Public Institution for Social Security - Essay Example

Public Institution for Social Security Case Study Introduction Public Institution for Social Security is an independent body, which is entitled with serving the government. Kuwait PIFSS operates a formal social security system that considers the social needs of all Kuwaiti nationals within the public sector as well as those in the private sector, professionals, artists, physicians, as well as all the individuals from Kuwaiti employed abroad. The Kuwaiti Government sets aside 40% of the whole pension contributions for allowances, which include retirement, family pensions, sickness, as well death. This paper is a case study of operations within PIFSS, particularly in the IT department. Background of PIFSS Kuwait started a pension scheme in1955, which was within the background of civil employment and retirement bylaws in the public sector. The initial independent decree for pensions was issued in a Decree No. (3) In 1960, and it was effected from 1 April 1960. This law covered all government employees, the civil servants as well as the military. The law was immediately followed by enactment of an independent law for pensions and securities for the military, which is in agreement with law no. (27) Of 1961. However, the law was enforced on 9/9/1961.The first complete and integrated law for social security was established on 1 October 1976, which was in accordance with the Amiri Law Decree No. (61) Of 1976. (The Public Institution For Social Security 2-8). The law enabled establishment of the PIFSS, which was supposed to aid in the implementation of the law, which offers security covers for the following: a) Old-age, different forms of sickness, disability, as well death insurance for the civilians working in the public division and those employed in the private as well as oil sectors. b) Insurance for work injury. c) Old-age, illness, death, as well as disability insurance for self-employed family members or other individual who may get sick. Role of PIFSS The current social security law in Kuwait provides security cover to all active citizens in the community notwithstanding their occupation. Additionally, the law offers security cover for employees employed by third parties in any sector. The law also covers the members of Municipal Council, National Assembly, mayors, as well as apprentices for work sponsors and the self-employed individuals inclusive of merchants, and free-lancers such as engineers, physicians, attorneys, salespersons, as well as Kuwaiti citizens working outside the country. In addition the social security scheme provides security cover for individuals practicing in other professions that are legitimately licensed by proficient authorities. (The Public Institution For Social Security 9-14). Kuwait social security law is mainly financed by contributions paid by three parties who include the insured persons, the employers, and the State Public Treasury. The information systems department in the institution has a substantial part in accelerating the development of PIFSS. Essentially, the systems department covers all the technical requirements for all the departments in the institution. Year after year, the systems department achieves several requests, investigations, as well as projects (The Public Institution For Social Security 6-12). Challenges Facing PIFSS and their Causes The Kuwait PIFSS is currently facing a number of challenges. Most PIFSS IT Department employees are old and will be retiring within the next five years. The PISS failed to do employee recruitment in the last eight years, which resulted in creation of a generation hence technological gap. About two years ago, the institution realized that they need a second row of employee who will be nurtured in future leaders of the institution. The institute is thus facing technological drawbacks since they do not offer frequent training to current employees. However, staff members of the systems department are required to be well trained and prepared for any unexpected changes, requests, or production problems that may arise in their course of duty. System engineers at PIFSS are specially faced by numerous challenges and obstacles. The language of programming in PIFSS mainly depends on COBOL language, which is an old and rough language that is not in common use these days. This gives the engineers an inane feeling, since they are more conversant with high and contemporary programming languages like Java, HTML, C++, .NET just to mention but a few. Another drawback is the duration of the training for new employees, which lasts for one month and is not enough for most employees to learn and use COBOL appropriately. Additionally, the business rules of the institution that employees are required to follow are not discussed or applied in the training course. This increases the work burden for the employees who have to dig deep into bulky documents to learn the rules of the different businesses or program. Due to this, everyone appears busy, and most have little or no time to check on the quality of the documentations. Additionally, some clients are moody and demanding. They keep changing their mind from time to time, which requires the employees to keep modifying the insurance forms to incorporate the new requests. This takes a lot of time and efforts from the employees. Moreover, the management of the IT department is not always supportive to the staff. On the contrary, they add more pressure on employees to finish the project before the deadline, hoping that such achievements would give the department a glorious reputation. Employees have no choice but to overwork themselves in order to finish the job assignments before the set time. Sometimes, the department heads are over-optimistic and employees end up being the victims of their unrealistic decisions. Managerial Challenges Another challenge is Kuwait management of PIFSS tendency to implement distressing security procedures on the mainframe such as prohibiting the employees to use any internet access tools on the same computer that has COBOL mainframe. Employees who may require using the internet have to add another computer in addition to the computer with the COBOL mainframe. The PIFSS management is also against any changes even if such changes are capable of improving their system. Actually, they prefer to use DB2 on the mainframe instead of Oracle database, which is more applicable to use. Oracle would make operations easier since it is flexible and is capable of supporting new high level languages such as java applications. The tendency of the superiors to underestimate most of the employees’ work demotivates the employees. They often argue that employee’s work does not meet an excellent working standard which is 60%. (The Public Institution For Social Security 54-60). Possible Solutions Employees at PIFSS should be given more training to arm them with relevant skills for their duties. The training should entail explanation of the company rules and regulations. The PIFSS should also ensure they advise the clients appropriately on how to make appropriate request to ensure that employees do not waste time redoing documentation. Additionally, it is more economical and convenient for PIFSS management to add verified security software in the COBOL mainframe computer to enable secure internet access. This would save the cost of adding another computer for each employee and make operations easier. Additionally, spreading of the data into multiple systems made it hard for me as well as other employees to access and merge information required in making decisions of working out something. The IT department supervisors should be patient and able to tolerate the employees who have to work under a lot of pressure. There is also need for the PIFSS to be more flexible and adopt new technologies. Future Anticipations PIFSS is trying to improve its service delivery by expanding activities in different geographical regions where they have opened branches particularly in remote areas. In addition, PIFSS has established a call centre to deal with clients' satisfaction issues as well as aid in diminishing burdens on the employees within the Service Delivery Department (The Public Institution For Social Security 44-50). Conclusion The Kuwait PIFSS IT department requires modification to improve the quality and work efficiency. The institution is facing technological challenges in that the information system being used, COBOL is not up to date. The supervisors also tend to overemphasize on quantity other than the quality of work.it is important that the management solves the technological challenges facing the employees to make their work easier. Works Cited The Public Institution For Social Security. The Social Security Guide in Kuwait. 2009. Web Read More