Model Office Concept Guide
(Formatted and printed in Turkish only)
THE MODEL OFFICE CONCEPT
THE MODEL OFFICE CONCEPT
Introduction.
Chapter 1. Public Employment Services. A Background.
1.1 Background
1.2 Public and Private Employment Services
1.3 Employment policy
Chapter 2. Management and Organisation
2.1 Management. Office culture.
2.2 The role of the manager
2.3 Staff meetings
2.4 Business Plan. Action Plan.
2.5 Allocation of staff.
2.6 Organising the work according to main industrial sectors.
2.7 Cooperation with Social Partners
Chapter 3. How to arrange the Offices
3.1 Offices for modern employment services
3.2 New possibilities for the job seekers
3.3 The open entrance area.
3.4 The area for placement service.
3.5 The area for vocational guidance
3.6 The area for handling unemployment insurance
3.7 The area for administration
Chapter 4. Model Employment Services
4.1 A customer oriented service
4.2 Service to Job seekers
4.3 Service to Employers
Chapter 5.
Active Labour Market Measures
5.1 Active and passive measures
5.2 Increasing employability
5.3 Supporting enterprises to develop
5.4 Planning and implementing active measures
Chapter 6.
Quality in Service. Customer surveys
6.1 Quality in ISKUR
6.2 Customer Surveys
6.3 Staff training
Annexes:
1. Guidelines for the Pilot Offices
2. Action Plan for Pilot Offices
3. Model Office drawing example
4. Strategy for employers’ contacts
5. Confirmation and follow up letter, vacancies
6. Staff dialogue record template
The Model Office Concept has been created under the auspices of the EU funded Project “Active Labour Market Programme – Support to the Turkish Employment Organisation (ISKUR)”. Implementation of this project started in October 2003 and the work on the Model Office Concept was completed in November 2005. The budget for the whole project was 50m EUR – 80% from the EU and 20% from the Government of Turkey.
The project was divided into 4 components:-
Policy – this included conducting a series of labour market studies to help ISKUR identify appropriate programmes and policies; a draft national Human Resource Strategy for Turkey; a draft National Action Plan for Employment; improving the effectiveness of social dialogue; encouraging closer working relationships between ISKUR and private employment agencies.
Institutional Development of ISKUR – this involved the building of 16 new ISKUR offices and the renovation of 4 existing buildings to assist the creation of a modern “international style” public employment service. However important (and welcome) though new buildings are, it is even more important to concentrate on the activities within the new buildings. Whilst the new buildings were being planned and built therefore, ISKUR and the project team created 8 “pilot offices” which acted as test beds for new methods of organisation and delivery of services to clients (job seekers and employers). The lessons learnt from the pilot offices are being applied in the new model offices and will increasingly be applied to all ISKUR public employment offices.
Staff Training and Development – the project trained large numbers of ISKUR staff in practical, operational topics. These topics ranged from practical modern management techniques for senior staff to how to deliver services to clients by staff working with job seekers and employers. Materials used in the various training events have been reformatted and printed as “self help” learning booklets for ISKUR staff, Managers and Trainers.
Grant Scheme – this was aimed at improving the employability of people at a disadvantage in the labour market. Nearly 250 projects, all over Turkey, were financially supported; they were conducted by local partnerships involving NGO’s, educational institutions and some Municipalities. More than 50,000 participants were trained in a wide variety of topics.
1. Public Employment Services.
A Background.
1.1 Background
The first Public Employment Services were established more than 100 years ago. It was when the industrialisation replaced the agricultural society and the new, more diversified labour market required workforce. In many countries the first Labour Offices were also connected to the emerging welfare systems, helping poor people to find a way to earn their living. Both enterprises and workers benefited from an institution that helped employers to find the right workforce and – in times of low economic activity – helped unemployed with temporary financial assistance.
When the International Labour Office (ILO) was established after the first World War in1919, all member countries were encouraged to set up a system of public employment agencies with tripartite advisory committees (tripartite = participants representing the employers, the employees and the government). ILO with its head quarters in Geneva, Switzerland, has issued a number of conventions on the tasks and organisation of Public Employment Services. It is up to each member state to ratify these conventions and then implement them. To learn more about ILO and about the development Employment Services you can study the publication “The public employment service in a changing labour market”, published by ILO in 2001.
1.2 Public and Private Employment Services
Today there are Public Employment Services (PES for short) in more than 100 countries around the world. They are there to make the labour market function smoothly, helping employers to find the workforce they need and helping unemployed to find a job. Most PES also have responsibilities connected to the payment of unemployment benefits. In some countries they have the full responsibility for the handling of the unemployment insurance system. Turkey and UK are two examples of this. But in other countries they are only responsible for verifying the unemployed persons’ eligibility and they leave all the financial tasks, like calculating the amounts and order the payments, to special agencies. Sweden and Germany are two examples of this.
Usually the Public Employment Service covers all industrial sectors of the labour market. And with the help of a network of offices covering the whole country, they can operate close to the employers and the job seekers in all geographical areas. But limited resources often force them to prioritize some sectors more than others, some geographical areas before others, some tasks more than others. In order to serve the persons most affected by unemployment, many PES give most attention to vacancies from employers with low qualified job offers. However, in the latest decades there is a growing demand in all industrial sectors for trained, qualified workers. Likewise, also the qualified, high educated job seekers have spells of unemployment when they need the help of Employment Services.
