S02 - Attachment 1 - PWS Salary Survey Data and Analysis V08212026.docx

Veterans Health Administration Office of Workforce Management and Consulting Salary Survey Data Collection and Analysis

Performance Work Statement (PWS)

Background: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is one of the largest employers for health care professionals in the United States. VHA employs nurses, physicians, dentists, and many other health care occupations and ancillary support positions which are the cornerstone of our nation's largest healthcare system. As such, it is critical that individual VA medical centers are provided access to accurate, reliable, and recurring market-based third-party salary survey data. This market-based data is used to assess VA’s competitive position in each local labor market area and allows VA facilities to make informed, consistent, accurate, and timely compensation decisions for a wide variety of critical occupations.

VA is challenged in its ability to easily assess the health care labor market conditions due to difficulty in obtaining quality data from competing entities due to anti-trust regulations, a lack of understanding of the data required during the analysis phases, and inconsistent job matching. VHA competes with major employers in the health care market to fill health care positions and relies heavily on the flexibility to utilize third-party survey data to adjust salaries to enhance the VA’s ability to recruit and retain high quality employees. Additionally, recent legislation to include the PACT Act and Dole Act includes new and improved compensation flexibilities requiring the use of third-party survey data.

The majority of these health care professionals are appointed and paid pursuant to Title 38 United States Code (U.S.C.) Section 74, Veterans Health Administration Personnel (38 U.S.C. §§ 7401-7474). More specifically, VHA is required by 38 U.S.C 7451 (Section 7451) to utilize third-party survey data, when available, to determine if Title 38 Locality Pay System (LPS) adjustments are necessary in order to compensate nurses, nurse anesthetists, physician assistants, as well as any other occupation covered by the Title 38 LPS (Section 7451).

VHA also utilizes third-party survey data to assist in making market pay determinations for positions covered by the Physician, Dentist, Podiatrist and Optometrist (PDPO) Pay System pursuant to 38 U.S.C. 7431.

In addition, VHA relies heavily on third-party survey data when making salary determinations for special salary rates approved under the authority of 38 U.S.C. 7455 for healthcare occupations and VHA police officers, as well as 5 U.S.C. 5305 for administrative and engineering positions. The special rates established under these authorities may be competitive with, but not exceed, pay for comparable positions at non-Federal facilities in the local labor market.

Title 38 LPS, special rate schedules, and PDPO market pay are routinely established and adjusted based on third-party survey data for specific local labor market areas.

Scope of Work: The VHA is seeking a Contractor who is an expert in compensation consulting and can provide the following services:

a) Survey Identification, Schedule, and Purchasing. Contractor will assist VHA in identifying a list of approximately 50 national and regional salary, benefits, and productivity/staff ratio surveys to participate in and receive survey data from. The Contractor shall establish an agreement with each third-party survey provider, maintain and publish a calendar to submit timely VHA employee salary and other compensation data on VHA’s behalf, purchase surveys on behalf of VHA, and to apprise VHA as to when each third-party survey deliverable will be received.

b) VHA Survey Data Collection and Distribution. In order to perform appropriate job matching/benchmarking and participate in surveys on behalf of VHA, the Contractor must have extensive knowledge of VHA healthcare occupations; knowledge of VHA’s unique grade and salary structure; and a thorough understanding of the various qualification standards for each VHA healthcare occupation.

Contractor shall collect and provide VHA employee survey and benefits data on behalf of 152+ VA medical centers, in different local labor market areas to third party survey providers on behalf of the VHA. By accessing large VHA electronic employee data files, the Contractor shall extract, analyze, benchmark jobs based on VA job descriptions, and provide employee specific salary and benefit data including duty station locations to different third-party survey sources on VHA’s behalf. Each third-party survey may require data analysis of employee salaries for clinical, professional, administrative, technical, clerical, trade, engineering, security, or other healthcare occupations and will cover any duty station location within the VA Health Care System. This includes locations throughout the continental United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories to include Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

c) Data Analysis and Report Generation - The Contractor shall collect the third-party salary survey results and provide the results in a cloud-based database. Results must include the aggregate market data and analysis and create market comparisons for national and regional salary data. The Contractor shall develop appropriate market analysis and market comparisons for occupations eligible for pay pursuant to 38 U.S.C. §§ 7401-7474. The Contractor shall provide the compensation of all positions surveyed to include, minimum, median, maximum, and mean salary amounts for each position, minimum, median, and maximum ranges when available, and total cash compensation amounts. The total compensation shall include premium pay and differential amounts, recruitment and/or relocation benefits paid, educational assistance/debt reductions incentives (including student loan repayment programs), and other monetary benefits typically paid by employers. The Contractor shall also obtain information on any other work/life benefits paid or offered to non-federal employees.

