Case History: Financial Services Ombudsman

SYSTEM: VISIONTIMEWEB

INTRODUCTION

The Financial Services Ombudsman is a statutory body which  deals independently with unresolved complaints from consumers about their individual dealings with all financial service providers.   When FlexTime first learned about the Bureau’s emerging interest in the subject of flexible working hours, the organisation were in the process  of relocating.  They chose Lincoln Place which is quite centrally located in Dublin city.

From experience, we have found that flexible working hours assists organisations when in “change mode”, in this case a change of working location.  Thus, by being able to choose travel at times that suit them, it helps staff to make the best of a new working location. Equally, with flexible working hours,  a centre city location works well in other ways, e.g.  

• staff can take a longer lunch break on some days to take advantage of the wealth of shops and utilities on offer
• staff can self regulate other times of the working day which can suit having proximity to libraries, museums while even allowing an easier ability to access evening courses  

So, it was against this backdrop that we began our discussions with the Bureau. An early appreciation was that while flexible working hours is a staff benefit, it should not be at the expense of operational efficiency. FlexTime thus pointed to the vast experience in the subject which we had built up over twenty five years and how we had built our reputation on recognizing the importance of taking into account the way each user organization operates.

This is important, so that our system can be applied in the most appropriate way in each case. In this way, the design of the system reflects this approach, whereby features, down to the smallest component, can be turned on or off, depending on needs. We therefore try to ensure that the customer ends up with a system that suits their own particular working time environment. The process we have developed and use to arrive at this, with the customer is not complex, but does take advantage of those many years in which we have been involved in implementing systems.

VisionTimeWeb

VisionTimeWeb is a Web Based Time System developed in Ireland by Flextime.  VisionTimeWeb took several years to develop and as mentioned, is based on our 25 years experience in this specialised Flexible Working Hours environment. VisionTimeWeb is already in use in 500 sites in Ireland and the UK, including many government bodies. Ask for user list.

After a period of discussions, the Bureau introduced flexible working hours and now staff exercises flexibility while keying in/out and looking up their own records at PCs. All updates to time and absence records are now electronic. Thus, Staff input their own updates - while Supervisors sign off such requests electronically. The overall automation keeps Staff and Supervisors “in the frame”, and saves considerable time for the central administrators. With the aid of the reports output in VTWeb, allied to the self –service nature of the system - it is now easy to manage the overall usage of the flexi concept for both staff and management.

We now look forward to bringing new ideas and functionality to The Financial Services Ombudsman’s Bureau as they emerge.