Report 2010-112 Recommendations

To further enhance its corrective action planning process as a means of improving the unemployment program, the department should identify corrective actions that specifically address the timeliness measures it is trying to meet.

To further enhance its corrective action planning process as a means of improving the unemployment program, the department should develop milestones that are specific and are tied to corrective actions to allow for monitoring the incremental progress of its corrective actions, similar to the milestones it established for some of the activities in its federal fiscal year 2011 corrective action plans.

To further enhance its corrective action planning process as a means of improving the unemployment program, the department should establish several key performance targets or benchmarks that are tied to each specific corrective action, to effectively gauge the impact of the actions on its goal of achieving the acceptable levels related to the timeliness measures.

As part of an overall strategy to limit the number of calls it receives while still providing timely and effective customer service, the department should use existing data and additional data from the new phone system to gain a better understanding of why people request to speak to an agent. Using this information, the department should further develop strategies and measurable goals related to achieving a reduction in call volumes. For example, to ensure that virtually all calls are able to gain access to the voice response portion of its new phone system, the department should monitor the volume of blocked call attempts and work with its phone system vendor if necessary to increase the system's capacity.

To evaluate the effectiveness of its other efforts to provide services to claimants in ways that do not require them to speak to agents, such as Web-Cert and Tele-Cert, the department should periodically summarize and assess the more robust management information available under its new phone system.

To maximize federal funding and provide unemployment benefits to those eligible under the alternate base period, the department should closely monitor its resources and project schedule to avoid any further delays in implementing the client database and ensure that it completes the alternate base period project by the federal deadline.

To better track and improve the timeliness of determinations for the training benefits program and to assist claimants in understanding self arranged training requirements, the department should take measures to ensure that its staff correctly enter all data into the training benefits program's streamline database.

To better track and improve the timeliness of determinations for the training benefits program and to assist claimants in understanding self-arranged training requirements, the department should track and report the number of claimants it determines are both eligible and ineligible for the self-arranged training and the reasons for these determinations, to better focus some of its recommendations toward how it can assist claimants in understanding the program's criteria.

To better track and improve the timeliness of determinations for the training benefits program and to assist claimants in understanding self-arranged training requirements, the department should track the number of claimants that it finds to be both ineligible for self-arranged training and ultimately ineligible for unemployment benefits and develop strategies to expedite the determination process for these claimants.

To help ensure that the department completes the alternate base period project by the federal deadline so that the State preserves its eligibility to receive $839 million in incentive funds, the California Technology Agency should closely monitor the department's progress toward implementing the client database and alternate base period projects and provide assistance to the department, as necessary.