SOURCES SOUGHT: USPTO Employee Experience Survey, Analytics & Strategic Consulting Support

This PTAG 6.1.1 Sources Sought Noticeis strictly for market research ONLY. It is for informational and planning purposes and shall NOT be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation or commitment by the Government at this time. Patent and Trademark Office Acquisition Guidelines (PTAG) The Government intends utilizing the Alternative Competition Method in accordance with the Patent and Trademark Office Acquisition Guidelines (PTAG) and the Patent and Trademark Office Efficiency Act 35 U.S.C. 2(b)(4)(A). This Sources sought notice is intended as preliminary market information gathering which the USPTO will use to determine which vendor(s) is/are the most likely to successfully meet the agency’s needs and are thereby eligible to participate in an alternative competition. As a result of this market research, the solicitation will only be issued to those qualified vendor(s) that are deemed most likely to successfully meet the agency’s requirement as stated below. REQUIREMENT: USPTO

Employee Experience Survey, Analytics and Strategic Consulting Support Background The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is a performance-based federal government agency that is funded by the fees charged for filing Patent applications and Trademark registrations. The USPTO is comprised of approximately 13,300 employees, which includes roughly 1,400 supervisors. The agency’s mission is to foster innovation, competitiveness and economic growth, domestically and abroad by delivering high quality and timely examination of patent and trademark applications, guiding domestic and international intellectual property policy, and delivering intellectual property information and education worldwide, with a highly-skilled, diverse workforce. In order to best fulfill our mission, we need to have employees who are engaged at work. The USPTO is comprised of twelve Business Units, one of which is the Office of The Chief Administrative Officer (OCAO), which is responsible for the administration of agency-wide Human Capital initiatives, programs, to include engagement surveys. There are two annual engagement surveys at the USPTO. One is the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), and the other is our internal Employee Engagement/Experience Survey that we have partnered with a contractor on, and are seeking continued contractor support for at this time. Brief history of the survey: 10 years ago, we developed an internal People Survey with contracted assistance and consulting, and then for the past 5 years, we partnered with a different vendor and moved toward their survey methodology. We are now looking to expand on what we have learned over the past 10 years of conducting this survey. Goal: OCAO seeks a survey tool/platform, and analytics and consulting support specifically for our annual Employee Experience (EX) Survey, as well as various EX pulse surveys. A major component of our requirement is a survey strategy to best measure and improve our employee experience, and the agency’s level of engagement. The tool must provide data down to the team level (as few as 4 employees). We seek to both continue progress we have made over the years, but at the same time, we want to evolve in our survey strategy and the tools we use. We want to increase our agility, efficiency, and impact. We want to measure more key aspects of the employee experience, especially in a post-pandemic world. More on Employee Experience/Engagement Surveys at USPTO The USPTO annually participates in the OPM’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS); however, the FEVS has measurement and action planning limitations. First, survey results cannot be gathered at the first-line management levels for many organizations, as it requires 10 responses, and so many teams here are smaller. Additionally, the FEVS is a very lengthy survey that is not customizable. The results are distributed to the agency many months after administration, which prevents timely feedback and subsequent timely action. The USPTO has, for the past ten years, engaged with a contractor to initiate a separate employee engagement survey that is off-cycle from the FEVS called the USPTO “People Survey”. This customizable tool allows for a full census, has twelve main survey items, benchmarks agency scores to other federal organizations, and results are reported quickly to the front-line management level, and all levels of leadership. Note: Since we suspect the FEVS encumbers our ability to get higher participation on the People Survey, we are interested to explore the future possibility of our baseline survey being a hybrid FEVS/ People Survey. This means we would have only one annual engagement survey at the USPTO. This hybrid survey would contain the sixteen FEVS questions mandated by law, as well as baseline People Survey questions that our strategy would determine, estimated at no more than 30-40 total questions, as we want to minimize survey length as much as possible. This is only a preliminary idea for the future, and would need to be approved at various levels of leadership. Purpose The purpose of this contract is to procure a survey tool/platform, and analytics and strategic consulting support for