Automated Workflows Increase Employee Productivity and Customer Satisfaction for Delaware’s State Pension Office
The Challenge
The Office of Pensions was using a six-year-old document imaging and management system and had outgrown the capacity of the system. Limitations within the system when handling correspondence from pensioners, insurance companies, state agencies and other entities had led to extended periods of downtime and constraints on the ability to employ newer, more efficient technologies. Image retrieval time was poor, and users complained about the amount of time it took to load a document image on the screen. These factors combined to decrease productivity and adversely affect customer service.
Because the old system was not scalable to meet the increasing demands of staff and pensioners, a replacement system was necessary. The agency was seeking a replacement system that would be stable, state-of-the-art industry, scalable and robust in functionality.
Senior Application Support Specialist for the Office of Pensions, Ariel Poe, said, “When KeyMark (formerly IMR) came in for their vendor presentation, we were impressed with their understanding of our work process. They were really able to quickly pick up on what we were doing and structured the implementation to meet our needs.”
“…we were impressed with their understanding of our work process. They were really able to quickly pick up on what we were doing and structured the implementation to meet our needs.”
The Solution
In order to replace the old system with an effective system that meets all of the needs of the Office of Pensions, a review of business processes and needs was conducted. The business processes that necessitated new technology included:
- Member Accounts – managing all the activities associated with the maintenance of information about pension plan members, member account status and member account transaction histories.
- Member Benefits – identifying and resolving those events that have a bearing on member benefits.
- Pay Benefits – assure the accurate and timely payment of all member benefits.
- Pension Funds – managing the deposits, accounting and investment of pension funds, the production of pension plan reporting and the administration of pension plan policy and procedure.
- Benefits Consulting – provide both proactive and reactive retirement and benefits counseling to members and employer contacts.
In order to meet the needs of the office’s business processes through improved OnBase workflow efficiencies, KeyMark, in a collaborative effort with Hyland, committed on-site resources over several months to develop and streamline 15 – 20 different and complex workflow systems. In addition to replacing the office’s old technology, KeyMark also integrated the new document management system into the industry-specific software utilized by the Office of Pensions. The overall OnBase integration allowed employees to continue using a familiar system but improved the quality of record storage and the speed at which records could be retrieved.
“Normally, an implementation of this scope could take 8 to 12 months,” said Ariel Poe, Project Manager. “We had a really short time frame of only 5 months for our implementation, yet KeyMark was able to get it done on time and within budget. A major piece of the implementation was converting over 800,000 documents from our old system to the new solution. KeyMark was able to do that flawlessly.”
In addition, KeyMark provided ongoing staff training to all employees who would be using the new system. According to KeyMark’s president, the company met with some resistance at the onset of the project. “People were concerned and not that interested in change, but once they saw what the new system could do — how easy it was to use and how it improved their efficiency — they were on board,” he said. One year into the beginning of the system upgrade, KeyMark continues to provide ongoing technical support after being on-site to train staff for the install and the usage of the system. He said now that the office is completely “self sufficient” with regard to the new technology after a six-month installation and training process.
The Results
In addition to providing a seamless transition from the old system and software, the Office of Pensions has seen improved customer service by being able to provide timely, accurate information to pensioners. They have also recognized several other key benefits including:
- Improved workflow efficiency and processing time
- Savings of maintenance costs
- Scalability to meet the office’s growing needs, and
- A full integration of existing pensions systems
“We have seen a big increase in employee productivity and our customer satisfaction. A customer consultation to answer questions or to confirm receipt of an application used to take up to a half hour, because the old system was so slow. Now, with instant access to all the documents we need, it can be done in a few minutes,” said Ariel Poe.
The Delaware Office of Pensions is in a constant state of updating and revising of records because of deaths, movement from the state and other changes to pensioner accounts. A fully optimized, technologically advanced system that allows employees to efficiently enter and access information and provide unsurpassed customer service in a manner that is cost-effective for Delaware taxpayers has made the KeyMark conversion a definite win-win situation.
“A customer consultation to answer questions or to confirm receipt of an application used to take up to a half hour, because the old system was so slow. Now, with instant access to all the documents we need, it can be done in a few minutes…”
About Delaware Office of Pensions
Located in Dover, the Delaware Office of Pensions administers and manages nine retirement pension plans with over 68,000 members for the State. With more than $6 billion in assets under management, the agency’s goal is to maintain comprehensive and responsive systems for benefits and funds management and provide a secure and supportive retirement commitment. More than 50 employees currently manage the ongoing needs of Delaware pensioners.
One of the responsibilities of the Office of Pensions is to issue monthly pension checks to members and insure their earnings and deduction information is accurate. The Office of Pensions also provides retirement counseling for current and former employees.
In an effort to maintain comprehensive records of all pensioners in the State of Delaware, the Office of Pensions sought to replace an existing system with an enhanced document management solution based on the OnBase software platform. Expected outcomes of the improved system was improved pension member satisfaction, improved workflow efficiency in processing information, reduction of operating costs and a more secure and efficient platform on which to manage and retrieve documents.
