It is the first time such a service is offered in the Greek Public sector. It was a communication channel with population groups (unemployed persons and businesses) even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is innovative is that the channel facilitates the access to employment counselling services provided by the Public Employment Service via teleconference with the simultaneous provision of interpretation (in 14 languages as well as sing language/ lip reading).

This way DYPA approaches vulnerable social groups while respecting their cultural background and personal needs.

The channel interoperates with the existing information infrastructure. The sessions are held regularly on a weekly basis. Booking is done online by the citizens.

From the beginning of the new service regular feedback meetings are held with the Employment Counsellors who offer this service in order to constantly improve and evolve it.

At the same time systematical user satisfaction measurement is performed with the use of an automated questionnaire all participants receive one hour after their scheduled appointment.

From the results so far both the citizens’ and businesses’ response is deemed particularly favourable.

The DYPA and General Secretariat of Information Systems teams collaborated for the development and establishment of the action as well as the implementation of the users’ training (i.e. DYPA employment counsellors).

Contracts with universities and providers of interpretation services were signed to develop the employment counseling service to the registered unemployed with the provision of interpretation.

This application offers advantages to unemployed persons registered with DYPA and businesses to which remote counselling services are provided from specialised employment counsellors. Additionally vulnerable social groups or persons of different nationalities who do not speak Greek are also benefited by the application. This way they access to DYPA counselling services via teleconference with simultaneous provision of interpretation in selected languages as well as sing language/lip reading.

The permanent citizen satisfaction measurement mechanism in place (with the use of an automated short questionnaire) registers a high satisfaction rate. In particular in a 5 degree scale of satisfaction rate (completely, very much, moderately, slightly, not at all) 87% of the unemployed persons and 88% of the employers state that they are completely or very satisfied with the service.

The pandemic gave rise to establishing new services more accessible to citizens/ customers of DYPA.

The restrictions imposed made it difficult for the citizens to visit the local PES offices in person which in turn was a first class opportunity to develop a new digital communication channel.

Furthermore, vulnerable social groups and citizens of different nationalities facing difficulties in dealing with DYPA benefited greatly from the new offered services and the new method of communication with specialised officers.

Moreover, an important challenge was the possibility to hold a teleconference in the work place (inside the PES office) especially due to the fact that there was no especially arranged/ isolated space, without noise given the fact that offering internet services requires satisfactory spatial conditions. This issue was resolved when the competent officers were allowed to work from home.

The success factors for this particular innovation focus on the following

• Clear target setting
• Constant communication and feedback between the officers providing the service and the action’s coordinators
• Update of all the involved parties and other directorates within DYPA to eliminate the reactions/ resistance to change.
• Dissemination of the results to all levels of the hierarchy and communicating all successes even the most insignificant.

Providing services via teleconference was extended in another DYPA service, now it is possible to update data in the Registry with the provision of interpretation according to the consulting service with interpretation standard.

Knowhow transfer pertained to: the methodology of the initial briefing, recruiting, fund management and the training process of the DYPA staff.

At the same time the new digital communication channel was extended and adopted by other public institutions in Greece.

The new procedure led to important conclusions which are a reference point for the next actions. These are the following:

The significance of constant and multifaceted monitoring was highlighted

Feedback should be received from all involved parties and any change/ improvement should be based on it.

Care should be paid in connecting every innovation with existing procedures in order for the citizen to perceive every change as an single, improved service.