. In fact, the
Bureau has no documentation to indicate that it has identified and
analyzed these factors. As a result, we concluded that the Bureau could
refine its recruiting and hiring tools to better understand what makes
applicants successful and thereby minimize operating costs. Our
recommendation calls for the Bureau to use a fact-based approach to
developing selection criteria. We believe that without a usable measure of
performance and analysis of attrition, the Bureau cannot fully measure
success in terms of performance and turnover. Such analysis would permit
the Bureau to target recruitment to applicants who are not only more
likely to perform well, but also continue throughout an operation.
Recruiting such applicants could help reduce or better control operational
costs as well as recruiting and hiring expenditures by decreasing the need
to recruit and hire additional workers.
Regarding our second recommendation that the Bureau determine the best way
to gather performance data to inform rehiring decisions, Commerce stated
that our report does not have evidence that a significantly large portion
of rehired employees are poor performers. It also noted that the Bureau
has taken steps to prevent the rehiring of poor performers. While agreeing
that performance appraisal and evaluation are relevant in most agencies,
Commerce added that such a system would not be practical for the Bureau
given the sheer number of workers hired during the decennial, their
temporary employment, and the time-consuming nature of performance
management systems. Our draft report in no way suggested that either a
"significantly large" or even a "large" portion of the employees are poor
performers. To the contrary, neither we nor the Bureau has information
regarding the performance of its temporary workers, other than whether an
employee has been terminated for cause. Further, we disagree that our
suggested appraisal system would create a large administrative burden. We
are not recommending that the Bureau develop a complex, time-consuming and
formal appraisal system in the course of obtaining performance
information; instead, we suggest that local census offices obtain limited
information, such as whether a crew leader would be willing to rehire a
worker for a later operation. As we noted in the report, these data could
be systematically collected upon a worker's termination to assess whether
to rehire that individual. In commenting on the report, Commerce noted
that crew leaders and other field office supervisors are instructed to
terminate workers who are not performing at an acceptable level, thus
eliminating them from consideration for future operations. However, the
OIG found that during the Census 2000, managers were reluctant to
terminate workers, but instead would refrain from assigning them new work.
Officials we interviewed during the 2006 test told us that not all poor
performers were terminated. We conclude that the Bureau could do more to
determine whether an employee should be considered for rehiring, such as
through recording the crew leader's or field office supervisor's overall
assessment prior to an employee leaving operations. Without such
information, the Bureau cannot know whether it is rehiring poor performers
who had not been terminated due to conduct problems or unsatisfactory
performance. We added additional context in our report about how
poor-performing workers are not always terminated. By failing to terminate
weak performers, local census offices cannot identify those workers if
they reapply for census work in a subsequent operation. Finally, we do not
believe that a performance assessment system would create a large set of
legal problems because it is unlikely that taking such information into
account would negatively affect the Bureau's compliance with the Uniformed
Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act and veterans' preference
requirements.
Commerce agreed with our third recommendation that recruiting and hiring
tools should be modified to better differentiate applicants with the
skills and competencies needed by crew leaders and noted that the Bureau
is working with a contractor to do so.
In its comments on our fourth recommendation--that the Bureau evaluate the
effectiveness of alternate approaches to delivering training--Commerce
noted that the Bureau continues to explore methods for providing training
within the constraints of time and funding, and that it intends to
reevaluate the purely verbatim training approach. Commerce commented that
renting or purchasing additional audiovisual equipment needed for
nonresponse follow-up training would be cost-prohibitive. However, Bureau
officials have told us that they have not studied the prevalence of
audiovisual equipment in training locations; therefore, the Bureau cannot
know the cost of providing such equipment. Further, we are not
recommending that the Bureau rent or purchase this equipment. Instead, we
call for the Bureau to evaluate the effectiveness of these alternative
approaches, including audio-visual equipment. The internal process of
reviewing previous training schedules and topics to identify areas needed
for modification and emphasis is commendable; however, the Bureau does not
have any documentation of this effort. Further, while the Commerce also
asserts that it is not feasible to provide training content through
audiovisual technology, in our report, we outline several ways the Bureau
could provide this content using technology already available. Moreover,
without studying whether alternate approaches are more efficient or
effective; the Bureau cannot know whether or not it is worth making an
investment in such approaches. Therefore, we continue to recommend that
the Bureau study alternate approaches to delivering training.
