Prioritized and Active Projects

Renewed the agency’s focus on strategic communications by clarifying roles and priorities, emphasizing proactive storytelling, and planning a rebrand and website overhaul to better serve customers. 

Use an AI-assisted internal chatbot to help staff quickly access program guidance, reduce search time, and improve customer service, with platform analysis and governance underway 

Use AI tools to support UI and Paid Leave adjudication by summarizing records, generating timelines, and suggesting outcomes for human review, with cost and risk analysis underway. 

Implement Easy On-Hold, a call center platform that manages hold music and recorded messages, to deliver real-time, program-specific guidance and self-service tips to callers. 

Use an AI-based pre-call identity verification process to complete security checks before customers reach staff, reducing call time and speeding access to assistance. 

Use generative AI options to provide personalized, automated claim status updates by phone, reducing hold times and allowing staff to focus on customers with complex issues. 

Develop a more robust, generative AI chatbot to expand self-service for UI customers, including use cases and associated implementation costs. 

Review and simplify customer letters, notices, web content, and guides across all programs to make them more consistent, and easier to understand 

Conduct a pilot of UI-trained “connectors” to provide in-person assistance to high-barrier customers at select WSO centers. This pilot aligns with ongoing efforts to develop a permanent Equitable Access to Unemployment Insurance (EAUI) outreach team. Review recent survey results and conduct additional research to identify effective approaches and options that build on these lessons. 

Use existing technology to deliver live, statewide UI webinars covering key topics such as the claims process, Frances Online account setup, and filing claims. This virtual approach builds on existing resources and enables broad, cost-effective access without additional staffing or travel costs. 

Use upcoming phone system enhancements to directly connect UI customers with UI staff, either in WSO centers for walk-in customers or through virtual transfers for those engaging remotely. 

Workforce Operations is deploying three mobile service vans to deliver coordinated WSO services to underserved communities across Oregon. While focused on job seekers, these vans could also incorporate UI support. 

Supplement WSO staff required training to include annual UI refresher courses which will strengthen staff knowledge and improve their ability to address customer UI questions. Survey WSO staff to identify training gaps will inform the development of targeted training materials. 

Create a WSO Navigator Position. This position will be a point of contact for WSO centers that have a high volume of UI customers coming to the centers to provide more UI information or connect them to the right people within the UI division. 

Create a prioritized phone queue for callers from WSO centers providing faster access to UI staff. Monitor wait times and potential increases in WSO visits. 

Create and administer an ongoing survey for WSO visitors which would give more reliable insight to guide future decisions. 

Explore creating a small, cross-trained customer service team spanning UI, Paid Leave, and C&R to share program knowledge and handle first-tier calls. Using standardized scripts, the team would resolve simple issues and refer more complex cases to Tier 2 specialists in each program. 

Create a quarterly connectivity group that includes UI, Paid Leave, C&R, and WO for cross-divisional collaboration. Combine this with already existing UI/WO connectivity groups, or have this as a stand-alone group. 

Since December 2023, the agency has been updating and standardizing UI SOPs to reflect Frances’ processes, available on the agency Intranet. Complete all SOPs and add “quick-guides” for easy reference. 

Move content from Legacy EDWeb and the Paid Leave Toolkit will to The Commons (intranet), and condense manuals into smaller, clearer sections. Updates include the Benefit Eligibility Manual and new manuals for employer programs, appeals, and compliance.  

Update all process maps and SOPs, include all relevant statutes, rules, policies, and federal regulations. Continue reviewing all SOPs to ensure accuracy, accessibility, and consistent formatting.  

Build process maps for work that transitions across teams and agencies and ensure SOPs include all relevant statutes, rules, policies, and federal regulations. 

Create a single, agency-wide intake and tracking system for customer complaints and escalations to provide a clear point of contact, streamline workflows, improve equity, and enable consistent tracking, reporting, and accountability across all programs. 

Managers will continue to convene staff focus groups as a way of gathering direct feedback on the customer experience and recommendations for improvement, especially from front-line staff. 

Design and deploy a survey for UI and WO staff to determine where more alignment is needed between the two programs related to reference guides and information. 

Export automatic data from Frances into the OED data warehouse. Give the Analytics Team unrestricted access for reporting, visualizations, and performance measurement. This data will also help OED analyze the customer experience, identify workflow bottlenecks, track actions that trigger calls or escalations, and pinpoint confusing communications or challenging processes. 

Add workforce metrics to our public dashboard. Reporting on the workforce system involves multiple partners and datasets and is possible through the Workforce Modernization Project and using Oregon’s Performance Reporting and Information System (PRISM), which is described in more detail in the WO and Workforce System Actions Report. 

Managers will review workforce management practices and propose improvements for cross-divisional phone coverage, claims processing, web notices, and chatbot staffing. Options include adopting a holistic approach across divisions, integrating AI for predictive scheduling, evaluating generalist versus specialist staffing and customer paths, and exploring unused features in existing Presidio and Cisco/Finesse contracts to improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Develop improved unit and individual performance metrics and scorecards to better track success in meeting customer service goals. This work is contingent upon OED 10A and the availability of needed data in the OED data warehouse. 

The UI Program is piloting a module to entering missing customer  ID information before speaking with staff, with technical work underway and a planned pilot in UI Benefit Services phone queues in Q1 2026. 

Inventory existing guides, videos, and one-pagers on Frances Online and unemployment.oregon.gov to ensure they are current. Compare these to customer requests from recent surveys, identify gaps or confusing content, update existing guides, add new ones as needed, and adjust website placement for easy access. 

UI and Paid Leave are developing videos to teach customers how to complete specific Frances tasks. 

Update the Frances Access Letter process to let most customers self-confirm address changes, while proactively assisting others through expedited outbound contact to reduce delays and avoid unnecessary calls or holds.