d) Application of Geographic Differentials - In order for VA to utilize national third-party survey data, upon purchase of the surveys the Contractor must provide geographic differentials in order to extrapolate and report survey data for each individual VA local labor market area, using recognized industry standards and survey methodology comparable to the methodology used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). A differential or percentage is calculated and applied to national survey data. The Contractor shall develop and provide reports which allow VA to apply the determined geographic differentials to aggregate and individual national survey data sets for all established duty station locations.

e) Job Architecture (JA). Contractor will assist VHA in the maintenance of a job architecture catalogue that clearly defines and aligns employees to career paths through career tracks and job leveling to support competitive benchmarking and compensation validation. Employee data will be mapped and integrated into the enterprise compensation solution.

f) Enterprise Compensation Solution. Contractor will provide a cloud-based enterprise compensation solution to develop compensation strategy tools leveraging data with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to standardize pay setting, annual compensation reviews for T38, HT38, and GS Healthcare workers, and support the authorization of recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives. Note: The current contract utilizes PayScale’s MarketPay as the cloud-based enterprise compensation solution. The use of PayScale’s MarketPay specifically is not required. However, the solution should be a widely available service that provides commercially available information to agencies but does not collect Federal information.

All data files, reports, deliverables, etc., provided by the Contractor shall be formatted and delivered to enable importing the data to an external, cloud-based database or compensation system.

The survey methodology performed by the Contractor shall comply with 38 U.S.C. §7404, 7431, 7451, and 7455, as well as VA policy promulgated in VA Handbook 5007, specifically parts VI, IX, and X.

VA Reorganization: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is currently undergoing a reorganization that may result in future changes to its organizational structure, processes, responsibilities, and priorities. Such changes could affect the customers, services, or support described in this Performance Work Statement (PWS). Accordingly, the Contractor shall remain adaptable and responsive to evolving VA requirements and work in close coordination with the Government to assess and implement necessary adjustments, as needed. Any resulting changes will be completed by bilateral contract modification.

Period of Performance: The period of performance (PoP) shall be for one (1) base year with four (4) twelve (12) month option periods.

The principal place of performance shall be at the Contractors’ facilities.

No work at any Government site will take place on Federal holidays or weekends, unless directed by the Contracting Officer (CO).

Authorized holidays for Contractor personnel performing work at a Government installation shall correspond with Government holidays. There are eleven (11) Federal holidays set by law (5 U.S.C. §6103). Under current definitions, five (5) are set by date:

If any of the above falls on a Saturday, then the preceding Friday shall be observed as a holiday. Similarly, if one falls on a Sunday, then Monday shall be observed as a holiday. The other six (6) are set by a day of the week and month:

Type of Contract: This contract shall be Firm Fixed Price (FFP).

Tasks and Deliverables:

Deliverable: Meeting minutes, agenda, and staff roster

Schedule of Deliverables The Contractor shall develop and maintain an Integrated Master Project Schedule (IMPS) of deliverables assigned in accordance with this PWS. The IMPS shall contain Gantt charts, and work breakdown structure. Due date for the Integrated Master Schedule will be determined at the kickoff meeting. Upon receipt of the IMPS, a bilateral modification shall be completed to incorporate the IMPS.

Deliverable: Integrated Master Project Schedule

Task 2

PARA 2(B)

VA Data Collection, Reformatting and Distribution for Participation in Salary Surveys

SUBTASK 2.1

The VA provides data files annually to submit to third-party survey sources. Transmission or sharing of files will be coordinated with the contractor. Microsoft Teams/SharePoint is presently used to house all pertinent documents and can only be accessed by authorized VHA and contract personnel. Files include VA employee salary data files, duty station files, LPS schedules, special rate schedule files, General Schedule (GS) locality pay schedules, Title 38 pay schedule files, Federal Wage System pay schedules, Senior Executive Service pay schedule files from VHA WMC HR CoE as needed. Files will be reviewed by VHA and should not contain PII. The contractor will partner with VHA to address any data inconsistencies, missing data or information gaps.