Complementing the Public Employment Service there are Private Employment Agencies, often specialised in sectors or geographical areas with high demand of qualified labour. They usually take a fee of the employers for helping them to find the right employees. Following the standards set by ILO, Private employment agencies don’t usually charge the job seekers. Cooperation between Private and Public Employment services has become more and more common in all countries as it has become clear that both parties can benefit from it.
1.3 Employment policy
The PES started with helping local employers with vacancies and unemployed persons, looking for jobs, to find each other. Over time the Employment Offices have been entrusted with many more tasks. This is due to the increasing importance of employment issues in the overall economic activities in each country.
As the labour market in a country become gradually more advanced and increasingly intertwined with other countries, a need for formulating an Employment Policy arises. The government can choose different ways to deal with employment and unemployment. It can facilitate for enterprises to grow and prosper by creating a favourable environment. Market regulations or de-regulations, salaries, taxation, transports facilities as well as security, welfare and education of the workforce are important factors for the enterprises and will ultimately affect their willingness to employ people.
Modern governments realize that it is important to support adult persons to earn their living, e.g. to find a job as quick and efficient as possible or to start a small business. Supporting the workforce in finding, entering and remain in employment is a part of the Employment Policy and usually the Public Employment Service is the main institution entrusted with these tasks. The Employment Policy is closely linked to the general Economic Policy of a country, but also to the Social Policy and to Human Resource Development Policy.
In the European Union Employment Policy was for a long time regarded as an issue for the different member states, not an issue for joint actions. However, with growing concern about the economic consequences of high unemployment, the employment policies of the member states have gained in importance. All EU countries have agreed to follow the European Employment Strategy and implement the guidelines. To follow up the situation in the member states a range of indicators are regular monitored, e.g. level of unemployment, level of literacy, level of female employment, inclusion of vulnerable groups into the labour market, etc.
1.4 The tasks of a modern Employment Service
The core task of any Public Employment Service is to help employers to have the workforce they need and to help job seekers to find a job. This is reflected in the Mission Statement of ISKUR.
to establish an effective labour market information system, to increase the employability of the labour force and to meet the vacancies with suitable labour force.
But many employers and job seekers find each other without the help of ISKUR. In a situation with high unemployment there are always job seekers calling at the door of the enterprises. Why then should ISKUR try to attract more job seekers? The rationale for establishing Public Employment Services to provide matching services is to ensure that the process is facilitated as much as possible for all partners involved. If vacancies are quickly filled with the most suitable candidates and if unemployed persons are efficiently helped to a new employment, the whole economy of the country will gain from this. The production can be used fully and the human resources are not wasted in long spells of unemployment. For successful matching the information gathered about both vacancies and job seekers is of vital importance. That is why ISKUR should try to develop an efficient labour market information system.
In the testperiod in the Pilot offices we have tried different ways of making all information transparent and easily accessible for job seekers and employers. The Guidelines for the Pilot offices are attached in Annex 1.1. In the next chapter we describe how Self service areas can be arranged to give easy access to information about vacancies and other opportunitites on the labour market.
When the employers don’t find the staff they need, and when job seekers don’t find jobs, the Employment service can help them in various ways to negotiate the qualifications or to suggest other opportunities in order to link together the existing resources as efficient as possible. This influence on the matching process is one of the prominent tasks of modern employment services and a cornerstone in Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP).
Helping unemployed persons to find a new occupation by providing them with vocational training is another task of increasing importance. Enterprises developing their production need workforce quickly with new skills, sometimes unknown to the regular vocational schools. An Employment service that quickly can respond to the upcoming needs of the labour market and with short notice can train unemployed persons to take up new jobs, contributes substantially to the national economy.
Many job seekers have problems of finding a suitable job and are always disappointed when applying for jobs. This is the situation for many disabled persons, but also for many young job seekers, female job seekers and others. To integrate persons who temporarily or permanently are outside of the labour market is also a task for Public Employment Services. (It is sometimes called “social inclusion”.)
ISKUR has a special obligation to control that disabled, ex-convicts and victims of terror are given employment opportunities as specified in the law. The difficult thing is to execute this task in a such a way as to make all involved satisfied: the employer and the job seeker. Only with satisfied employers is it possible to continue and widen the relationship.
But even if the social inclusion of different disadvantaged groups is a very important task, it is necessary that ISKUR is well established also on the “market” for normal job seekers. These job seekers constitutes great the majority of ISKUR’s customers, especially those eligible for unemployment insurance, and they have the right to get good placement services.
You can read more about different target groups in Chapter 4.
To summarise:
We can divide the tasks of ISKUR offices into three major fields:
I. Job broking. Registration and matching of job seekers and employers’ need for workforce.
II. Active Labour Market Measures for students and job seekers who can not easily find a job. This includes vocational guidance, job search training and training to aquire new skills.
III. Passive Labour Market Measures for unemployed. This is mainly to administrate Unemployment Benefits.
In the next chapter we will discuss how to organise and manage the offices in order to fulfil the different tasks.
2. Management and Organisation
2.1 Management. Office Culture.
The role of the manager in a province Labour Office can not be overestimated. The manager sets the standards in the office - the way s/he works the staff will work! The manager is also responsible for the introduction and basic training of new employees. The first training of the new staff will influence their performance for the rest of their working life within the organisation.
The managers creates the “office culture”. The word “culture” here refers to a set of values, shared by all staff. It can be e.g. how we relate to our customers, how we answer the telephone, how we prioritise the tasks we have to do. Moreover the manager is responsible for the office premises; how they are organised, the impression the customers get of the organisation. In all of these issues the manager sets his/her standards and the staff will follow.