3.1 Employee Services

3.1 Employee Services

2021 was a busy year for HR Services with 191,982 customer cases closed throughout the year in addition to nearly 700,000 selfservice transactions.

Employee Services provides HR, pensions and payroll administration services, supported by customer relations and support services, for the NSSO’s client Government Departments and Public Service Bodies. They apply the Government’s HR, pension and payroll policies and procedures on behalf of its clients and all key decision making remains with the client in each department or PSB.

Key achievements for 2021 include: • new instruction Smart Forms were introduced to enable the mass instruction request system;

• improved customer service was delivered with enhanced call training to enable remote customer support;

During 2021 Employee Services delivered a reliable accurate HR service to 47 client bodies and 43,500 civil servants, and Payroll service of almost €6 billion to 56 client bodies and 148,734 payees, with strong quality controls and met all its service level agreements.

• automation of the Shorter Working Year pay applications for 2021;

• automation of missing medical certification requests;

• move to electronic Salary Certificates means improved delivery times to to customers and further cost savings;

• preparation for the roll-out of the latest version of PeopleSoft HRMS 9.2 in 2023, which will further improvements in HR Services delivery on a supported and secure environment into the future; and

ISAE Accreditation For the fourth year in a row, both HR and Payroll Services were accredited with the ISAE (International Standards for Assurance Engagements) 3402. This is a global assurance standard for reporting on controls at service organisations. This is a significant achievement for the NSSO and is an important external recognition of the high standards of the NSSO’s operations and our commitment to quality, effective controls, security and continuous improvement.

• new data analytics service for HR clients. Successful self-service pilot scheme offered to four departments to enable enhanced reporting and data visualisations. Full roll out to all clients planned for 2022.

National Shared Services Office (NSSO)

Enabling staf fto deliver customer service excellence HR Services introduced the Hermes Call calls to their Tier 2 colleagues who were Management System in 2020 to manage its working remotely and the Training Team in customers’ queries. HR Services were tasked with training their colleagues remotely on the Hermes system. NSSO Clonskeagh operate a two-tier telephone system whereby the majority of Over 250 staf fwere trained by quarter three calls are initially received at ‘Tier 1’. In the in 2021 with over 4,000 calls transferred event that the callers query cannot be dealt since training began. with at that level, calls are transferred to our specialist teams at ‘Tier 2’. This enhanced Hermes training programme in 2021 has allowed HR Services to maintain this In January 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic vital service to our and further deliver on our continued it was decided to roll out the commitment to continuous improvement and system to enable Tier 1 operators to transfer the highest standards of service.

Salary Certs – Case Study In 2021, HR Services found a digital solution to delivering salary certs which benefited customers across the Civil Service. Prior to this, salary certs required by customers when applying for mortgage and other loan approvals were printed and posted by the NSSO.

Testimonial “I emailed a request to the NSSO for a salary cert and found the process easy, streamlined and prompt. I was assigned a case number within a short period of time acknowledging my query which was very helpful and then upon completion I was emailed the cert which saved a lot of time as opposed to waiting for a hard copy. I have to say I was very impressed with the service I received”.

The HR Services team moved the process online and resulted in a 15% decrease in turnaround time. It also enabled the NSSO to process 60% more salary certificates in 2021 than in 2019.

Gavin, Department of Education

This improvement was adopted across the NSSO to enable salary certs to non-HR Services customers.

Annual Report 2021

ii. Payroll Services In 2021 Payroll Services (PS) provided a suite of services for payroll, pension and travel expenses (T&S) payments to 56 Payroll clients and 48 T&S client Departments and Offices using standard payroll processes on a single technology platform in three locations: Tullamore, Galway and Killarney.

Science (DFHERIS) • New Independent client setup i.e. Data Protection Commission (DPC) • Established enhanced internal analytics reporting function to ensure continuous improvement and more informed business decisions • Business optimisation with the full upgrade of the Payroll system ensuring full end-toend processing of new hires • Full business continuity testing on the banking security processes completed successfully

Key Achievements in 2021: • All Pay and Travel & Subsistence payments runs delivered on time • Achieved ISAE Accreditation for 4th year • Completed project to move An Garda Síochána and Irish Prison Services payslips online • Engaged by Central Statistics Office (CSO) to facilitate the payment of 5,600 Census staff for Census 2022 • New Government Department client setup i.e. Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and

• Technical alignment with Finance Shared Services to ensure standardisation of general ledger output • Business optimisation with continuous updates to payroll software issued on a biweekly basis • Enhanced digital analytic reporting to Payroll Services clients

Census 2022 Building on the strengths of the NSSO and CSO collaboration in successfully delivering HR and Payroll administration for 2016, the offering was expanded in 2021 to include the take on of 5,100 Census Enumerators. NSSO worked closely with CSO to on-board in excess of 5,600 personnel over four phases, starting with Census Liaison Officers in early September 2021 through to the mass take on of Enumerators in February 2022. A key component for our clients is often to establish distinct HR or Payroll services or a hybrid of both.

