Customer service for injured federal workers lagging

Busy signals, unanswered telephones, wrong numbers, long hold times, inaccessible voice mail boxes and disconnected calls are just some of what injured federal workers encounter when they try to contact the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, according to a new General Accounting Office study released Tuesday at a congressional hearing.

The hearing, held to address questions about customer communications at OWCP, focused on the results of the study, "Office of Workers' Compensation Programs: Goals and Monitoring Are Needed to Further Improve Customer Communications"(GAO-01-72T), which detailed varying service levels in OWCP district offices. GAO made 2,400 calls to OWCP's 12 district offices trying to get the information injured federal workers might want when contacting the agency.

"The extent to which we were unable to access district offices' telephone systems on our 2,400 calls ... ranged from 0 percent in Boston to 54 percent in Jacksonville," the report found. "The rates at which we were unable to reach any employee within five minutes ranged from 13 percent to 97 percent of the calls."

GAO was unable to reach an OWCP employee in 97 percent of calls to Jacksonville, 86 percent of calls to Dallas and 80 percent of calls to New York.

"I can't understand why it's so difficult to answer a telephone," Rep. Bill Barrett, R-Neb., said during the hearing.

OWCP has weathered much criticism for its record in administering the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA), which allows workers to apply for disability and medical benefits for workplace injuries.

OWCP's heavy caseload has been the source of many of its customer service problems, according to OWCP Deputy Director Shelby Hallmark. The agency deals with approximately 250,000 injured workers annually, and each of the agency's employees handles between 8,000 and 9,000 calls per year.

During Tuesday's hearing, Hallmark appealed to the members of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections on behalf of the agency, telling them that more resources and training must be provided to improve customer service.

"Our goal is not to make marginal improvements, but to make breakthroughs in how we perform customer service," Hallmark testified. "Even if we don't get the budget request we will continue to provide service in these areas, but world class service will continue to elude us."

According to the study, officials at five district offices said there were too few employees to both answer the phones and handle claims.

"It's not because we've got poor employees with bad attitudes, we've got a good workforce that needs sufficient support, training and equipment," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif. "We can't just keep yelling at these people 'Do a better job!' and not give them the training and equipment that they need."

GAO recommended that OWCP establish goals for telephone and written communications, collect credible performance data on those goals and use the performance data to improve weaknesses.