our annual Employee Experience (EX) Survey administration and EX pulse surveys. We require assistance with data analysis, trends, and recommendations, and a survey strategy that fits into our broader EX program. The expectation for this contract is that it will enable us to enhance how we measure and improve our employee experience. Another major goal is to further educate and motivate leaders and employees on the value and importance of all major aspects of the EX and engagement. We want to increase their understanding on how and why to use best-practice and data-driven strategies to continuously improve. The key to our requirement is we want to do better listening and acting on data, without overburdening managers and leaders who are already very busy. We are open to streamlining our current practices. Vision Move from Infrequent One-way Point-in-time Listening to Continuous Listening We want to evolve from our current listening practice of administering an engagement survey annually (with 1-2 pulse surveys in between), where roughly only 50% of our agency’s managers review their results and even fewer make an action plan with their team. Furthermore, actions that are taken are often not communicated to employees, and the actions may not actually be the strategic ones to take, based on data. After this uneven and infrequent process, we administer a similar survey or the exact same survey, and repeat the cycle. The USPTO seeks to take our agency’s continuous listening strategy to the next level - we want something more like a “continuous conversation” with surveys of the appropriate cadence and questions for our workforce’s needs, as well as what is realistic for those employees managing the effort, including busy leaders and supervisors who are expected to act on their data. It is critical that we make it less cumbersome for everyone, not more so. The challenge is how to do more frequent listening and conversation without it feeling burdensome or “not worth it”, as is the case now for many, which we can infer from low participation levels from employees and managers alike. Another challenge is to accomplish this within our IT constraints and parameters. Scope This table is a high-level view of the magnitude of the requirement: Objective Description Survey strategy development for agency of 13,300 employees We require a thoughtful, tailored strategy for our environment and culture that will improve our current survey and post-survey processes. This includes survey design, format and cadence. Surveys may be different for different organizational groups. Customizable/Flexible/Science-based Survey Tool and Platform Survey tool must be in line with best practice and flexible for customization. Platform must have ability to house other survey data (i.e., historical engagement and current EX data such as Exit Survey data). Moreover, platform must have ability to cross-analyze different survey data sets. Annual baseline survey and 3-4 pulse surveys and mini polls (number to be determined in strategy) The strategy will determine the number of surveys per year, but historically we have done an annual baseline with a few pulse surveys per year. The baseline would go out to all 13,300 employees, potentially in different versions, and pulse surveys that may be for a subset of the organization. An important consideration regarding quantity and frequency of surveys is that every time we administer one, we have to review all employee reporting relationships prior to launch. Robust analytics support We need diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytics to quickly interpret our results and easily guide our action planning. We need sophisticated analysis of open-end data that goes beyond sentiment analysis. We need themes pulled out, categorized and ranked by importance to EX. Dashboard and customized reporting We need easy-to-digest manager, leader and employee dashboards, with manager, leader, and superuser ability to run customized reporting on myriad variables, and access to easy-to-digest resources. (We have roughly 1,400 supervisors at the agency.) Action planning support and resources We need resources and guidance on how to best maximize efficient action planning in our environment. This is required for all managers with team results (four or more respondents). At a high level, services for this effort shall include a survey tool/platform, design, implementation, and evaluation of comprehensive survey strategy, a short agency-wide baseline survey and pulse surveys (both with capability for customization at the Business Unit (BU) /Sub-BU levels), professional services for data analysis/analytics, easy-to-use/digest manager and employee dashboards and reporting, and action planning assistance (includes user-friendly resources and tools for supervisors), supervisor training/webinars, executive briefings, and an option to facilitate an executive off-site. *Note - manager and supervisor are used interchangeably. 4.1 Objectives The objective of this procurement is to award a contract for our Employee Experience (EX) survey program with professional analytics and consulting services. The goal is to develop and implement a highly effective listening/conversational strategy to measure and improve the employee experience at the USPTO. 