Attachment 1 - Statement of Work.pdf

STATEMENT OF WORK

FOR EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT NEEDS ASSESSMENT

SOLICITATION #93310023Q0018

1.0 BACKGROUND

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is an independent agency of the Federal Government responsible for preventing or minimizing work stoppages by assisting labor and management to settle their disputes through mediation, promoting the development of sound and stable labor-management relationships, and advocating collective bargaining, mediation, and voluntary arbitration as the preferred process for settling issues between employers and representatives of employees. In addition, the FMCS mission includes developing the art, science, and practice of conflict resolution, and fostering the establishment and maintenance of constructive joint processes to improve labor-management relationships, employment security and organizational effectiveness.

The execution of an agency-wide employee training needs assessment will directly support the FMCS Strategic Plan through the growth and development of our human capital. This assessment will position FMCS to expand service delivery and improve employee morale. Upon execution FMCS would be prepared, nimble, and responsive to current and emerging trends in conflict resolution, allowing FMCS to remain relevant and essential to FMCS clients, Congress, and taxpayers. In implementing this plan, FMCS would prioritize efficiency, efficacy, and accountability in operations while also promoting, strengthening and expanding FMCS’s expertise as the premier leader in conflict resolution services. In addition, employees would have the opportunity to gain valuable, marketable skills to remain competitive in the workforce and ensure FMCS succession planning efforts

2.0 PURPOSE

The purpose of this requirement is to obtain an employee development needs assessment for all FMCS employees. The primary goal of this assessment is to determine what skills and training employees are currently lacking/in need of, and also determine future training needs which will allow employees to grow within the organization. This assessment should also provide a full picture of areas in which employee skill development is needed to ensure that employee duties and responsibilities are aligned with the agency's strategic goals.

Total number of employees 205. Total number of positions 59.

It is expressly agreed and understood that this is a non-personal services contract as defined in Federal Acquisition Regulation 37.101, under which the services performed by the contractor are rendered in its capacity as an independent contractor. The Government will evaluate the quality of the service provided but retains no control over the contractor’s employees or agents. The contractor is solely liable for, and expressly agrees to indemnify the Government with respect to any liability producing acts or omissions by it or by its employees or agents.

3.0 OBJECTIVE

The objective of this requirement is to obtain support to assist FMCS’s Center for Conflict Resolution Education to perform an employee development needs assessment for FMCS.

4.0 VENDOR REQUIREMENTS

4.1 The contractor shall have five (5) years of experience administering employee development needs assessments. Experience working within the Federal sector is preferred, but not required.

4.2 The contractor shall have minimum of five (5) years of experience working directly with small to medium governmental agencies. Equivalent experience may be accepted as determined by FMCS.

4.3 The contractor shall meet all security and confidentiality requirements in Section 10.0

5.0 TASKS

The contractor shall be responsible for providing technically qualified individual(s) who meets the requirements of Section 4.0 to perform tasks including, but not limited to, the following:

5.1 Data Collection. The contractor shall collect data on the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) of all current FMCS employees through various methods including, but not limited to, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, job tasks analyses, and assessment tests. The contractor will also be given access to existing related data held by FMCS.

5.2 Gap Analysis. After working with FMCS to determine the desired level of KSAs, the contractor shall identify all gaps between that level and current employee KSAs. If necessary, the contractor shall pinpoint specific areas where the biggest gaps exist.

5.3 Recommendation for Path Forward. The contractor shall provide a training strategy, based on the gap analysis, on recommended training needs to ensure that all employee KSAs are aligned with agency strategic goals. The recommendations should also address what training is necessary to allow employees to grow within the agency.

6.0 DELIVERABLES

All contractor-written deliverables shall be clear and concise, comprehensive with respect to all relevant aspects of the subject matter, and sufficiently detailed to provide a full understanding of the conclusions contained therein. They must be thoughtfully organized and structured to ensure readability, carefully edited and free of grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors, detailed, and containing both functional and technical design requirements as required.

The contractor shall submit all written deliverables to the COR electronically unless otherwise requested to be submitted in hard copy. Additionally, the contractor shall provide an electronic copy of each deliverable to the Contracting Officer. All deliverables are considered “draft” until the contractor receives notification that they are accepted from either the COR or Contracting Officer. Draft deliverables are the initial submission for COR review and comments. The Final deliverables shall contain revisions that address the COR comments prior to submission to a wider group of stakeholders for review. The COR or Contracting Officer will provide the contractor with all approved comments from the stakeholder reviews. The contractor shall incorporate the comments into the deliverables and resubmit to the COR for final approval within two (2) weeks after the receipt of the comments.

If a deliverable due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or Federal holiday, the due date for that deliverable shall be the next business day.