Regarding our fifth recommendation--that the Bureau incorporate into
training visual aids that illustrate how to conduct census work--Commerce
explained that the Bureau will be using visual aids in address canvassing
and nonresponse follow-up training. Commerce offered to provide us with
the visual aids that would be used during the dress rehearsal; however,
when we asked for these visual aids, the Bureau informed us that they have
not been completed and could not be provided. We believe that introducing
this material during the dress rehearsal is an excellent first step and
commended the Bureau taking this step. As our report pointed out, however,
the visuals proposed for address canvassing and nonresponse follow-up were
technical in nature, illustrating how to use the handheld devices.
Commerce also pointed out that the Bureau would use large maps during
training in another operation. These maps will also likely enhance
training for this operation. Nonetheless, in our audit work, we found that
additional visuals, such as pictures illustrating the difference between
vacant and occupied housing units, would have helped field staff better
understand census work. We, therefore, believe the Bureau could do more to
incorporate visual aids into training.
In response to our sixth recommendation, where we recommended revising or
modifying training on reluctant respondents, Commerce explained that
efforts to reevaluate training are ongoing. It mentioned that adding
material to training would make training longer and thereby costlier. In
recognition of the costs of additional training time, we specifically
recommended that the Bureau revise or modify its approach to providing
training on reluctant respondents, rather than simply providing more
training. Overall, we found that continued attention to providing adequate
training on reluctant respondents is important, especially given that the
Bureau believes reluctance among the nation's public has been increasing.
Finally, Commerce noted that the Bureau acknowledged that
location-specific training was necessary in some cases, as was suggested
by our seventh recommendation. The comments provided outlined the Bureau's
procedures for providing location-specific training modules through the
efforts of regional census offices. We incorporated some additional
details into our report to better characterize the role of headquarters
staff in developing the modules used in specific local census offices.
However, as we state in the report, developing modules for different types
of locations centrally would allow the Bureau to control the consistency
and quality of training throughout the nation.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Commerce,
Commerce's Office of Inspector General, the Director of the U.S. Census
Bureau, and other interested congressional committees. We will make copies
available to others upon request. This report will also be available at no
charge on our Web site at http://www.gao.gov .
If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please
contact me on (202) 512-6806 or by e-mail at [email protected] . Contact
points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may
be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major
contributions to this report are listed in appendix II.
Mathew J. Scire
Director Strategic Issues
Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Commerce
Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the
end of this appendix.
Now on page 33.
See comment 2.
See comment 1.
Now on page 4.
Now on page 4.
See comment 5.
See comment 4.
See comment 3.
Now on pages 4-5.
Now on page 5.
Now on page 11.
See comment 7.
See comment 6.
Now on page 14.
Now on page 16.
See comment 8.
Now on page 16.
Now on page 17.
See comment 11.
See comment 10.
See comment 9.
Now on pages 16-17.
Now on pages 17-18.
Now on page 21.
See comment 3.
See comment 12.
Now on page 20.
See comment 2.
Now on page 19.
See comment 14.
See comment 15.
See comment 13.
Now on page 21.
Now on page 21.
Now on page 22.
See comment 18.
See comment 17.
See comment 16.
Now on page 22.
Now on page 24.
Now on page 25.
See comment 2.
See comment 20.
See comment 19.
Now on page 27.
Now on pages 27-28.
Now on page 32.
See comment 21.
See comment 3.
Now on page 32.
Now on page 32.
The following are GAO's comments on the Department of Commerce's
(Commerce) "other comments and concerns about the report" section of the
letter dated April 4, 2007.
GAO Comments
1. This report does not, as stated in this comment, suggest that the U.S.
Census Bureau (Bureau) made "little effort to improve its recruiting and
hiring practices." In fact, we commend the Bureau for taking steps such as
identifying critical skills for its field staff in using the handheld
computer and using employee insights to improve its recruiting and hiring
practices. We provided additional context in our report related to the
Bureau's future work to examine correlations between job success, tenure,
and performance on selection tools. Further, we also added the Bureau's
plans during the 2008 Dress Rehearsal to use exit survey data to gain
additional insights on why a worker left before an operation was
completed. Such evaluations and insights may help the Bureau improve its
recruiting and hiring processes for the 2010 Census.
