ESTABLISHMENT SURVEYS: DESIGNING THE SURVEY OPERATIONS OF THE FUTURE

George S. Werking, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

2 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20212

Key Words: E-Mail, Internet, Information

Superhighway

Before we can begin a process of re-engineering our

survey operations for the future, we must first have a

thorough understanding of our primary customers,

their operating environment, and their reporting

capabilities and flexibilities. For establishment

surveys, employers are our primary customers. On

voluntary surveys, they must decide whether or not to

participate in our survey endeavor, they are the

recipients of our complex survey forms and often times

confusing definitions and directions, they must devote

whatever time and resources that are required to

complete our forms and then are faced with followback calls when we feel the data they have reported to

us cannot possibility be correct.

Over the past decade, we have made many significant

improvements in our operations by focusing on the

respondent as our customer. We now have tremendous

new opportunities for simplifying survey operations for

both the respondent and the survey agency. We find

ourselves in the middle of a massive transition, or

perhaps more accurately a revolution, in the way

information is communicated in the business

community. The information superhighway is rapidly

becoming a reality and this may well lead survey

agencies not only to a paper-less collection

environment but also to a people-less environment for

most of our traditional establishment survey collection

and processing operations.

EMPLOYERS OPERATING ENVIRONMENT

Faltering international competitiveness and the

subsequent losses in both foreign and domestic markets

in the early 1980s forced American businesses to

reevaluate their organizational structures, the

efficiency of their operations, the quality of their

products and their customer focus. This process

continues unabated into the 1990s with an ever

increasing set of events unfolding in the global

economy.

External Forces

Employers are now faced with operating more and

more within a global economy. With the introduction

of the North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA), tariffs are being gradually lowered and

employers are being forced to focus on controlling their

wage and price structures. The European Community

is also attempting to join into a massive new market

which when taken as a whole will surpass the U.S. as

the world's largest market. China and the Eastern

European countries are major new entrants into the

world market, each of which will initially have vast

markets for goods and services as they build modern

economies but correspondingly will also begin to

generate competitive products in the future.

Automating Internal Operations

U.S. employers responded to the increasing

international competitiveness pressures by downsizing

and flattening their organizations, increasing their

productivity and controlling their wage and price

structures. However, perhaps more importantly,

employers responded by investing heavily in

computing technology and communications during the

1980s to boost productivity, to link their national and

international operations and to provide instantaneous

access to critical management information on

inventories, personnel, and cash-flow transactions. In

1991, companies for the first time spent more on

computing and communications equipment, than on

industrial, mining, farm, and construction machines--

as the Industrial Age gave way to the Information Age.

New management philosophies also emerged such as

"agile" manufacturing which take advantage of the

extensive PC technology and communication

investments which have been made. Traditional

manufacturing has been based on mass production to

drive down fixed costs, however, this also has the

negative side-effect of creating large inventories.

Under agile manufacturing, much of the product is

software controlled and products can be changed

overnight to reflect new demands or product

improvements. Agile companies stress electronic

sharing of information across organizations, alliances

with suppliers and customers, lean inventories, and fast

responses to changing market conditions.

In the business community, we have entered the age of

the information superhighway where instantaneous

electronic access and exchange of information is

paramount. LANs and INTERNET have blurred
traditional organizational lines creating "virtual

enterprises" and provided technology proficient firms

with the foundations for a significant competitive edge.

These competitive, downsized, highly automated,

electronic-information oriented firms are the same ones

which we will be contacting to ask that they voluntarily

share their information with us and we will need the

most flexible, least burdensome approaches to ensure

initial acceptance and ongoing cooperation. Our goal

is to determine how best to take maximum advantage

of the employers new computerized operating

environment in re-engineering our survey operations

for the future.

SURVEY AGENCIES CURRENT OPERATING

ENVIRONMENT

Much like the private sector, survey agencies are also

faced with a competition challenge and our reputations

and future funding will be based on how successful we

are perceived by our customers which include policy

makers, the media, and the financial and business

communities who use our data. Our products are

survey estimates and their quality or useability is based

on their relevance within an ever-changing economy,

their accuracy, and their timeliness.

To ensure the quality of our products, our survey

operations generally include:

• Sample solicitation

• Collection (mailout, mailback, and

check-in)

• Nonresponse prompting

• Keypunch and keypunch verification, and

• Screen and edits with reconciliation callbacks

This paper focuses on re-engineering these often times

labor-intensive and time-consuming activities to fit

into the emerging new streamlined employer operating

environment of the future.

Current Survey Operations

Over 80 percent of establishment surveys, on an

international basis, are conducted under the "time

honored" methods and procedures for mail collection.

