2015 STC Summit STC Operational Improvement Strategies Dee Anna Hassanpour, Oregon Juliane Barone, Ohio Keith Goodwin, Minnesota

2015 STC Summit Oregon’s STC Program Operational Improvement Using Lean

2015 STC Summit Overview of Oregon’s Program Program started in 1983 Highest usage during the Great Recession: 794 Plans 3 Current number of Plans: 187 Current number of Claimants: 729 STC UI Paid Out in CT 2014: $1,435,352 STC UI Paid Out YTD 2015: $1,981,215

2015 STC Summit Oregon’s Pre-Lean Business Process Single Point of Excellence The SPE doing the work was a Compliance Specialist 2 (higher classification range than most doing similar work) Almost 100% Paper Process Completely Manual Process Was Not Scalable No Reliable Way to Capture & Report Data 4

2015 STC Summit Oregon’s Pre-Lean Business Process (Cont’d) No Administrative Rules Communication Methods Limited to USPS, Phone, and Fax Employers Reported High Customer Satisfaction Because of Single Point of Contact 5

2015 STC Summit The Path to Operational Improvement Oregon’s UI Operating System COBOL Mainframe Oregon Received STC Grant – Had To Find a Way To Increase Usage Without Impacting Customer Experience No IT Resources Available 6 Oregon Will Not Be Modernized Before Next Recession

2015 STC Summit Process Improvement Grant Overview Used Part of Grant to Fund FT Project Manager Used Funds to Secure Lean Six Sigma Vendor (CSG Government Solutions) Will Use Remaining Funds to Update Forms, Conduct Policy Outreach, Develop Program Rules 7

2015 STC Summit Oregon’s Lean Six Sigma Experience Assembled Team of Managers, SMEs and CSG Member Trained OED Team Members at Green Belt Level Used Toll Gate Process to Monitor Project Process at Program Executive Level Team Proposed 11 Solutions; Executive Level Approved 7 of the 11 Solutions 8

2015 STC Summit Lean Six Sigma IMPROVE Solutions Develop written policies Standardize procedures to remove ad hoc decisions Move the program to special programs unit Reduce paperwork by utilizing Peernet and creating electronic files Establish objective standards Improve Work Share tools 9

2015 STC Summit Lean Six Sigma IMPROVE Solutions (Cont’d) Reduce incomplete, illegible and errors on forms with fillable.pdfs that contain required fields 10

2015 STC Summit Lean Six Sigma Project Benefits Direct Savings Standardize written operating procedures to remove ad hoc decisions Move program Reduce paperwork Fillable.pdf forms Establish performance and program metrics Improve Work Share Tools Indirect Savings Cross training/knowledge exchange Equitable distribution Program Integrity Quality with agility Delighting the customer Teamwork with responsibility 11

2015 STC Summit Operational Improvement Strategies: The SharedWork Ohio Experience Juliane Barone, Esq. Benefits Policy Administrator Office of Unemployment Insurance Operations Ohio Department of Job and Family Services

2015 STC Summit Ohio: a Newcomer STC state A brief history of the enactment of the SharedWork Ohio program 13 November 2013 March 2014 July 2014 August 2014 March 2015 Nov 2015 SharedWork Ohio law (Ohio Revised Code – ) was found to be in federal conformity by the Department of Labor. The SharedWork Ohio program opened doors for business. Ohio was approved for two grants (totaling $3.7 million) for the automation of the SharedWork Ohio program, as well as SharedWork Ohio promotion and enrollment efforts. Ohio’s benefit payment system “OJI” completed the initial phase of automation of the program. The first employer application was processed by the SharedWork Ohio Unit. OJI completed full automation of the program. To date, 37 plans have been approved by the SharedWork Ohio Unit.

2015 STC Summit Automating SharedWork Ohio in Two Phases Partial Automation – Phase One Manual employer applications and participating employee lists Manual employer-initiated claims Manual queue to track status of pending applications Manual reporting 14

2015 STC Summit Paper Employer Plan Application 15

2015 STC Summit Employer Certification Portion of Plan Application 16

2015 STC Summit Participating Employee List 17

2015 STC Summit Manual Weekly Claim Filing 18

2015 STC Summit Automating SharedWork Ohio in Two Phases, Continued… Full Automation – Phase Two Real time employer and employee self-service web portal via the Ohio Job Insurance (OJI) system. Features include: Integrated SharedWork Ohio employer plan application; The ability for employers to upload the participating employee list; Employees are automatically associated to the SWO Plan; Employer-initiated, employee-verified weekly SWO claims; OJI automatically calculates and disburses proper prorated benefit. 19

2015 STC Summit Automated Employer Plan Application 20

2015 STC Summit Adding Participating Employees 21

2015 STC Summit Automated Weekly Claim Filing 22

2015 STC Summit SharedWork Ohio Automation Leverages Existing UI Benefit Framework SWO payments Initial claim filing Employer charging Reporting Issue-setting Weekly/biweekly claim submissions Automatic child support deductions and tax withholding 23

