LocationsEmployment Service of Sarajevo Canton
Through reforms to better assistance to the unemployed
December 7, 2022
Employment Service of Sarajevo Canton
Thanks to participation in the project "Strengthening the Integrity of Public Enterprises" (PEIP), which is financed by the Government of the Kingdom of Norway and implemented by UNDP in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Employment Service of the Canton of Sarajevo took a number of steps towards the reorganization and systematization of the work of the Service, strengthening the transparency and integrity of the institution and its employees, as and improving the process of internal controls and public procurement, said the director of the Service, Tomislav Martinović.
These and other measures implemented by the Service should ultimately lead to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of its work, refining the database of records as well as strengthening the advisory role in order to help people who are really looking for work to find a new employer, says Martinović.
Improved efficiency in the use of human resources is one of the key results achieved by the Service through participation in the PEIP project, according to Martinović:
„At the suggestion of consultants engaged through PEIP, we made a better systematization. In parallel and in accordance with the measures for business reorganization and the systematization of work measures, the Service also took steps towards introducing a system for monitoring and evaluating the performance of employees, such as preparing for the adoption of internal acts that regulate the way in which this is done, with a focus on defining tasks, the performance of which is expected from employees, especially managers of sectors and departments."
Furthermore, Martinović states that through digitization, automation and reorganization, the Service wants to free up employees for other tasks, and the first step in that direction is the digitization of the process of registering unemployed persons as well as the municipal bureaus that keep records:
"When a person loses their job we want them to visit our website where the steps they need to take will be clearly explained, and to immediately register on the website and upload the necessary documents to us. The system assigns them an appointment, and they come at that time. We have already saved a lot of time with this."
"We accommodate people's needs without burdening our resources."Tomislav Martinović, Director of the Employment Service of the Sarajevo Canton
"Another thing is that the requests of people who are registered at the bureau and who need confirmation that they are at the bureau, some institution they turn to and that requires them to confirm withdraws the same from our system. For example, "Social" enters our database and takes a certificate, as we do now with the Tax Administration. We want the bases to communicate with each other and to check each other," explains Martinović.
However, there are certain obstacles in practice for this exchange of data, but Martinović is convinced that there is a will and a way to solve it:
"When we free up some of the people involved in record-keeping, we will transfer them to advisory roles. Currently, we have 19 people in these positions, and our goal is to have 50. We need to work on organizing these roles, build our capacity, and delve into databases to start working based on them."
The key thing for the Service to be able to increase the number of people who find a new job through it is to determine the status of the unemployed, says Martinović.
„Many are at the bureau because they derive some other rights from it. For example, social benefits, disabled people and their benefits, combatants and their benefits. Another reason is health insurance. We are the only ones in the region who have not resolved the issue of health insurance. There is a way around this. We don't want to jeopardize anyone's acquired rights, but we are going to do it in a different way."
"We are spending too many of our resources, and the results are not significant."Tomislav Martinović, Director of the Employment Service of the Sarajevo Canton
Before and during the pandemic, the Service had 64,000 people registered as unemployed, but that number is now lower.
"You can't work with 56,000 registered unemployed people because that's not a real number. I think it's somewhere around a third or a little more than that number, 18,000-20,000. We sort people who are really looking for a job and work with them. We have launched a unit for relations with employers and are constantly analyzing and surveying employers. We are looking at what are the industries where we can employ people," says Martinović.
Furthermore, in order to strengthen the system of internal controls and the strengthening of the Internal Audit Department, the PEIP project supported the preparation of an analysis of the work of the Internal Audit Department, after which a strategic internal audit plan for the next period was drawn up and adopted by the Service.
"We went through the internal audit system, which we completely reorganized. We created a Strategic Internal Audit Plan 2022-2024, which is no longer pro forma, but is essentially adapted to our needs," says Martinović and adds:
"We made the public procurement system more transparent and created a new regulation that is much more functional. Although public procurement represents the biggest challenge for the public sector, through cooperation with UNDP we have adjusted the regulations and documents concerning public procurement."
"We have strengthened the capacities of employees dealing with public procurement, aiming to make these tasks more transparent and functional."Tomislav Martinović, Director of the Employment Service of the Sarajevo Canton
The service has also introduced a new mechanism to deal with one of the biggest challenges.
"We had a problem regarding the public procurement procedure in the selection of an external auditor and we could not implement it at all", says Martinović, but adds that this problem should be solved now.
When it comes to the transparency of the work of the Service, a policy on the disclosure of assets and income of the holders of executive functions in the Service has been drafted and adopted by the Service. In addition to the fact that this is a legal obligation in the KS, the Service took a step further and adopted such a document.
Participation in the PEIP project has led to the improvement of the overall transparency of the work of the service, assessment of business methods and practices, and improvement of access to the publication of information, according to Martinović. Also, an integrity plan of the Service was adopted with identified risks as well as measures and a plan for risk management in the Service.
"Given that through the PEIP project we managed to do some key things with the aim of strengthening good management and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the Service, thank you to the Government of the Kingdom of Norway and UNDP for their support and quality cooperation," concludes Martinović.
Tomislav Martinović, Director of the Employment Service of the Sarajevo Canton