Many of our current mail survey activities are semiclerical and labor-intensive in nature such as

nonresponse prompting and edit reconciliation and

thus, our sample sizes are often limited by the amount

of follow-up phone calls we can afford. Additionally,

over the years, these mail collection methods and

procedures have created a false image that

establishment surveys require many, many months, if

not years, to produce and publish survey results.

During the 1980s, in order to address many of the

limitations inherent in mail collections operations, we

saw a preoccupation with telephone collection

methodology. While in earlier years the telephone had

been used as a secondary method to mail for prompting

and edits, in the 1980s it was catapulted to a primary

mode for collection. Methods were developed for

CATI collection with discussions of the merits of

centralized versus decentralized data collection centers.

Methods were developed for computer-based touchtone

data collection (TDE) systems for selected surveys and

this was immediately followed by equivalent voice

recognition (VR) systems. Subsequent research and

discussions focused on timeliness of data, significant

reductions in direct labor costs for collection, minimal

hardware/software investment, and respondent

acceptance. FAX transmission also emerged as a mode

of collection with encouraging developments for

Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) systems to

eliminate the inconvenience of the FAX paper and the

subsequent key entry activities.

The 1980s were truly the age of telephone collection,

we would share our research results and disseminate

our future plans using our new LAN-based E-mail

systems which were becoming quickly entrenched in

our agencies and also in the private sector. With the

broader emerging access to Internet we would share

our telephone research with outside agencies and over

time, our professional contacts would be equally likely

to ask us for our E-mail address as for our telephone or

FAX number.

Now, in our day-to-day work environment, E-mail is

quickly becoming the preferred choice for

communication even over the sophisticated phone

systems with voice mail. E-mail is simple, quick, and

convenient for both the sender and the receiver. The

natural question which then arises is: will this work as

simply for survey questionnaires and, if so, what will it

mean for our survey operations, organizations, costs,

and products.

THE FUTURE: USING E-MAIL WITH

INTERNET TO CREATE A PAPER-LESS,

PEOPLE-LESS COLLECTION ENVIRONMENT

This paper focuses on the use of E-mail with Internet

as the primary future mode of data collection for

establishment surveys. With the exception of an
occasional paper on Electronic Data Interchange

(EDI), electronic collection, and in particular the use of

E-mail, has been largely ignored. However, E-mail

embodies all of the strengths of the advanced telephone

procedures of the 1980s while at the same time

eliminating many of the weaknesses.

It should be noted that E-mail collection, as described

below, is quite distinct from what has been termed as

EDI. While both would use electronic means (such as

Internet) for the transmission of data, the actual

respondent-required collection activities are very

different under the two electronic approaches. Under

EDI the respondent is requested to write software to

compute/extract the requested data items and to output

transmission records in a mutually agreed upon

standard format (i.e., EDIFACT or X-12 standards).

Current EDI proposals have been directed towards the

collection of large multi-unit firms. However, under

the proposed E-mail collection method, the traditional

"questionnaire-based" survey approach is preserved

and extended to an electronic environment with all

traditional labor-intensive and time-consuming mail

and telephone activities replaced by their electronic

equivalent.

E-mail Survey Operations

Like the automated telephone collection methodologies

of TDE and VR, E-mail collection offers major

advantages for timeliness, control, and labor cost

reduction, however, unlike these procedures, E-mail is

far more versatile in the types of surveys and survey

operations it can accommodate.

A typical E-mail survey collection cycle of the future

would begin with a normal sample control file which

now has the respondents E-mail address in addition to

the normal respondent contact information of name,

address, and phone number. The collection form will

be a standard "electronic package" containing an

image of the questionnaire, survey instructions,

definitions, and any special notes. As the collection

cycle approaches, each electronic package is

automatically loaded with the respondent specific

information, perhaps including data from previous

reporting periods, and is E-mailed to the respondent.

Under E-mail there are no busy signals, ring but no

answer, or data not yet available please call back

outcomes. The respondent opens his/her E-mail, fills

in the requested data (going to his/her records as

required), and E-mails the reply back to the survey

agency. Schedules are electronically checked-in and,

at predetermined time periods, E-mail nonresponse

reminder packages containing the full original

information are automatically sent.

Perhaps more importantly, our current labor-intensive

edit and reconciliation operations will also be directly

handled under E-mail; allowing for the first time, the

respondent to directly review perceived edit failures

and correct them as necessary. This will allow the

elimination of the large semi-clerical operations of

staff poring over reams of computer rejected data and

attempting to "correct it" or label it as unusable. The

respondent will directly address all edit failure

questions either through internal executable edit code

in the electronic questionnaire package or through a

follow-up E-mail edit-query from the survey agency.

Under the E-mail edit-query scenario, as each E-mail

questionnaire is returned, it is immediately edited and

within the hour a set of user-friendly edit diagnostics

are directly E-mailed back to the respondent for

verification, correction, or comment code explanation.

