Minnesota Call Center Best Practices UI Directors’ Conference, October 2016 New Orleans, Louisiana

Overview Minnesota UI is very seasonal > 50% annually Program will triple between now and January Relatively high replacement rate -- max WBA = $683 Online usage > 90% Very little “out-sourcing” We control our system We know and use our data We control our budget We manage all reporting The entire program is in the same division RESEA is in UI Usually in top 5 for federal measures. Data validation is complete and passed RJM in top 5 Phone wait times ~ 30 seconds

The Secret to Running A Great UI Call Center is: Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore consectetur, adipisci velit, Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

There are NO Secrets Call Center Best Practices are well understood There are hundreds of books and probably as many consultants More than likely you have several, very successful, private-sector call centers near you If you’re like us, these call centers: Pay less Have higher turnover (more training challenges) Deal with topics that are as complicated Struggle just as much with technology Are run more rigorously The technology that supports a call center is designed to make it manageable The metrics are well understood and call center software is designed to provide it

Maybe There’s One “Secret” Let go of the past and ruthlessly re-engineer everything along lines that emphasize the interests of the customer over the interests of staff Create the organization it must be, rather than the one you’re more comfortable with.

What We Have Been Trying to Do Recognize we are in the high volume customer service business now and always have been. Organize and manage to this fact. Moved to a more retail focus Single process management philosophy Simplified processes and made steps more granular Technology facilitates flow to detect and manage exceptions Manage exceptions, we don’t enshrine them Simplify law and policy Training is nearly continuous, process oriented and follows best practices in adult learning Embrace performance measures Embrace budgetary constraints, federal measures, external pressures, busy seasons, recessions and the chance to fail Decide to be the best in the country – even if you can’t be

Customer Service and Production We are in the customer service business It happens that our product is UI We want to talk to our customers (if they feel they need to talk to us) This means that we keep wait times down so that those who feel they need to talk to us are not discouraged The call center is the most critical part of our operation Everything is engineered around it’s successful operation External and internal communication is designed to be customer-oriented We try to be as transparent as possible; partly because we owe it to taxpayers and partly because it keeps us outward looking We are a production shop … Quality or Quantity? Yes! We make Camrys, not Bentleys Triage everything, prioritize and monitor everything as if this was a retail environment and we had to earn our customers’ business Blockages caused by exceptions are detected and removed

Structure Focuses Outward Fully integrated systemically and managerially We don’t have a Tax Director or a BPC Director We don’t have turf We have a “front room” and a “back room” Focus is always on the “front room” and “back room” is kept as small as possible Our “front room” is a our prestige operation Back rooms are very unhealthy organizationally They eat resources They fixate on exceptions They impose burdens on the front room without cost analysis They are inward looking instead of outward looking They are the bureaucracy within the bureaucracy We make it VERY clear that the back room serves the front room Denigration of the Customer Service Center is NOT allowed The most important work we do is talk with our customers NOT process Combined Wage Claims or partial successions

Business Processes All business processes follow a Call Center Management approach Smaller units of work Work is pushed, not pulled. Exceptions do not slow the main flow Minutes per unit are structurally managed Standard deviation is kept low (at least we try) Why? It works It means there is a similar philosophy to all work Whether we like it our not, it’s a kind of assembly line Our work is electronic, not physical. The “assembly line” never needs to stop to ensure quality All business tools are designed to detect and move exceptions efficiently to the correct flow We actively discourage “research” and “getting opinions” in our main flows We discourage unstructured “self-study”

Simpler Law and Policy We have a strong and supportive advisory council They have supported our efforts (now two decades old) to continually update and simplify our statute Generally good support from legislature – probably because of the highly seasonal nature of the program All the major items are indexed Most of our law is now (reasonably) well organized and written in fairly clear language Generally, little interpretation is needed We don’t write policy or rules (very often) We actively analyze portions of the statute to see if they are still relevant Remove exceptions that have little application or cost impact We try to structure laws so that WE statutorily do right by employers and claimants We don’t have any sections where choice is exercised Most choices require complex explanations and speculations about the future We found the old choice provisions exaggerate “good” choices without accounting for the many, many bad choices. It is much easier and faster to learn this kind of law

Training Nearly all training is now formal Training examples are chosen for their simplicity, not complexity The best adjudicator may not be the best trainer We practice before we do the work We actively discourage staff from “training” themselves by doing “research” or asking (random) co-workers This has not been easy – “senior” staff still try to re-train once new staff get on the job. Training team is run by people who specialize in adult learning Training team has to earn its keep – not as analytical as we would like yet, but they ARE focused on making the learner successful Most training has a refresher component provided online New staff are trained as a team under a supervisor who focuses on on-boarding new staff

Performance Be the best in the country There are a lot of things wrong with USDOL measures, but: They are universal and have been around a long time A lot of them conflict with each other – this creates an interesting management problem to solve External goals are good and real (we need something in the absence of profit) You don’t have to actually succeed, just keep trying Don’t manage to the Federal Measures themselves Do your own analysis of the elements behind them Manage the elements behind the measures We are responsible for our own outcomes – including failures. It’s good to work in a program that is constantly measuring itself and finding where it falls short. “UI is easy because everything is measurable. My program is much harder because nothing is measurable” – Failed (non-UI) administrator speaking un-ironically

Contact Information www.uimn.org jim.hegman@state.mn.us