2. As noted in the report, we reviewed each of these selection guides
described in Commerce's comments. We found that these tools do not
specifically ask whether the applicants have experience in providing
training or using computers--critical skills needed for individuals in the
crew leader position. We note in the report that the Bureau has a
contractor that will examine the current selection tools during the 2008
Dress Rehearsal, including those used to select crew leaders.
3. We have revised the report to reflect the Bureau's clarification that
it "recommends" hiring experienced employees before inexperienced ones.
4. We have revised our report to reflect the Bureau's stated commitment to
continuously improving training, including the use of self-assessment and
practice questions, role-playing, and focusing on the practical
applications of what is being taught. Further, we incorporated additional
information about the unique challenges faced by the Bureau in training
its temporary field staff.
5. We incorporated the clarifying information Commerce provided that the
Bureau is working with federal, state, local, and tribal officials to
obtain waivers that will help expand the pool of potential applicants.
6. We have added to the report additional explanation of how the Planning
Database may provide useful information in understanding productivity. The
report describes how this information would be useful in designing a
multiple regression or other statistical method for determining likely
predictors for successful field staff. Such information would be helpful
in designing a recruiting strategy and not for making individual rehiring
decisions. We include in the report additional explanation of how the data
would assist in such an analysis.
7. Commerce states that adding more complexity to the recruiting, testing,
hiring, training, and supervision efforts will not produce significant
cost savings. We revised the report to further reflect Commerce's views on
this matter. However, without adequately evaluating its existing
recruiting, hiring, and training practices, the Bureau risks unnecessarily
hiring too many employees without the right skills and commitment to
completing key operations. As we note in our report, a more targeted
approach could allow the Bureau to identify applicants who would be more
likely to commit to long-term employment and be successful throughout
census operations. Having these workers could help reduce or better
control operational costs as well as recruiting and hiring expenditures.
Better-performing workers could also complete fieldwork more expediently,
thereby potentially decreasing the time needed to complete operations.
8. We agree with Commerce's comments. The draft described the advantages
of forming community-based census crews.
9. We have clarified our report to reflect that the Bureau is taking a
preliminary look at whether varying recruiting goals by area is a viable
alternative. However, we have not received documents related to this
effort.
10. We agree with Commerce's comment that the positions the Bureau
recruits and hires for are not longterm. We have clarified the report to
refer to workers who complete an operation and may stay on to work for
later decennial operations.
11. We clarified our report to reflect Commerce's comments about the
contractor's current study to address the validity and reliability of its
selection tools.
12. Commerce noted that in Bureau evaluations of staff preparedness, field
staff said they were adequately prepared to do their jobs. Further, crew
leaders indicated in Bureau debriefings that they felt adequately prepared
although there were areas where they would like more training. However, in
this instance, we are not critiquing the Bureau's training of crew
leaders. Rather, we have found that during the hiring phase--before
training occurs--the Bureau does not have appropriate hiring tools to
identify and select crew leaders with the needed skills for that position,
such as skills for instructing crews and troubleshooting computers.
Commerce also noted that a 2006 contractor found that field staff were
adequately prepared to do the tasks associated with their jobs. However,
this evaluation assesses whether training effectively prepared crew
leaders, their assistants, and enumerators to use the handheld computers.
13. We appreciate Commerce's concern that it is impractical and
cost-prohibitive to conduct formal performance evaluations for temporary
field positions. However, a system that the Bureau could use does not need
to be complex or time-consuming. As we noted in the report, information
from supervisors on the performance of their workers was readily
available. Such information could be systematically collected upon a
worker's termination to assess whether to rehire that individual.
14. We revised the report to state that, according to Bureau officials,
its Decennial Applicant Personnel and Payroll System does not allow it to
rehire employees terminated for cause.
15. See our response to Commerce's comments on the second recommendation
in our evaluation of the agency's comments on page 35 of the report.
16. Our analysis of hiring data from the 2006 Census Test found that
almost 15 percent of field staff were rehired for a later operation. These
data included field staff from all field operations conducted during the
2006 test, including update/leave and group quarters enumeration.