Under E-mail methodology, most survey data

collection operations can be fully automated and the

overall process simplified for both the survey agency

and the respondent.

E-mail Versatility

Unlike the telephone collection methods of the 1980s,

E-mail can accommodate a wide range of surveys and

survey operations. The use of telephone collection

procedures were often limited by the length and

complexity of the questionnaire, the frequency of the

collection cycle, and the range of survey operations for

which the telephone could be used in a cost effective

manner.

Questionnaire Length--CATI was limited to surveys

which could be conducted within a 20-minute session

and was problematic if respondents needed to refer to

their records. TDE and VR were correspondingly

limited to the number of items a respondent was

willing to push buttons for and the number of questions

a respondent was willing to answer to a machine. Email, on the other hand, has the ability to

accommodate structured questionnaires of any form or

length including "form-layout" designs or traditional

"question-by-question" designs. The respondent has

the ability to refer to records as frequently as needed or

to partially complete the questionnaire and return to it

at a later time. Under E-mail all of the strengths of

mail are merged with the timeliness strengths of the

computer assisted telephone procedures.

Survey Frequency--On the surface, E-mail lends itself

more naturally to ongoing versus one-time surveys.
Maintaining updated E-mail contact information and

conducting periodic cycles for ongoing surveys is easily

accomplished for periodic surveys. However, survey

agencies can also use the large periodic surveys (which

have existing E-mail contacts) as a base for drawing

subsamples for also conducting one-time survey

supplements, where, if necessary, the E-mail contact

can forward the request within the firm to a more

appropriate respondent. Large census operations can

also obtain current E-mail contact information from

the periodic surveys to help automate significant

portions of their operations.

Altering Questionnaire Content--E-mail has the same

very broad flexibility as traditional mail in easily

accommodating content changes (e.g., adding new data

items) or conducting periodic survey supplements. The

telephone collection operations of CATI and TDE are

more limited since they require an immediate answer

for the new data item during the interview and this

may not be possible if the respondent needs to refer to

his/her records. EDI is even more restrictive since it

will require each employer to make software changes

to produce and output the new data item and may also

require a change to the EDIFACT output standard.

Survey Activities--A final added advantage is the

ability of E-mail to collapse the various activities of

collection, check-in, prompting, and edit follow-back

under a single mode of contact, thus simplifying the

contact mechanism for both the agency and the

respondent.

Cost and Organization Impact

Over the decades we have invested large sums of

money to develop and refine the labor-intensive

centralized and decentralized operations which help

ensure the quality of our estimates, these operations

include: collection and collection control, multiple

stages and modes of nonresponse follow-up, key entry

with verification, and editing with reconciliation of all

failures. However, under E-mail reporting, all

collection activities can be fully automated and

centralized in one room containing a dedicated LAN

system. Packages are electronically sent at

predetermined dates and information checked-in on a

flow basis with edit query packages automatically sent

as required. Nonresponse prompting packages are

activated also on a fixed schedule as the collection

cycle progresses while the respondents handles all key

entry and edit verification activities.

The cost-effectiveness of E-mail is a little difficult to

fully measure at this time. We do know that many of

our labor-intensive activities can be virtually

eliminated (Chart 1) and that the time lapse for oneway communication will be reduced from about 5 days

under mail to 5 minutes under E-mail (i.e., under one

one-thousandth of the mail time). Additionally, we

also know that E-mail eliminates the costly telephone

line connect-time charges associated with lengthy

CATI and TDE interviews since, like FAX, E-mail

only requires direct transmission time. However, Email transmission costs are unclear since at this time

there are no toll booths on the information

superhighway.

Product and Customer Service Improvements

The improvements offered by automation and

electronic communication will ultimately lead to

simplified respondent reporting, more accurate

microdata, more timely responses, and improved

customer access to our survey products.

Microdata Access--Data quality and access will

continue to improve significantly within the

establishment. During the 1980s employers began a

shift to the use of sophisticated off-the-shelf software

and also contracting out for specialized services such

as payroll processing. These software packages and

services together with electronic communication allow

far more accurate and detailed management

information to be readily available within the firm.

Information which in the past required weeks to

become available within the firm is now on-line in a

matter of days.

Accuracy--For our surveys, accuracy will also be

improved in a number of ways. The microdata from

employers will be based more and more on direct

computer generated tabulations versus data which are

compiled separately from secondary data sources. The

respondent will, for the first time, be able to directly

respond to all edit queries thus eliminating the need for

subjective, atypical treatment by the survey agency of

microdata which appear to be out of the

normal/expected range. Response rates should also

increase since nonresponse prompting can be handled

on a far more timely and controlled basis, making the

process less vulnerable to publication cut off dates.