2015 STC Summit Lessons Learned Identify and get buy-in from key stakeholders not only during the legislative process, but the IT design process. Leverage resources from the entire agency to support the STC program. Memorialize historical decisions, interpretations, and workflows for future reference. Opt for automation. Find a balance between the priorities of employer flexibility and compliance with law. 24

2015 STC Summit SharedWork Ohio Utilization To date, Ohio has approved 37 employer plans with over 1900 participating employees. 25

2015 STC Summit Shared Work Programs Minnesota Program

2015 STC Summit The Overall UI Background - The Minnesota Technical Delivery Model 2002 through 2007 major technology revisions Designed a unified technology system including benefits/taxes and all special programs Involved major change management efforts Shifted a lot of staff from backroom operations to customer facing staff 27

2015 STC Summit 2005 THROUGH June 20 – Tax system goes on line – 3,000 calls a week from employers October 20 Integrated benefits system goes on line. Long wait times for customers to get to CSC staff – 47 minutes at times Testified before Legislature (legislative concerns) Within 3 months call wait times less than 1 min – Great Recession Starts 28

2015 STC Summit MINNESOTA UI OVERVIEW 50% of UI is seasonal every year Relatively high replacement rate – max WBA =$658 per year Online usage 90% The entire program is in same division – 3% of UI transactions occur in WorkForce Centers We don’t chat - we don’t have virtual hold Phone wait times around 30 seconds 29

2015 STC Summit Minnesota Shared Work Program Started in 1994 Major UI automation across all portions of UI Program included Special Programs as part of the automation (this includes TRA, Shared Work, DUA, etc. Easy to run special programs with automation But must be part of broader UI automation as mentioned above 30

2015 STC Summit 2012 Federal Law added New Shared Work Guidelines We made a few changes to meet those guidelines and to obtain Federal funding for shared work payments Federal funding increased our Trust Fund Most of our technology already existed – needed a few legal and technical tweaks. By time law passed in 2012 shared work in Minnesota already significantly declined because of recession recovery 31

2015 STC Summit Shared Work Successful in Uncertain Economic downturns – our experience Employers uncertain of what is transpiring Employers want to stabilize key workforce during uncertainty Employers use shared work during that period of uncertainty Employers quickly make tough decisions when uncertainty gone 32

2015 STC Summit Employer Awareness We have had shared work program for 21 years. UI Website has lots of shared work information There are Q and A’s on the website We have communication specialists that talk to employer groups Dislocated workers mention shared work. Awareness is shown by rapid increase in recessionary times 33

2015 STC Summit The 2008 Great Recession – Our Experience week weekly shared requests week 30- 9,059 weekly shared requests 2010 – Week 30- 2,317 weekly shared requests 2011 – Week 30 – 922 weekly shared requests Needed systems that could handle shared work expansion rapidly. Heavy use of Technology. Minimal use of staff. 34

2015 STC Summit Six General Steps The plan and participants – part automated - part staff manual – web – Q/A and submission Plan approval – generally short – staff manual Plan upload and participant upload – mostly technical Applicant opens account (reactivates) - technical Applicant requests benefits – technical Plan reports and follow-up – technical and staff manual 35

2015 STC Summit Share Work - The Initial Shared Work Approval Initial employer application -- obtained from web Employer must provide application and spreadsheet of individuals Takes 5 to 10 minutes to review (staff review) Application and spreadsheet copied into system Technology checks list of individuals to see if SSN’s match and time worked is correct, and owner signed System then recognizes approved shared work applicant and the right questions are presented on weekly requests 36

2015 STC Summit Applicant must then open UI account 90% of all applications are done on line IVR and Customer Service do the other 10% Once account established (or reactivated), weekly requests can be made Questions presented are shared work modified 90% of all weeks requested are on line 10% are by IVR Almost no state time spent on weekly requests We do not do paper. 37

2015 STC Summit Weekly Reports on Shared Work Plans Computer reports to see if hours worked are consistent with plan If hour deviations - which way deviating Shared work pay modified if actual hours deviated If too much deviation then questions with employer – what is going on Always some tension between layoffs avoided and plans that shift so much layoffs avoided are undermined 38

2015 STC Summit Staff to Manage.5 to 1 FTE’s whether we are in recession or not We can very quickly scale up without much staff expansion Technology can handle 10 times increase in usage very quickly 39

2015 STC Summit Employer Perspective – Labor vs Finance Driver for shared work is retention of key staff during uncertain economic time – the skilled labor perspective However financial constrains dictate right sizing of the work force as soon as uncertain time passes – driven likely by retained fringe benefits at full cost Our experience - expands rapidly during incoming recession but declines rapidly once employer figures out its workforce needs. 40

2015 STC Summit Employers need to understand full picture Voluntary employer decision Employer needs to know both benefits and financial costs Balanced perspective must be presented and understood Nice auxiliary UI program. Might affect 1% of job loss during recession, in some states could reach a couple percent during recession. 41

2015 STC Summit 42