The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Appendix C
Survey Protocol

The key to a successful response rate for this survey is the telephone conversation wherein the Respondent declines to participate in the mediation. In this conversation the EEOC representative must obtain the consent and commitment of the declining Respondent to agree to complete the questionnaire. Without a doubt, the response rate will be directly related to your efforts. We request the following approach.

Distributing the Questionnaire

After it is clear that the Respondent has declined to participate in mediation, state something to the effect of:

"The EEOC is very interested in why your organization or the organization you are representing is not interested in mediation. Will you please help us by completing a confidential survey for the EEOC?"

If the person agrees to complete the survey, ask if they have completed a prior respondent survey since June 1, 2003. (We don’t want to have them confused about filling out any type of earlier unrelated EEOC survey) If they indicate they have completed our survey before, advise them you are sending them a SHORT version.

If they have not completed the survey before send the FULL version of the questionnaire.

  1. Ask if you can immediately fax the survey to them; if they say yes, fax it. Please use the following paragraph on your fax cover sheet.

    "Dear Sir/Madam:
      Thank you for assisting the EEOC by completing a survey as to why you have declined to participate in our mediation program.  The survey results will allow us to improve our mediation program.  Thus, your participation will be very helpful to the agency.
      Sincerely yours,
     
    Name
    ADR Coordinator"

  2. If the Respondent prefers to have it mailed to them, please do so within 24 hours, enclosing a return envelope addressed to Dr. Anita Jose, MBA Director, Department of Economics & Management, Hood College, 401 Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD 21701.

    Note: We want to strike while the iron is hot to maximize feedback.

  3. If you do not already have the Respondent’s mailing address, obtain it, just in case the fax number does not work.
  4. Important reminder: Write the charge number on the first and second pages of the survey.

If the person declines to complete the survey because they have completed the survey before (either for the same or a different respondent):

  1. Offer to send the SHORT version of the questionnaire. Say something to the effect that:

    "The EEOC is very interested in why your organization or the organization that you are representing is not interested in mediating this specific charge. We have a very short questionnaire designed to obtain the organization’s reasons for declining to mediate this charge. Will you please help us by completing this confidential survey?"

  2. If the person agrees, fax or mail the shortened version. See instructions above.
  3. Please do not forget to write the charge number on the right-hand corner of pages one and two.

If the person still or simply declines to complete the survey:

  1. Ask them why they declined to mediate this specific charge.
  2. Record their reason for declining to mediate this charge on the attached "Weekly Survey Log"

Completing the Weekly Logs

As previously indicated, proper measurement of the survey response rate is, in part, dependent on you keeping an accurate log of each survey mailed or faxed. We need to know the recipient’s name and the charge number to be able to double-check for any duplication.

  1. Please complete the logs on a weekly basis.
  2. Please write the charge numbers legibly. The charge numbers are crucial in computing the survey response rate and generating demographic information about our sample.
  3. Include only charges where the respondent declined mediation.

  4. For each charge listed, indicate (a) whether the full version of the questionnaire was faxed or mailed, (b) whether the short version was faxed or mailed, OR (c) their reason for declining to mediate the specific charge. The latter applies to respondents who plainly refuse to participate in our survey.

    For offices involved in the pre-test: Note that this information is different from that of the pre-test weekly log. During the pre-test we were interested in why they declined to participate in our survey. This time we are interested in why they declined to mediate the specific charge.

  5. At the end of each week, please forward the completed log pages to: 
    Dr. Anita Jose
MBA Director
Department of Economics & Management
Hood College 
401 Rosemont Avenue
Frederick, MD 21701
    .

    Or fax them to 775-871-9056. Should you encounter problems with this fax number our backup fax number is 410-990-0172.

Survey Documents

Each field office should have the following survey documents.

Survey protocol (this document)
Questionnaire A – the FULL version. This has a total of 7 pages, including our letter to the respondent.
Questionnaire B – the SHORT version. This has a total of 5 pages, including our letter to the respondent.
Weekly Survey Log – provides for 14 entries in two pages.

For Questions and Assistance During The Survey Period

Please do not hesitate to contact Drs. Jose or McDermott directly. Dr. Jose can be contacted via telephone (301-696-3691) or email (ajose@hood.edu). Dr. McDermott can be contacted via email at epmcdermott@salisbury.edu.

This page was last modified on December 10, 2003.

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