Research Process

The learnings in this paper are the result of a four-week discovery sprint executed by New America in New Jersey in October–November 2019. Discovery sprints are time-bound periods of intensive problem investigation conducted by cross-disciplinary teams composed of designers, technologists, user researchers, subject matter experts, and others. Discovery sprints typically entail user research and testing with the individuals and families that programs and policies aim to serve, making proximate connections and inviting them into a process to shape policy design and delivery. The four-member sprint team for this engagement had expertise in communications, user research, procurement, data science, and program administration.

Due to time constraints, the sprint focused primarily on leave for birthing parents, rather than bonding leave for their partners, caregiving leave, or other disability leave. Given that parental leave can be relatively simpler than other types of PFML to administer, it is possible that some more complex issues—around medical certification, for example—may not have surfaced in this work.

The team’s research included:

• Interviews with two dozen employees throughout the TDI/FLI program at the NJDOL—in program and agency leadership, outreach, information technology, reporting, and all divisions of application processing and customer service.
• User experience interviews with 15 maternity leave beneficiaries (that is, women taking pregnancy-related leave or bonding leave), recruited through community organizations and online ads. The interviewees were a mix of previous beneficiaries, current beneficiaries, and potential beneficiaries.
• Five testing sessions of communications materials with potential beneficiaries.
• Interviews with nine NJ-based employers.
• Interviews with four community-based PFML advocates or employer associations.
• Interviews with staff at the NJ Division on Civil Rights (Office of the Attorney General), whose work intersects with PFML.
• Analysis of program use data and application processing data provided by NJDOL, in conjunction with reference data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

This report largely documents findings as the program stood at the time of the discovery sprint, in late 2019, with only limited follow-up since that time about how recent developments may have impacted the findings. Specifically:

• The sprint occurred before the 2019 amendments to extend the duration of paid leave and improve wage replacement rates took effect in mid-2020. Those program changes were viewed by administrators and advocates alike as critical, and reasonably expected they would address some of the existing shortfalls in the program. To the degree they have done so, that success story is not recorded here.
• At the time of the sprint in late 2019, the new administration’s TDI/FLI team had only been in place for about a year and a half. The leadership had indeed made real and impressive progress in cleaning up the neglect of the previous eight years, but many planned changes at the time simply remained incomplete for lack of time. (Also, the experiences of past beneficiaries interviewed may not have reflected the new team’s reforms at all.)
• The report does not go into depth about the significant changes NJDOL undertook in response to the findings of the sprint team—or the destructive role of the pandemic in stymying (for now) some of those reforms, with NJDOL resources disproportionately reassigned to the unemployment insurance system, and outside outreach partners focused on the pandemic to the detriment of other programs. That said, it is important to note that NJDOL did indeed move quickly to implement the findings of the sprint team, even managing to implement key changes despite the global pandemic, and had indeed made substantial progress on a variety of other items in the year before the sprint occurred. The program’s progress is proof that strong and committed leaders, empowered by agency leadership, can make real changes that meaningfully improve outcomes for their beneficiaries, and can do so quickly.