A16
OREGON
East Oregonian
Employment
Department
hopes to fi x
phone mess
by year’s end
By MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
SALEM — A year into
the pandemic, and the steep-
est economic fall in Oregon
history, placing a phone call
to the Oregon Employment
Department remains an oner-
ous chore.
Jobless workers spend an
average of 70
minutes on
hold when
calling the
agency. Its
obsolete
comput e r s
keep spitting
out aut o - Gerstenfeld
mated letters
instructing laid-off Orego-
nians to call for help even
though they would likely
get a much quicker response
online.
“We recognize that we
need to make it easier for
people to get in touch with
us,” Acting Director David
Gerstenfeld said on his
weekly media call last week.
For the fi rst time, Gerstenfeld
set a target date for resolving
the phone mess.
By the end of June,
Gerstenfeld said the depart-
ment aims to answer 80%
of calls within 15 minutes.
And it aims to resolve
90% of online inquiries,
made through its “Contact
Us” form, within a week.
Currently, it resolves no more
than 21% of those online
contacts within seven days.
By year’s end, Gersten-
feld said Oregon wants to
return to its pre-pandemic
standard, answering 90%
of calls within 5 minutes.
Currently, only 15% of calls
are answered that quickly.
The department hopes
new hires, thorough training
and a gradual easing of the
economic crisis will enable it
to get on top of the situation
— albeit not for another nine
months.
The employment depart-
ment’s phone lines have been
a nightmare since the outset
of the pandemic.
Nearly 1 in 8 Oregon
workers lost their jobs in the
fi rst month of the pandemic,
260,000 altogether. In that
time, the state’s jobless rate
jumped from a historic low
of 3.6% to an all-time high of
13.2%.
Callers f looded the
employment department
seeking help with unem-
ployment benefi ts. The vast
majority of callers encoun-
tered only busy signals.
Those who did get through
spent an average of more than
three hours on hold, and even
then most calls were never
answered.
The huge volume of calls
was just part of the prob-
lem, though. The employ-
ment department and its
personnel struggled to adapt
to expanded jobless bene-
fits Congress authorized
in March 2020. The agen-
cy’s antiquated computer
system couldn’t keep up
either, sending out mislead-
ing or incorrect informa-
tion to unemployed workers
— adding to confusion and
fueling more calls.
T h e sit u a t io n h a s
improved somewhat in the
intervening year, but it’s far
from resolved since callers
typically spend more than an
hour on hold and many still
can’t get through at all.
The depar tment has
hired hundreds of person-
nel over the past year to
process claims and deal with
questions and comments.
Gerstenfeld said the depart-
ment now processes 99.9%
of new claims within three
weeks.
Faster processing doesn’t
always mean faster payments
— many claims require addi-
tional work — but it’s a big
switch from last spring, when
some claims were stuck in a
bureaucratic purgatory for
months at a time.
“We know we’re not yet
meeting the service levels we
need to, but we’re seeing real
improvements,” Gerstenfeld
said.
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Another rural-urban divide — remote working
By SUZANNE ROIG
The Bend Bulletin
BEND — Residents of
rural areas think working
from home is temporary and
as soon as the threat of the
pandemic ends, everyone will
return to the offi ce.
What’s more likely to
occur is increased fl ex time,
where work is split between
the office and home, said
Dan McCarthy, High Lakes
Health Care regional admin-
istrator. Post-pandemic,
McCarthy said, the company
that employs about 350 people
throughout Central Oregon
will still have remote workers.
“We found that a hybrid
approach that balances work
from home with offi ce hours
is something
that will be
here to stay,”
McCar-
thy said. “I
believe there
is something
lost when
Rosenberg
working
virtually 100% of the time.”
Working from home
misses checking in with each
other, developing a sense of
community and the dynamic
interaction of problem solv-
ing, he said. Virtual platforms
just don’t cut it.
McCarthy’s views mirror
about 601 people who were
surveyed March 5 to 10 as
part of the Oregon Values
and Voices project, a nonpar-
tisan charitable organization
that partnered with Pamplin
Media Group, EO Media
Group, which owns the East
Oregonian and Hermis-
ton Herald, and the Oregon
Values and Beliefs Center.
The survey consisted of
49 questions sent to a random
sample about changes
caused by COVID-19 that
will become permanent in
Oregon. This is the second
such survey orchestrated by
the group on the eff ects of
COVID-19.
In one question, 47% of
the people who live in rural
Oregon say they felt working
from home was only tempo-
rary, compared with 37% in
the Willamette Valley and
tri-county area around Port-
land who said it’s tempo-
rary. Since workers in urban
and suburban communities
are more likely aff ected by
congestion, their commute
times are longer, making
working from home more
attractive, said Adam Davis,
Oregon Values and Beliefs
Center co-founder.
“As a result of the corona-
virus and how it has aff ected
life at home and employment,
a strong majority of Orego-
nians feel more of us in the
future will work from home,”
Davis said. “This feeling is
shared across all population
subgroups with many feeling
the change will be perma-
nent.”
Cheri Rosenberg, Pendle-
ton Chamber of Commerce
CEO, said the small-town
feel has created a tight bond
between employee and
employer. The population of
Pendleton, according to U.S.
Census Bureau’s most current
estimates, was 16,733.
“Because we tend to have
a more personal relationship
between our employers and
employees, it’s a conversa-
tion we are able to have,”
Rosenberg said in an email.
“For those who are able and
prefer to work from home,
those steps are being taken.
For those who are ready to
get back into the offi ce, those
steps are being taken there as
well.
“We’re able to have the
best of both worlds due to the
ability to be very open and
candid with one another.”
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