The following deliverables are anticipated:

Deliverable Due Date

Kick-off meeting Within ten (10) days of contract award

Project schedule Five (5) business days after kickoff meeting

Weekly Status Reports Weekly on a date agreed to by COR and contractor

Draft Assessment Tools to measure the level of mastery demonstrated for each competency (i.e., questionnaires, assessments)

In accordance with the project schedule

Skill Gap Analysis Report In accordance with the project schedule

Final Recommendation of Agency Training In accordance with the project schedule

Final Recommendation Presentation In accordance with the project schedule

Needs Analysis Template for Future Use (analysis protocol for surveys, focus groups, and data analysis)

In accordance with the project schedule

In addition, FMCS would like to have the following deliverables as part of this requirement.

Vendors able to provide these as part of their quote will receive higher Technical Acceptability ratings.

Deliverable Importance

Learning objectives for each competency Important Analysis of the current training delivery, sequence, structure, and modalities. Important

Suggested learning pathways for career advancement Nice to have

Job Task Analysis (JTA) Nice to have

7.0 PERFORMANCE DETAILS

The Period of Performance (PoP) shall be twelve (12) months from award.

All work shall be completed remotely in accordance with Government regulations.

8.0 ACCESS TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS

All contractors and contractor personnel shall be subject to the same Federal laws, regulations, standards and FMCS policies as FMCS, and FMCS personnel, regarding information and information systems security. Contractors must follow policies and procedures outlined in FMCS IT Security Program to ensure appropriate security controls are in place.

A contractor shall request logical (technical) and/or physical access to FMCS information and FMCS information systems for employees, subcontractors, and affiliates only to the extent necessary: (1) to perform the services specified in the task order, (2) to perform necessary maintenance functions for electronic storage or transmission media necessary for performance of the task order, and (3) individuals must satisfy the same conditions, requirements and restrictions comparable to FMCS employees in order to access the same type of FMCS information.

9.0 FMCS INFORMATION CUSTODIAL REQUIREMENTS

Information made available to the contractor by FMCS for the performance or administration of this contract or information developed by the contractor in performance or administration of the contract shall be used only for those purposes and shall not be used in any other way without the prior written agreement of the Contracting Officer.

FMCS information shall not be co-mingled with any other data on the contractor’s/ subcontractor’s information systems/media storage systems in order to ensure FMCS requirements related to data protection and media sanitization can be met. FMCS also reserves the right to conduct IT resource inspections to ensure data separation and on-site inspection of information destruction/media sanitization or disposal procedures to ensure they are in compliance with FMCS policy requirements.

Prior to termination or completion of this contract, the contractor shall not destroy information received from FMCS or gathered or created by the contractor in the course of performing this contract without prior written approval by the FMCS Contracting Officer. Any data destruction done on behalf of FMCS by a contractor must be done in accordance with National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requirements.

The contractor shall receive, gather, store, back-up, maintain, use, disclose and dispose of FMCS information only in compliance with the terms of the contract and applicable Federal and FMCS information confidentiality and security laws, regulations and policies. Applicable Federal information security regulations include all Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and Special Publications (SP) issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

If Federal or FMCS information confidentiality and security laws, regulations and policies become applicable to the FMCS information or information systems after execution of this contract, the parties agree to negotiate in good faith to implement the information confidentiality and security laws, regulations and policies, including FIPS or SP, in the contract.

The contractor shall not make copies of FMCS information except as necessary to perform the terms of the agreement or to preserve electronic information stored on contractor electronic storage media for restoration in case any electronic equipment or data used by the contractor needs to be restored to an operating state.

If FMCS determines that the contractor has violated any of the information confidentiality, privacy, and security provisions of the contract, it shall be sufficient grounds for FMCS to terminate the contract for default or terminate for cause under Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 12.

10.0 SECURITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY

All key personnel must 1) be a US citizen or have Legal Permanent Resident status; 2) sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA); and 3) either have a completed and active background investigation at the Tier 1 low risk level (formerly NACI) with a favorable adjudication prior to starting work or be able to pass a background investigation at the Tier 1 low risk level (formerly NACI) with a favorable adjudication within ninety (90) days of award.

11.0 PERSONNEL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The term "personal conflict of interest" means that a contractor employee assigned to the task order has interests which (i) may diminish his/her capacity to give impartial, technically sound, objective assistance and advice in performing this task order, (ii) may otherwise result in a biased work product under this task order, or (iii) may result in an unfair competitive advantage.

A contractor employee shall not participate (i.e., recommend, influence, or decide) in any particular matters that:

• will have a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of that employee, his/her spouse or minor child, or organization in which he/she serves as officer, director, trustee, general partner or employee,

• will have a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of or any person or organization with whom he/she is negotiating or has an arrangement concerning prospective employment, or

• may otherwise cause a reasonable person to question his/her impartiality.