Therefore, this figure takes into account potential workers that the
Bureau could rehire in all operations, and not just address canvassing and
nonresponse follow-up.
17. We acknowledge the differences between the decennial and other Bureau
operations, but nonetheless believe, as the OIG suggested in 2004, that
some lessons could be learned from the Bureau's overall experiences with
survey training.
18. The options provided in our report were not intended to be exhaustive,
nor did we suppose that any of them would work in all field situations.
Throughout the report, we were cognizant of the constraints and costs
facing the Bureau, including those associated with training sites and
equipment rental and purchases. We revised our report to reflect the
Bureau's concerns about the costs of buying and renting audiovisual
equipment; however, we offered various options as a way of illustrating
that the Bureau should consider innovative ways to provide training
outside the context of a verbatim approach. We commend the Bureau's
efforts to incorporate visual aids and computer-based training into
training for address canvassing and nonresponse follow-up.
19. We agree with the Bureau's position that conversation with a
knowledgeable person is also important and have incorporated this into the
report. As our draft report indicated, however, understanding such visual
cues would serve as an additional source of information for field workers.
20. The Bureau's efforts to explore more formal ways to assist the
regional census offices to identify location-specific issues that might
require unique information is a positive step. We have incorporated
additional information into the report to acknowledge the Bureau's role in
assisting regional census offices. However, we believe that the efforts
the regional census offices would be enhanced if the Bureau prepared
training modules addressing prototypical location-specific challenges that
the regional census offices may use.
21. See our response to Commerce comments on our fourth and fifth
recommendations starting on page 36 of the report.
Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
GAO Contact
Mathew J. Scire (202) 512-6806 or [email protected]
Acknowledgements
In addition to the contact name above, Ernie Hazera, Assistant Director;
Betty Clark; Shirley Hwang; Krista Loose; and Scott Purdy made key
contributions to the report. Thomas Beall, Catherine Hurley, Andrea
Levine, and Donna Miller provided significant technical support.
Related GAO Products
2010 Census: Design Shows Progress, but Managing Technology Acquisitions,
Temporary Field Staff and Gulf Region Enumeration Require Attention.
[38]GAO-07-779T . Washington, D.C.: April 24, 2007.
2010 Census: Redesigned Approach Holds Promise, but Census Bureau Needs to
Annually Develop and Provide a Comprehensive Project Plan to Monitor
Costs. [39]GAO-06-1009T . Washington, D.C.: July 27, 2006.
2010 Census: Census Bureau Needs to Take Prompt Actions to Resolve
Long-standing and Emerging Address and Mapping Challenges. [40]GAO-06-272
. Washington, D.C.: June 15, 2006.
2010 Census: Costs and Risks Must Be Closely Monitored and Evaluated with
Mitigation Plans in Place. [41]GAO-06-822T . Washington, D.C.: June 6,
2006.
2010 Census: Census Bureau Generally Follows Selected Leading Acquisition
Planning Practices, but Continued Management Attention Is Needed to Help
Ensure Success. [42]GAO-06-277 . Washington, D.C.: May 18, 2006.
2010 Census: Planning and Testing Activities Are Making Progress.
[43]GAO-06-465T . Washington, D.C.: March 1, 2006.
Census Bureau: Important Activities for Improving Management of Key 2010
Decennial Acquisitions Remain to be Done. [44]GAO-06-444T . Washington
D.C.: March 1, 2006.
Data Quality: Improvements to Count Correction Efforts Could Produce More
Accurate Census Data. [45]GAO-05-463 . Washington, D.C.: June 20, 2005.
Information Technology Management: Census Bureau Has Implemented Many Key
Practices, but Additional Actions Are Needed. [46]GAO-05-661 . Washington,
D.C.: June 16, 2005.
2010 Census: Basic Design Has Potential, but Remaining Challenges Need
Prompt Resolution. [47]GAO-05-9 . Washington, D.C.: January 12, 2005.
Data Quality: Census Bureau Needs to Accelerate Efforts to Develop and
Implement Data Quality Review Standards. [48]GAO-05-86 . Washington, D.C.:
November 17, 2004.
American Community Survey: Key Unresolved Issues. [49]GAO-05-82 .
Washington, D.C.: October 8, 2004.
