Case History: Financial Services Ombudsman

Posted Thu, 03/05/2009 - 20:58 by admin

fsombudsman

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 MultiTime first learned about the Bureau’s emerging interest in the subject of flexible working hours, the organisation was in the process  of relocating.  They chose a centrally located city premises.

From experience, we have found that adopting flexible working hours and arrangements 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 particularly well in other ways, e.g.  

  • staff can choose to 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 of "change" 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. MultiTime thus pointed to :

  • the vast experience in the subject which we had built up over twenty five years
  • how we had built our reputation on recognizing the importance of taking into account the way each user organisation operates.

This is important, as our system can be applied in the most appropriate way in each case. Therefore,  the design of the system reflects this approach, whereby features, down to even the smallest feature, can be turned on or off, depending on needs.

This ensures that the customer ends up with a system that suits their own particular working time environment. The process which we have developed to achieve this is not complex, but it does take advantage of those many years in which we have been involved in implementing systems.

VisionTime

VisionTime is a Web Based Time System developed by Multitime.  VisionTime took several years to develop and as mentioned, is based on our 25 years experience in this specialised Flexible Working Hours environment. VisionTime is already in use in 500 sites in the UK and Ireland , including many government bodies - large and small. 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 to time and absence records - while Supervisors sign off such requests electronically. The overall automation keeps both Staff and Supervisors “in the frame”, and saves considerable time for the central administrators.

With the aid of the reports output in VisionTime , 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.