The unit-cost per schedule will be significantly reduced

by the elimination of postage and the many laborintensive activities under mail and by significantly

reducing telephone charges for edit, prompting, and

collection calls. This reduction in unit cost can then be

redirected towards increased sample size to reduce the

level of sampling error for the survey or directed

towards other quality-enhancing activities.
Timeliness--Our customers will benefit from more

timely data. For some surveys this will mean "final"

estimates will be quickly available and thus will

eliminate the need for "preliminary" estimates in some

surveys, or for others, a reduction in the size of

revisions between preliminary and final estimates.

Some surveys may be able to publish their data with

only a very limited time-lag making the data more

relevant to current economic conditions, while others

may be able to increase their publication frequency

from annual to quarterly or quarterly to monthly.

Customer Service--There will also be many benefits in

terms of information dissemination. Our respondents

will benefit since we will be able to provide to them,

also electronically, a profile of their firm's information

against national (or State) industry averages derived

from the survey results; examples include employment

trend, earnings data and work week hours and

overtime. This will allow the firms who participate in

the survey to directly follow the performance of their

firm against current trends in their industry, thus

adding an extra benefit for being a respondent in the

survey.

In addition to providing end-result products back to our

respondents, electronic communication will provide all

users with quick, easy, and cost-effective access to our

survey products. Instead of waiting long periods for

paper releases (i.e., press releases, periodicals, and

bounded volumes), calling or writing for specific

tables, or purchasing specialized diskettes; users will

have direct menu-driven electronic access to our large

longitudinal public-access databases. In the future, this

will significantly reduce the labor-intensive overhead

associated with our information dissemination

activities while providing improved services to the

users.

CONCLUSIONS

In our case the future is fairly clear, just as it is equally

clear that our mail survey operations are remnants of

the past. The information superhighway is not

something in the future, with Internet we are traveling

on it today. Internet more than doubled in size last

year and now has an estimated 20 millions users, of

which, approximately 65% are business users. A

small Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) pilot study

(Table 1) indicates that over one-third of all large

employers (100+ employees) currently use E-mail in

their daily operations. During the mid-1990s these

numbers will rapidly expand and we will need to be

prepared to transition through a mixed mode mail,

telephone, and electronic collection environment. The

Bureau's Current Employment Statistics (CES)

program will be conducting feasibility tests of E-mail

collection over the next 2 years as a future alternative

to its current mail, TDE, and VR operations.

During the 1990s, research for mail and telephone

survey operations will become relegated to the domain

of household surveys, with establishment surveys

focusing on direct electronic collection. By the late

1990s, establishment surveys will show a domination

by electronic collection with mail and telephone used

for only special applications. The information

superhighway has now opened up many new dynamic

areas of electronic collection research for establishment

surveys. The results from this research will ultimately

position establishment surveys as the most timely,

accurate, and cost effective of the survey operating

environments.
Chart 1

DATA COLLECTION COST COMPONENTS

(arrows show direction of recent price change)

Cost Category

Mail

(1970s)

Telephone

(TDE, VR, and FAX)

(1980s)

Electronic Collection

(E-mail)

(1990s)

LABOR

mail out - -

mail return - -

data entry - -

edit and edit reconciliation -

nonresponse follow-up -

NON-LABOR

postage -

telephones - -

microcomputers -

Recent Annual Price Change Factors

Labor +3.6% ECI, State and Local Government

Postage +1.2% CPI-U, Postage

Telephone -1.8% CPI-U, Intrastate toll calls

Microcomputers -20.9% PPI, Personal Computers and Workstations

Table 1

AVAILABILITY OF ELECTRONIC MAIL

(n = 4,300 units)

Source: Current

Employment

Statistics Survey,

Bureau of Labor

Statistics

Size of Firm Industry

0-19 12% Mining 40%

20-99 15% Construction 13%

100-249 25% Manufacturing 23%

250-999 33% Trade 18%

1000+ 43% Services 20%

Government 25%

Total 21% Total 21%
REFERENCES

Holusha, John, "Industry Is Learning to Love Agility", New York Times, 25 May 1994 pp. D1 and D5.

Johnson, Johna T., "The Internet: Corporations Worldwide Make the Connection", Data Communications,

April 1994 pp. 67-76.

Stewart, Thomas A., "The Netplex", Fortune Magazine, 7 March 1994 pp. 98-104.

Tetzeli, Rick, "The Internet and Your Business", Fortune Magazine, 7 March 1994 pp. 109-114.

Werking, G.S., A.R. Tupek and R.L. Clayton (1988b), "CATI and Touchtone Self-Response Applications for

Establishment Surveys ," Journal of Official Statistic, 4, No. 4, 1988, pp. 349-362.

Werking, G.S., and R.L. Clayton, "Enhancing Data Quality Through the Use of Mixed Mode Collection", Survey

Methodology, June 1991, 17, No. 1, pp. 3-14.