Deliverable: Complete and accurate collection of VA salary data needed for submission to salary reports on behalf of the VA.

SUBTASK

2.2

Deliverable: Complete and accurate data reformatted as needed for submission to each third-party surveyor. Deadline for completion may vary based on the surveyors’ participation schedule.

SUBTASK

2.3 VHA Data Distribution /Survey Participation The Contractor shall be responsible for the entire survey submission process on behalf of VA. This includes providing detailed information using employee data files and location files (see SubTask 2.1) in order to provide VHA information requested from a variety of third-party survey data companies/organizations that have been identified by VHA.

Deliverable: Complete and accurate data submitted to third-party surveyors. Deadline for completion may vary based on the surveyors’ participation schedule.

TASK 3 – PARA 2(A),

(C), (D) Survey Collection/Purchasing and Analysis of Third- Party Surveys - Para 2(a) The Contractor shall purchase approximately 50 national and regional surveys on behalf of VHA from the list provided (PWS Attachment 1). The VA approves the list of surveys to participate in and purchase. The VA will be the owner of the survey data purchased. The list of surveys provided is subject to change and based on historical data.

Deliverable: Purchased surveys

SUBTASK

3.1

Deliverable: Aggregated data in the cloud-based solution

SUBTASK

3.2 Geographical Differential Analysis – Para 2(d) The Contractor shall provide geographical differentials (drilled down to city/state) for all VHA duty station locations for national survey data. VHA presently utilizes the Economic Research Institute (ERI) geographical differential report, included in the overall data purchase, to adjust national survey data for various local labor market areas as defined in VHA policy.

Deliverable: Geographic Differentials

TASK 4 –

PARA 2(F)

Deliverable: Enterprise Compensation Solution

Using established geographic differentials, solution shall apply a differential or percentage which is used to calculate survey data in order to populate salary information for a specific VHA duty station location. This survey data is then reported for all established VHA duty station locations for a wide variety of clinical, professional, administrative, technical, clerical, trade, engineering, security/law enforcement, or other healthcare occupations.

HR specialists will be able to apply the appropriate differential to the desired city and state. The solution shall report the national survey data based on the geographic differential for the selected location.

The Contractor shall provide a listing of all VHA duty station locations and the geographic differential percentage applied for the specific duty station location.

The solution shall also provide job titles, job descriptions along with the corresponding VHA job match, and a list of participating establishments.

Survey data shall include the following components: minimum and maximum rates actually paid in a given job category, published minimum and maximum rates paid, mean salary, median salary, and percentile survey data, minimum, midpoint, and maximum reported rate ranges, along with additional data for premium or differential pay rates, bonuses, any performance or merit-based pay components, etc.

A version of all data files and/or reports provided by the Contractor shall afford the Contractor and VHA the ability to import the data to an external, cloud-based compensation system.

Reporting capability to export survey data from multiple surveys to excel and apply the appropriate geographic differential.

Pay Setting tool that automates pay setting for VHA employees utilizing wage survey data, identified employee experience factors, and additional criteria to standardize pay setting throughout the enterprise

Compensation Solution that utilizes data and AI to review current pay, project recruitment, retention and salary trends for various occupations, and geographic wage data to recommend pay adjustments or identify pay disparity.

SUBTASK

4.1

INSTRUCTION GUIDE

FOR COMPENSATION SOLUTION

Contractor will develop an instruction guide and provide training for the survey deliverable tool which shall include information on data definitions, instructions on how to utilize the enterprise compensation solution, as well as a description of how the geographic differentials were determined and applied.

Deliverable: Instruction guide and training

SUBTASK

4.2

INSTRUCTION GUIDE

UPDATES

The instruction guide shall be updated annually with newly collected VHA and third-party salary survey information and provided to the VHA WMC HR CoE Program Manager based on an agreed delivery schedule.