4.1.1 Objective 1 - “Continuous Listening/ Conversation” Employee Experience Survey Strategy The USPTO seeks a “continuous conversation” survey strategy comprised of: an annual agency-wide short baseline engagement survey (as required by CFR Part 250, subpart C, which may in the future include 16 mandated Federal Employee Viewpoint (FEVS) questions - see Objective 4.1.6), pulse surveys, and mini-polls thru Microsoft Teams and/or on our internal facing website, i.e., our intranet. In line with best practice of today’s listening tools, we want our surveys to have a conversational aspect, in that we want to extract additional input post-survey, where information is even perhaps publicly flowing back and forth among leaders, managers, and employees (for employees, comments can remain anonymous). We are envisioning something like a public online conversation where employees and leaders can comment and react to survey responses. We want to strive for a continuous conversation within the organization, through an iterative, positive feedback loop. This methodology goes beyond our traditional engagement survey and pulse survey methods, and so it would need to be approved by our IT department. We need to be very careful with not overtaxing our collective ability to handle and respond to feedback. We are looking for innovative and effective strategies to gather candid and valuable employee feedback on their experience, without causing survey fatigue for employees, or burden on managers who are expected to respond to the information and take action. It cannot be stressed enough that we do not want to overextend ourselves with data collection. We need an appropriate survey cadence to match our realistic abilities - that is, we want to be very mindful to not collect/invite more data than we have resources, time, and processes in place to act on. The most important thing is we need to be able to successfully act on the data that we do receive so that employees feel more heard. That may mean we need to take in less data, at least at first, and build slowly over time, to earn employee trust that their time will be rewarded. Less data at a time will also help our other goal, which is to significantly improve our agility and speed to respond to and properly act on data, as well as have the time to improve communication on actions taken. It is important to note that we don’t ask for that much data now (save the mandatory FEVS, which is way too long), so the solution won’t just be “gather less data,” but it’s more about being more strategic both with the questions we ask, and what we do with that information and when. We need consultation to better measure and position ourselves to improve the experience of employees, especially of our largest employee population - our Patent Examiners, who make up roughly 75% of our total workforce. They work on production, and so have a unique culture and work experience. For them, time is a scarce resource as they are on strict production schedules. This especially pertains to activities that may improve their employee experience such as training and development, and wellness activities. This agency has three active union partners, and their experience is impacted by the bargaining unit agreements that are in place. We have to address Patents BU as a unique entity, and look at the issues that their specific production environment contains, and offer them a survey strategy that resonates with their priorities, taking into account the voice of employees, the unions, and leadership. Our agency survey participation numbers lag at 40% simply because that is the Patents response rate, which drives the agency rate, due to their large size of roughly 10,000 (total Patents employees) of our +13,000 total employees. Other business units participate in the 60-70% or higher range. Regardless of the Business Unit, we want to strategize according to an underlying EX framework, recommended by the vendor, since no matter the unique experience, there are key similarities in the “moments that matter” for employees. We want to expand our measurement from just engagement to all the major facets of the employee experience (EX), at all major points of the employee lifecycle so that we can make positive impacts necessary to keep our talent motivated, exceling, and here longer. One point in the lifecycle we want to focus on is the onboarding period of 30-60-90 days on the job. There are other key moments we want to gather feedback on. So, we need a tool that lets us pulse easily and more frequently perhaps (as determined by the strategy) on any topic that falls under EX. As part of the strategy, we want some assistance with communication strategies and marketing to motivate participation. Attention spans are short and divided, and we need to cut through the noise and give people a compelling motivation to participate. We have made a lot of headway in our communications, and this is not a key aspect of our requirement, nevertheless an area for consultation. 