DINATRA after five years of the implementation of APIA-BPM

Summary:

The National Department of Labor (DINATRA for its acronym in Spanish) acquired APIA BPM for managing legal and institutional tasks to advise citizens about two main issues: wages and labor relations.

Information:

Problem

Through negotiations, conciliations and the prevention of collective or individual conflicts, the agency seeks the harmonious development of labor relations. In order to accomplish this, it offers a legal and institutional framework that guarantees the participation of all the parties with the objective of obtaining equitable labor agreements for a productive and social development.

In order to achieve a better performance of its duties, the DINATRA, which is part of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS for its acronym in Spanish), decided to divide them into four sections: Queries, Individual Negotiations, Collective Negotiations and Documentations / Registrations.

However, the agency did not have the required technology to carry out these tasks efficiently, with the electronic monitoring of files, labor queries and the management of a calendar where to schedule the hearings being specially affected. Also, information was not integrated in a way it could be properly analyzed to obtain statistics or management indicators, which is necessary for making decisions or correcting procedure errors.

Moreover, there were no specific methodologies for the resolution of conflicts, so each employee could offer a different solution for the same problem. Some work positions also had important technological shortcomings, like the absence of word processors, and tasks - even the simplest ones - were carried out in paper.

Working together with the MTSS was vital, as DINATRA is a small institution in terms of size and its amount of employees, but of great impact nationwide, affecting the work force directly.

Benefits

For the agency:

1) It was possible to standardize the execution of tasks in order to provide the same solution to the same demand (stimulus), regardless of the employee in charge of the situation. By using APIA-BPM each of the employees got to know the duties they had to perform and how systematized work is essential for the overall work of the institution. This provided a better coordination of tasks and a greater responsiveness both within and outside the organization.

2) It allowed knowing the status of the processes, facilitating the search of information and documentation. It improved the organization of data and thus their monitoring.

3) The use of paper was eradicated. Forms that were completed by hand could not only get lost, damaged or altered, but could also be misunderstood by an employee due to confusing handwriting. Data are currently provided by the system. In the same way, the physical transfer of data was reduced as information in electronic format can be sent through virtual communication channels. Thanks to this, employees did not have to constantly travel to the MTSS.

4) The probability of error was reduced. Prior to the implementation of APIA-BPM, there could be several errors in the procedures, for example: if a data was wrongly entered by hand, issues regarding the interpretation of the text would appear. Therefore, these data would be wrongly entered in the system and the printed document (a summons, for instance) would have these errors as well. Furthermore, the waiting time would last longer, as the document had to be sent by mail and then it was necessary to wait for it to arrive at its destination. With APIA-BPM, the error rate was reduced by 40% according to the example given in the thesis of Aznares, Llovet y Quagliotti (2010) “Aplicabilidad del BPM en el Gobierno Electrónico en Uruguay” (“Implementation of BPM in the e-government in Uruguay”): “Of a total of a hundred and sixty daily hearings, sixty-four had to be rescheduled, thus causing great inconveniences in the outcome of the proceedings. As a practical example, the hearings that were scheduled to take place in two months had to go back to the start if the summons had errors. This affected the person that was making the claim". The effectiveness and accuracy of the completion of tasks was improved.

For the citizens:

1) The implementation of APIA-BPM in the DINATRA offered the possibility of knowing who intervened in the processes and how long it took to carry them out. Having full knowledge of the conditions in which these processes were performed allowed bringing citizens closer to the institutional work and thus collaborating with the transparency of the information that was created and, eventually, rectified.

2) The waiting time was reduced. This internal advantage of the organization was also enjoyed by the recipients of the services. For example, the hearings that were scheduled to take place in two months, started to be scheduled to take place in only two weeks; this adds up to the reduction of waiting time that resulted from a greater efficiency in the management of functions within DINATRA.

3) There were significant economic savings that were the result of the reduction of errors and the removal of postal and travelling (if the person had to travel to the institution several times) expenditures, among others.

4) Citizens got a more personalized attention when making claims, and also began to receive a more equal treatment with the established processes for conflict resolution. Therefore, the significant internal improvements of the institution were reflected in the services provided to the citizens and thus, had a positive impact in the social groups involved in the organizations committed to the work in our country.

Solution

The Office of Planning and Budget (OPP for its acronym in Spanish) decided to implement the APIA-BPM solution of STATUM in DINATRA. It was acquired through the Agency for Electronic Government and Information Society (AGESIC for its acronym in Spanish) and was financed by the OPP itself, which included the software, the training expenses, the creation of procedures manuals, and, in some cases, the hardware. The DINATRA invested in hardware and working hours for staff in training. Multidisciplinary teams made up of members of the project, the OPP and the MTSS to intervene in the management, communication and technology areas along were created along with a Monitoring Committee.

The informatics part began to be implemented after November 2009, in the Queries area. On February 2010, it was implemented in the Hearing processes. It is currently implemented in both sectors.

In order to be able to add these technologies in DINATRA, a Call Center was installed before with the purpose of answering the most urgent questions, schedule hearings, solve queries, and carry out telephone procedures. This Call Center was installed in order to gain experience with the software before implementing APIA-BPM in the Queries and Hearing areas. Afterwards, a pilot plan was carried out in the less centralized offices of the MTSS, such as the ones in Belvedere, Atlántida and Piriápolis.

Finally, ten processes were automated. Just like in the National Office of Coordination in the Interior (DINACOIN for its acronym in Spanish), these included the payment of fines by default, the electronic monitoring of urgent procedures and labor queries, and the registration of trade union delegates, street and non-street vendors, building managers and collective agreements.

APIA-BPM made it possible to integrate all its apps so there was no need to adapt them one by one, as all of them were adapted to the new process definition. The implementation of the software offered an optimal solution for the State as a service provider. It has been a key element for the development of e-government in our country, by removing the rigidity of institutional structures and bringing citizens closer to the agencies that solve their demands.