Phone-in system helping unemployed file quickly

Shaunta Grimes

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1999 | 9:01 a.m.

After a rocky start the state's new phone-in system for filing unemployment claims in Clark County is now allowing unemployed people to get their checks on time.

Since a new voice-activated system was installed in June, the speed of filing a claim has improved steadily, Sandy Sisson, unemployment insurance and operations manager, said. Now all unemployed people are able to file a claim in the first week after losing their job.

When the local offices of the Nevada Employment Security Division changed to an all-telephone filing system in March, users complained that they could not get through on the lines for weeks at a time. And there was no way to file in person.

A stream of complaints led officials of the local offices to pay the claims of April and May retroactively and to install the voice-activated system to take information such as name, address and Social Security number while the caller is on hold.

Automatic pop-up screens that display the information gathered by the voice-activated response unit were also added in June, Sisson said, along with 14 work stations that gave the 34 full-time and two part-time operators more space to get their work done. Now the average time it takes to file a claim is 45 minutes on Monday, the heaviest day, and 20 minutes on Friday, the lightest day, she said.

Some callers still may not be able to get through on Monday and Tuesday, but they should be able to get through before the end of the week, Sisson said.

Before the new telephone system was installed in March, unemployed people needed 2 to 4 1/2 hours to file a claim. Then it took 10 to 15 days after the end of the week when a claim was filed for a check to be received. Today it takes less than an hour to file a claim and less than a week to receive the first check.

About 4 p.m. Wednesday there were 13 callers on hold for the English-speaking operators, with the longest wait time being 23 minutes, and there were no callers waiting for the Spanish-speaking operators.

Sisson said the goal of the Nevada Employment Security Division is to have wait times for an operator down to 10 minutes every day.

The improvements are a welcome change for Las Vegas legal secretary Carol Quinn, who was laid off last month and found herself applying for unemployment for the second time in two years.

In March 1998 Quinn, 31, used the old walk-in system and ended up spending 5 1/2 hours at the unemployment office at H Street and Owens Avenue, she said.

When she was laid off on Sept. 10, Quinn used the unemployment division's new call-in system.

She said she called the line three or four times each day from Sept. 13 to Sept. 15 with no success but got through on her first call on Sept. 16, a Thursday.

Quinn said any frustration she felt was nothing compared with spending more than five hours waiting in an unemployment office.

"I waited from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. for a meeting that took 20 minutes," Quinn said.

She was on the telephone a total of about 20 minutes when she got through to the telephone system.

The phone-in system also has changed the look of the area's unemployment offices. They are now more like employment agencies, said Moe James, chief field officer.

Operating as Nevada's Job Link, the four offices offer employee and employer services such as a job board, access to the Internet, free use of fax and copy machines, help with resume writing and computer tutorial programs, James said.

"We are training people to conduct their own job search," he said.

The Maryland Parkway Job Link office receives 500 to 600 visitors weekly, Franklin Whitlow, the office's manager, said.

Before the telephone system came on line, most of the people who came to the office were looking for a check, he said. Now 98 percent of the people who come in are looking for employment.

Whitlow said it takes a serious job seeker using the services an average of about five days to find a entry-level employment.

Quinn plans to test that claim for herself. She said she's going to use the employment division's services to help find a new job.