4.1.2 Objective 2 - Customizable/Flexible/Science-based Survey Tool and Platform The survey tool shall reflect the latest and best practices in the field, be science/research-based, comprehensive without being burdensome, customizable and scalable, with a methodology that has been utilized and proven across a wide spectrum of users, including other government organizations, that demonstrates validity and reliability. We must be able to edit and add our own questions, have options for how the survey is sent out (e.g., email, MS Teams, and via our intranet), and have customizable reporting and dashboard displays within the tool. We want various benchmarks in our reporting - including by industry and as compared to other federal government agencies. The platform where the tool resides should be able to receive and house other survey data, including historical engagement and our exit survey data. Single sign on ability for all employees is required. Contractor’s platform must be FEDRAMP certified to be considered for selection. 4.1.3 Objective 3 - Robust data analytics capabilities / Results analysis support We require advanced analytics support to analyze our data and make meaningful connections and recommend action. We want to compare multiple survey data together versus looking at survey data separately with manual attempts to tie together. We want to glean more data from one survey, taking advantage of more of the filters/data variables we provide. We need to tie in our annual engagement survey and any pulse surveys into other relevant existing survey data - and among different survey forms. We need people analytics support to do this - diagnostic analytics, predictive analytics, that will spot trends and connections among a wide array of data and warn of future risks, especially attrition. We also require prescriptive analytics for efficiency, to let us know what we should focus on to improve. We need robust thematic analysis of open-end data, that goes beyond sentiment analysis. Themes should be identified and categorized, and ranked in importance to EX. There should be a clear visual representation of what employees’ top concerns are in an area, and the prescriptive analytics should give top recommended actions. Contractor shall provide data analysis using multiple data sets beyond this contracted EX survey (e.g., FEVS, exit survey data). Contractor shall provide support with multiple or complex data cuts, and help make comprehensive recommendations for actions that Business Units can easily take to improve on survey items. 4.1.4 Objective 4 - Easy-to-use/digest Manager Dashboard and Customized Reporting; Employee Dashboards We must continue to provide managers and leaders with easy-to-download and easy to interpret reporting, with continued hierarchical results at the front-line manager level (teams of 4 or more), while also allowing leaders to analyze their results by various organizational data (e.g., tenure, occupational series, etc.) and demographics (e.g., gender, generation - only when teams are large enough to not compromise anonymity.) We require a user-friendly / easy to use / intuitive display of results (e.g., a “dashboard”) for supervisors, leaders (executives), and super-users. The dashboard should be customizable, so that resource links can be added. Regarding dashboards, we want to add a new feature to our current program - employee dashboards. Reference Requirement 4.2.4. A critical requirement is ease of running reports according to a wide variety of data variables: i.e., tenure, management status, telework schedule, occupational series, demographical information, etc. We would like managers to easily be able to run a report filtering two or more variables at a time, but super users must have that capability. 4.1.5 Objective 5 - Easy Action-Planning Resources and Guidance for Managers and Leaders Another key feature of this contract is, within the ‘Manager Portal’, where the managers see their reports, we require digestible, user-friendly and easy resources for leaders and managers to learn about key aspects of the employee experience we measure, and how our questions measure them, as well as how to interpret and act on the data from the questions. There shall be an attractive well-organized layout of resources for managers to explore - this includes short (approx. 2 minute) videos, webinars, articles, perhaps podcasts, and in written format (one pagers with attractive graphics). Smartphone app capability to access resources is desired but not required. Contractor shall provide easy-to-use action planning tools and resources that are minimal effort for managers and leaders. Articles/multiple page resources are okay for superusers, but most managers won’t read them - they need condensed quick-to-process information. The dashboards must be customizable so that we can upload internal government resources directly to them. An accountability function should be part of the tool, so that a leader can opt to utilize it, and be able to require managers to submit their action plans and also have the option for visibility to track what the manager has done. We need this to be easy to use so that managers can easily upload their action plans and submit, and leaders can easily pull up and review. Superusers should have access too. These plans should be able to be seen in the employee dashboard view. 4.1.6 Objective 6 - Future (Annual) Hybrid FEVS/ EX Survey We require the option (priced separately) to include 16 mandated FEVS questions in our annual EX Survey. We want to explore a hybrid strategy, where we only include the 16 FEVS questions mandated to be asked by the CFR combined with our own EX questions, thereby only doing one longer annual survey (but NTE 30-40 questions). This idea is very preliminary, and would need the approval of our agency Director, as well as the approval of our parent agency, U.S. Department of Commerce. If approved, questions would be provided to the vendor for inclusion, and our timing would need to align with the FEVS (only in this case) so that we can still be included in the Best Places to Work Rankings. 