Field Services Successful October and November!

Here is a snapshot of the successful accomplishments for our Field Offices during October and into November:

1. Our Central and Coastal Regions rolled into statewide non-lobby (NL) work AND they have been able to clear their lobbies so they can contribute staff to our statewide NL efforts!  This is quite the achievement since they were needing to close their lobbies early prior to joining the statewide effort, and for them to already be contributing staff to our NonLobby work is a testament to what we can achieve as a team! DPA Field Services did several things to make this successful: we pulled together to do a lobby “reset” where staff from other offices inserted interviews from Gambell into their own office work; and you pushed really hard to complete all of Central and Coastal Regions’ recertifications for November which significantly decreased the lobby flow for November.  Lastly, with the assistance of our Information Technology (I.T.) staff, they brainstormed a solution for our slow Z drive issues. They tested a solution and then implemented it for us so the Z drive is performing faster so we could complete our work more timely- so THANK YOU I.T.!
2. Our overdue team has been dividing and conquering. 2 staff were able to totally clear out our EIS ME applications from 2015 and 2016.  Additionally, we only have 14 EIS ME cases (in pend status) from 2017, so very soon we will be able to complete overdue applications from 2018.

   The remainder of the overdue team (16 ETs) are assigned to the ARIES Overdue cases, including looking at the old JIRA cases (80) and the oldest applications received in ARIES without a JIRA.  This group was assigned 1513 cases and touched 1315 cases just in one week!

3. Statistics for Oct 1 through Nov 2:
   Our WKFN (WorkFun) lobby added 5980 cases and worked 4997 (4181 approved/denied and 816 pended) for an 84% completion rate! 
   Our WKRN non-lobby added 17100 cases and worked 9295 (7460 approved/denied and 1835 pended) for an 80% completion rate.   We were able to no contact 1684 and clear 4214 from PathOs.
4. Our Backlog and Almost Overdue teams (12 staff) continue to assist where they are needed, AND they are completing work in the backlog domain.  During this timeframe 303 cases were added to the Backlog domain during this timeframe and they completed 604 cases. (476 approved/denied and 128 pended) for a 79% completion rate.
5. On October 1, our cases (in both EIS and ARIES) over 30 days and Food Stamp expedites (FSX) over 7 days was at 21,626.  As of 11/5, it was down to 16,470, and on 11/19 it is down to 14,185.  We have been reducing our overdue cases by about 1,000 every week- this is fantastic!
6. The number of complaint calls going to the commissioner’s office and legislature have decreased from about 55 in July 2018 to about 15 for October! 
7. Overtime: On average, we have about 44 staff working extra hours on the weekends and they are able to consistently complete about 470 tasks in PathOs. Our managers and supervisors have begun to better track our overtime efforts during the workweek. Any extra hours that you can add to your regular workday or during the weekend, please consider doing so. We need your assistance during the next few months to get that final push to ZERO.

Just think about how many customers are getting benefits daily AND as our backlog shrinks.

Now, take a moment to think about all the staff assigned to the Backlog team, the overdue team, the almost overdue team, and on other projects. As soon as we are out of backlog, you will have the full complement of your co-workers back working same day work with you--- in addition to fewer customers calling and asking “where’s my stuff”!

With much appreciation,
Tammie and Aimee