Deliverable: Annually updated instruction guide

TASK 5 –

PARA 2 (E)

JOB ARCHITECTURE

APPROACH

Contractor will assist VHA in developing a Job Architecture (JA) implementation plan to apply a job catalogue to career paths through career tracks and job leveling in order to support competitive benchmarking and compensation validation. Employee data will be mapped and integrated into the Enterprise Compensation Solution (see Task 4). The plan is delivered to the COR and due by the end of the contract base year.

Deliverable: Job Architecture Implementation Plan

SUBTASK

5.1

EMPLOYEE

MAPPING

Contractor will work collaboratively with VHA to review mapping of employees to the correct functions, families, career tracks and levels to align with the job architecture framework, prepare the information for upload to the Enterprise Compensation Solution. Note: The existing Job Architecture catalog can be migrated as a starting point, if needed.

Deliverable: Mapped employee files

SUBTASK

5.2

VALIDATE

JOB/EMPLOYEE

DATA

Contractor will match job data and employee data in the Enterprise Compensation Solution (see Task 4).

Deliverable: Accurate and complete matching of job data and employee data in the Enterprise Compensation Solution.

SUBTASK

5.3

Deliverable: Complete and accurate benchmarking implemented into the Enterprise Compensation Solution

REPORT

The Contractor shall provide a monthly summary report detailing the status of the Contractor's work on the requirements of the PWS. The report shall include project issues which arose during the preceding month and the Contractor’s actions for resolutions.

Deliverable: Monthly Progress Report

Deliverable: Meeting Agenda

SUBTASK

7.1

QUARTERLY

MEETING MINUTES

The Contractors shall provide meeting minutes for each of the Contractor led quarterly meetings. Quarterly meeting minutes shall include the Contractor's presentation, meeting attendees, discussion points during the meetings, and actions, upcoming work related to the requirements of the PWS and the IMPS.

Deliverable: Minutes of the Meeting

Formal Acceptance or Rejection of Deliverables: The Government will have ten

(10) business days to review each deliverable and provide feedback/comments. The Contractor shall have three (3) business days to incorporate feedback/comments and make appropriate revisions. The Contractor shall provide the revised version of each deliverable to the COR and VA PM. The COR will review and determine final acceptance by the Government. The COR will notify the Contractor of final acceptance within five (5) business days.

Method and Distribution of Deliverables: The Contractor shall deliver documentation in cloud-based or electronic format, unless otherwise directed in Section B of the solicitation/contract. Acceptable electronic media include the latest version of the following software, but no earlier than 2016: Microsoft (MS) 365, MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Project, MS Visio, AutoCAD, and Adobe PDF. These files must have the capability to be imported into an external site. One version of all data files and/or reports provided by the Contractor shall afford VA the ability to import the data to an external, cloud-based database or compensation system.

The Contractor shall adhere to all pertinent Veterans Affairs (VA) policy standards including but not limited to ensuring that all documentation and deliverables are provided within one week of their completion. The Contractor shall be responsible for adhering to all pertinent VA information technology policies and procedures, which are discussed in Section 10 of this PWS.

Changes to the Statement of Work: Only the Contracting Officer is authorized to make any changes to this PWS; and the Contract Specialist will authorize such changes only through written correspondence. The Contract Specialist will keep a copy of each change in a project folder along with all other products of the project. The Contractor shall bear any and all costs incurred by the Contractor through the actions of parties other than the Contracting Officer.

The COR and PM representative or any other individual (including VA or other Government agency employees or employees of other Contractors) other than the VA Contracting Officer are not authorized to make any changes of a contractually binding nature to the period of performance, funding and/or any other terms and conditions of any award resulting from this solicitation.

Invoicing: All invoices must be conducted in a manner that is consistent with what is stated in 852.232-72 Electronic Submission of Payment Requests.

All invoices submitted must be according to the contract and Invoicing Schedule.

The FSC requires the following information be included on invoices received for payment:

a) Contractor Name

b) Remittance address (address where the payment is to be issued)

c) Complete Purchase Order number (e.g., 101C12345) (This number will be provided upon award of Task Order)

d) Itemized description of goods or services, quantity, and unit price

e) Total dollar amount of invoice

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