4.2 Requirements The following are the requirements to be fulfilled through this contract. Note, not every objective has corresponding requirements details: 4.2.1 - Survey Strategy The USPTO seeks a survey strategy of an annual agency-wide short baseline survey and various, very short, pulse surveys. We seek to minimize survey fatigue to the maximum extent practicable. What we have done in past five years in terms of length is a baseline survey not to exceed about 16 items, and pulse surveys not to exceed 5 items. The exact number of items and survey cadence will be determined in the survey strategy. If we were to do a hybrid FEVS/ People Survey (for the annual baseline) as mentioned earlier, in the future, then, in order to fit the mandatory 16 FEVS questions, our total survey length might be more like 30 questions. However, if we do not go that route the following will be true: The goal of this survey is to supplement the FEVS, which runs early May to early June of each year, and to space as far apart from it as possible. FEVS results are typically delivered to the USPTO in October. The strategy shall utilize data from the most recent FEVS and People Survey to inform the types of items asked on the Employee Experience Surveys (baseline and pulse). 2023 FEVS and People Survey data will be provided to the contractor upon award for pre-survey strategy analysis, and to complete the strategy deliverable - see Deliverable 5.4. Pulse surveys shall be conducted with timing and on EX topics determined in the comprehensive strategy. A burdensome challenge is avoiding the timing of the FEVS as the administration to the time results are provided is five months long. As mentioned, the area where the USPTO requires some help to design a survey that resonates with Patents Business Unit, and we need a strategy to help increase their participation. The USPTO will provide the contractor with more context and information on the Patents organization upon award. The comprehensive survey strategy - Deliverable 5.5, shall address the following: A balance of baseline and pulse survey and/or quick poll formats to gather meaningful data from 13,000+ employees, based on contractor best practices and USPTO culture Recommended questions, frequency and length of surveys Communications recommendations to garner more participation Process for establishment of actions to be taken based on survey results and how to probe for greater insight post-survey and with follow-up pulse surveys and/or polls Address supervisors’ need for simple action planning and implementation techniques 4.2.2 - Flexible/Science-based Survey Tool and Administration Tool: The tool shall reflect the latest and best practices in the field, be science/research-based, comprehensive without being burdensome, customizable and scalable, with a methodology that has been utilized and proven across a wide spectrum of users, including other government organizations, that demonstrates validity and reliability. It shall be deployed at a frequency that allows for gathering timely and actionable data across the agency and agile tools to measure and improve the employee experience. All surveys will consist of a mix of universal items, from vendor’s database, and customized items by Business Unit (BU) and sub-BU units. Administration: Data collection will be completely automated and web-based Send secured survey invitations to all USPTO employees. Invitations shall be uniquely identified, so invite cannot be forwarded for multiple uses. Security and anonymity of employee data shall be maintained by the contractor - individual responses will never be shared, only aggregated quantitative data. The contractor shall ensure there is no identifying information in qualitative responses that are shared. Provide automated email reminders (and other modes mentioned earlier, such as a MS Teams alert) to employees who have not yet responded to the survey (frequency determined in the strategy). Provide access to technical survey support via e-mail, and option of live chat and telephone, to ensure ease of access and completion for employees. Provide real-time response rate reports in online dashboard (for superusers to monitor), broken down to all sub-BU levels, and if needed, by all variables in our reporting structure. Provide real-time engagement results score to employee, immediately after baseline survey is submitted so that the employee can see their average score. Or, if only some of the questions go into an Engagement Index, provide the employee with that number. 