2010 Census: Counting Americans Overseas as Part of the Decennial Census
Would Not Be Cost-Effective. [50]GAO-04-898 . Washington, D.C.: August 19,
2004.
2010 Census: Overseas Enumeration Test Raises Need for Clear Policy
Direction. [51]GAO-04-470 . Washington, D.C.: May 21, 2004.
2010 Census: Cost and Design Issues Need to Be Addressed Soon.
[52]GAO-04-37 . Washington, D.C.: January 15, 2004.
2000 Census: Lessons Learned for Planning a More Cost-Effective 2010
Census. [53]GAO-03-40 . Washington, D.C.: October 31, 2002.
(450477)
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Highlights of [61]GAO-07-361 , a report to congressional addresses
April 2007
2010 CENSUS
Census Bureau Should Refine Recruiting and Hiring Efforts and Enhance
Training of Temporary Field Staff
The success of the 2010 Census depends, in part, upon the U.S. Census
Bureau's (Bureau) ability to recruit, hire, and train over half a million
temporary workers at peak. Under the Comptroller General's authority, GAO
reviewed the extent that the Bureau's (1) recruiting and hiring processes
for these staff are consistent with selected human capital principles and
(2) training delivery and content take into account known challenges. To
answer these questions, GAO analyzed relevant reports and past
recommendations to select principles for evaluating these activities,
reviewed related Bureau documents, observed the 2006 Census Test in South
Dakota and Texas, and interviewed Bureau officials.
[62]What GAO Recommends
GAO is recommending to the Secretary of Commerce that the Bureau refine
its recruiting and hiring efforts and enhance training for field staff in
the 2010 Census. These recommendations include using collected information
to better target recruiting and hiring, collecting performance data on
workers, and evaluating alternate approaches to delivering training. In
commenting on a draft of this report, the Deputy Secretary of Commerce
identified actions the Bureau would take on some of the recommendations
but questioned the need to act on others. These stated actions partially
respond to our recommendations.
For the 2010 Census, the Bureau plans to recruit 3.8 million applicants
and hire nearly 600,000 temporary field staff from that applicant pool for
two key operations: address canvassing, where staff verify the location of
all housing units; and nonresponse follow-up, where they visit households
that do not return census forms to collect data in person. Meeting these
goals will be difficult because, since Census 2000, the Bureau is facing
increased challenges, including the automation of its field data
collection and long-standing demographic shifts, whereby the population is
increasingly diverse and hard to locate. For the 2010 Census, the Bureau
plans to use a recruiting and hiring approach like the one it used in
2000, which Bureau officials considered a success. That approach is
designed to ensure a sufficient pool of qualified applicants from which to
hire, but the Bureau could recruit and hire more efficiently.
2010 Census Recruiting Timeline
Source: GAO analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
Opportunities exist for the Bureau to improve and refine recruiting and
hiring processes for the 2010 Census. It could better target its
recruiting and hiring by analyzing the characteristics, such as education
and work status, of employees more likely to be successful at census work
and less likely to leave. This would allow it to seek workers with the
skills, interests, and likelihood for success. Also, the Bureau does not
collect performance data needed to rehire former workers, to whom it may
give hiring priority. Officials said they try to exclude those terminated
for cause. Conduct problems, such as selling drugs or striking another
worker or unsatisfactory performance, can result in such terminations.
The Bureau's training approach for temporary field staff, consisting
primarily of verbatim lectures, is largely unchanged from previous
decennials. The Bureau is providing some computer-based training on using
the handheld computers in key operations. However, despite findings that
we and others have made suggesting that the Bureau consider alternatives
to its verbatim approach, it has not done so. Further, although the Bureau
has found that its field staff face an increasingly reluctant population
and other location-specific challenges, it has not substantially changed
the content of training.
References
Visible links
22. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-373SP
23. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-39
24. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-39
25. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/OCG-00-14G
26. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/OCG-00-14G
27. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-546G
28. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-373SP
29. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-373SP
30. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-196
31. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-196
32. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-9
33. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-546G
34. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-9
38. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-779T
39. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-1009T
40. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-272
41. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-822T
42. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-277
43. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-465T
44. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-444T
45. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-463
46. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-661
47. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-9
48. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-86
49. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-82
50. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-898
51. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-470
52. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-37
53. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-40
61. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-361
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