Testimonial The NSSO worked hand in hand with the CSO team to develop the systems and processes to not only pay our 500+ census field managers, but also our 5,100 census enumerators. The enumerator contract is an atypical one. This meant that new requirements had to be put in place to ensure that large numbers of staff could be onboarded within very tight timelines and paid in a non-standard manner. Project teams were put in place and everyone working on the project was dedicated to ensuring all was delivered on time. There was a really good collaboration between the NSSO and the CSO that led to a successful project with great support from the NSSO throughout.

The NSSO’s network of services worked together to tailor a business operational plan that delivered project management, HR, Payroll and T&S payments. Census personnel were provided with a secure online portal user profile to access their personal information and submit their overtime or expense claims.

The Census Project offered the NSSO opportunity to trial new initiatives and develop unique solutions in real-time which continues to enhance our operational functions.

Eileen Murphy. Head of Census Administration, Central Statistics Office

The Cenus Team will continue to be paid up to June 2022.

National Shared Services Office (NSSO)

iii. Customer Relations Support Services (CRSS) In 2021 CRSS worked towards assisting the NSSO achieve the highest possible level of customer service and to ensure our customer engagements were positive and added value. This unit is the interface between NSSO operational areas in HR and Payroll Services and our clients/customers, and is focussed on promoting the delivery of optimised NSSO services.

• Close to 61,000 calls received in the NSSO’s two main contact centres; • Achieved an average first call resolution rate of 86%; • Received 101,887 emails into the contact centres up 12% on 2020, the majority of which were answered on a same day basis; and • Switched over to the 0818 dial codes in line with the ComReg changes for the Contact Centre and OneLearning Helpdesks.

2021 Takeaways Business Engagement: • 130 service engagements held with PSBs; • 1,743 issues raised by client PSBs resolved; • 78 alerts issued to client PSBs down 23% on 2020; • Supported 107 client engagement meetings relating to new business; and • On-boarding of two new PSBs clients for Employee Services.

Stakeholder engagement: • Supported 10 meetings of the NSSO’s Employee Services Customer (ESCG) stakeholder Group.

Awards: • ‘Highly commended’ award in the category of ‘Shared Services Centre of the Year’ at the 2021 annual awards of the Customer Contact Management Association.

Customer Action Plan The NSSO’s Customer Action Plan was published in September 2021 and reflects the findings of two inter-linked surveys conducted by the NSSO: • one with local HR units in the PSBs to which the NSSO delivers joint employee services; and • a broader online customer-level survey, issued to c. 36,000 individual customers of the NSSO and which achieved a response rate of 25%. The Customer Plan is wide-ranging, with 60 commitments refel cting the range of the NSSO’s current and future ambition. The commitments are ‘pitched’ at both the client and individual customer service levels. Stretch targets are called out and named business owners included. It is not static and refel cts the NSSO’s role as a customer-focused, innovative and learning organisation. Regular progress updates will be reported on and, by the end of 2021, close to 42% of actions had been completed.

Customer Service: • Launch of the NSSO’s Customer Action Plan (CAP); • 24% reduction in formal customer complaints over 2020;

Complaints Received

230

139

72 55

Annual Report 2021

Data Governance: Quality management within the NSSO is a systematic approach consisting of processes, procedures and standards for ensuring the delivery of service excellence and continuous improvement for our clients. In 2021 the CRSS Quality Management team completed the following;

Data Protection: The NSSO recognises its duty of care to its client organisations and their staff, and accords personal data the utmost confidentiality and security. During 2021, Data Protection continued to be a regular item on the NSSO’s Management Board agenda and that of its senior management team.

• performed 19,873 independent quality checks – an increase of 5% over 2020;

• During 2021, all staff were provided with Data Protection training and regular updates on data protection were also provided by the Data Protection Team to team leaders in the operational areas.

• assisted HR and Payroll Services in attaining a quality achievement rating of 96.66% and 96.30%, respectively;

• conducted 72 separate data audits for PSBs while initiating a further 17 such before year-end, with over 51,000 discrepancies identified; and

• The overall total all-type data breach figure for 2021 is 101, down 32% on the 2020 figure.

• Subject Access Requests: 42 were received in 2021, compared to 30 in 2020 and 55 in 2019. As a data processor, the NSSO works closely with the data controllers (Departments/Offices) in the management and processing of these.

• worked closely with all operational areas in the conduct of the 2021 Office of Comptroller & Auditor General audit, to ensure that seamless co-ordination across all stakeholders.

Facilitating a seamless transfer of clients

An important work stream in the evolution of NSSO services has been to develop a standardised governance and risk framework to support, for example, the re-organisation of structures or functions for existing PSBs, or to support, guide and advise candidate PSBs which seek to avail of NSSO services.

In 2021 two further such projects were supported by the NSSO: the first being that for the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (D/FHERIS), and the second, that of the Data Protection Commission. Working closely with each PSB, and building on the experience gained from the 2020 phase, this was a successful example of end-to-end collaboration across the Employee Services Division and with partner Departments.

This framework enabled the NSSO to manage the largest, single transfer of staff (approx 700) that it had experience across the system and involving nine Departments/ Offices, following the establishment of the Government of the 33rd Dáil on 27 June 2020.

National Shared Services Office (NSSO)