4.2.3 - no additional requirements 4.2.4 - Easy-to-use/digestible Manager Dashboards and Customized Reporting; Employee Dashboards The contractor shall analyze and deliver survey results in online data platform (e.g., graphical dashboard). Reporting platform must: Provide analysis for each item and capability to trend item results over time (of questions that we ask more than once). Results must be available in the platform quickly: Baseline (annual) Survey results shall be available in the online portal NLT within 3 days: Includes quantitative Item results (including trending data points and benchmarks) and qualitative item results, which includes thematic analysis. Pulse Surveys results shall be available in online portal NLT within 2 days: Includes quantitative Item results (including trending data points and benchmarks) and qualitative item results, which includes thematic analysis. Data shall roll-up to the highest level of the hierarchy, allowing maximum visibility into the organization for senior leaders (leader can see all the way down their reporting chain). Data shall be available at the individual work unit level (teams of 4) and results shall be in a format that is directly visually comparable to other like groups: teams, BUs, subBU components, down to team level, and of course to the overall agency results should all be directly visually comparable to all groups. Regarding organizational data - e.g., tenure, occupational series, etc. and demographics, report tool has ability to analyze by this data, so long as the number of respondents in the team is large enough not to compromise anonymity - vendor shall recommend what that size is. Dashboard The contractor shall provide an intuitive central display of the agency results (e.g., a “dashboard”) visible to all supervisors and super-users via portal or website. Leaders and supervisors would only see their BUs and/or areas, not the agency at large. Only superusers would have full visibility. Employees would have a limited dashboard view (to be determined in strategy - see f. below). Dashboard should be customizable, e.g., so that resource links can be added, including USPTO resources. Continued hierarchical results to the front-line manager level are required. Leaders shall potentially have ability to view their results by various data filters (e.g., tenure, occupational series, etc.) and demographics, but depending on team size - this feature would not be available when team size is small enough that it could compromise anonymity of individual responses. Vendor shall have capability for an employee dashboard view, in addition to the manager dashboards. The purpose of this would be so that any employee can go to their profile/dashboard and see the history of their survey responses and average engagement scores, so that they can get a picture of their engagement and experience over time. They would also potentially be able to see their team’s results, organization, and Business Unit results (but not until leadership and management see the results first). Here they would also have resource links and be able to see their team’s action plan. This all would be determined in the strategy. 4.2.6 - no additional requirements 4.2.7 - Reporting Structure/ IT Requirement The contractor shall create the organizational reporting structure using the agency’s employee data file to populate organizational data (e.g., office, manager, tenure, occupational series, etc.) and demographics. The data will be provided by the USPTO in excel format; contractor won’t have direct access to the system where the data comes from. Contractor shall update reporting relationships and organizational data before each survey administration begins, using the USPTO information. Note - the contractor shall input the information in the system within 1 week, and submit any questions or issues to the government PM. Once questions are addressed the contractor shall have 3 more days to finalize the input of information. Contractor shall develop a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) with step-by-step account, in format of screenshots, of how users will update and provide the data to the contractor to ensure timely review and upload to contractor’s database. Contractor shall work with USPTO to address all IT requirements (e.g., firewall/any IT security concerns.) This may involve test of survey to verify all information technology (IT) problems are identified and resolved before the survey launches for first time. Contractor is responsible for 508 compliance and must receive confirmation from USPTO that the solution/product is compliant. Period of Performance Base Period: 1 year from the date of award. Option Period 1: 1 year from the end of the base period. Option Period 2: 1 year from the end of option period 1. Option Period 3: 1 year from the end of option period 2. Option Period 4: 1 year from the end of option period 3. Place of Performance The work will be performed remotely, from the contractor’s own worksite locations. An executive offsite (perhaps two per year) will require the contractor to have in person representation: USPTO Headquarters 600 Dulany Street Alexandria, Virginia 22314 Constraints Comply with all USPTO IT requirements and processes FEDRAMP certified, 508 Compliant, Cybersecurity protocols followed Protection of employee PII is of paramount importance - contractor platform must be fully secure and employee data must be handled securely Key Personnel Project Manager-led team that is comprised of individuals with expertise in: Employe...