66112 December 2011 – Number 51 Accelerating Reform within Iraq’s National Board of Pensions Ghassan Alkhoja, Basma Ammari, and Daniel Manitsky1 rather rigid silos that made collaboration and teamwork across the organization more difficult. Introduction: The Iraqi National Board of Pensions Many of the organization’s day-to-day procedures (NBP) has the responsibility of overseeing the old- were decades old and did not fully leverage the new age and disability pensions of public and private technologies that were being introduced into the sector workers across the country. For the last organization. Finally, the organization was not several years, the NBP has been implementing an taking the time to cultivate the management skills of ambitious and far-reaching program of reform and middle and front-line staff. renewal. Among the reform program’s key goals are to 1) significantly expand the number of Iraqis The Rapid Results Approach: In an effort to contributing to, and benefitting from, the Board’s address these concerns, and upon the various social protection programs and 2) ensure the recommendation of the World Bank, the Chair of the financial sustainability of these programs by NBP decided to introduce the Rapid Result transitioning from a reliance on general revenues to Approach2 as a supplement to the on-going reform self-financing through enrollee contributions. efforts. Working with consultants trained by the Rapid Results Institute, the NBP, with support from Government of Iraq and World Bank PRISTA launched two rounds of Rapid Results Collaboration: At the Request of the Government of Initiatives (RRIs). Iraq, in 2009 the World Bank began providing technical assistance to support the implementation Accelerating “First Payments�: The first round of of the Unified Pension Law, the legislation codifying Rapid Results Initiatives (RRIs) consisted of three the NBP’s reform agenda, through the Pension teams, each with its own 100 day goal. The Reform Implementation Support Technical combined efforts of two of these teams reduced the Assistance Project (PRISTA). time needed to issue a first pension payment to new pensioners from an average of five months to an After several joint review meetings, the World Bank average of one day. Initially, these efforts focused and NBP realized that, while the more technical only on the largest unit within the NBP’s main aspects of the organization’s reform program were branch- “Civil Section I.� However, as part of the running relatively well, “softer� changes were not second round of RRIs, two other teams took the taking place. The management culture within the innovations and new processes developed by Round organization was still overly bureaucratic and top- I teams, and applied them to the 2nd and 3rd largest down, despite the leadership’s efforts to delegate units within the NBP, “Military� and “Civil Section more authority to lower-level staff. Additionally, as II�. These RRIs achieved similar results, successfully with most large organizations, staff worked within 2 The Rapid Results Approach was first developed by Schaffer 1 Consulting, LLC (www.schafferresults.com) to accelerate change Ghassan Alkhoja is Senior Operations Office at Middle East and North Africa Human Development Department of the World in Fortune 500 companies. It was adapted for use in international Bank. Basma Ammar and Daniel Manitsky are Rapid Results development efforts by the Rapid Results Institute consultants. The Quick Note was cleared by Sector Manager (www.rapidresults.org). Roberta Gatti. reducing processing time to less than a day, over a collected complete information on 550,000 99% reduction in time. government employees and 48,000 private sector employees during the first round. Team members Moreover, since the end of the 100 day RRIs, each report that this represented a 50 percent increase in unit has processed 100 percent of applicants in less the rate of collection and sufficient for purposes of than a day. Based on this continued performance, as actuarial and financial forecasting. well as the fact that new processes have been codified and adopted as standard operating Not wanting to stop there, during the second round, procedure, team members have few worries about the NBP launched another team focused on data sustaining results over the long term. collection. This team however, did not focus on a “one shot� campaign to collect as much information Having set a new benchmark for performance, NBP as possible. Instead, they decided to take the leaders developed a strategy for scaling the new innovations developed by the first data collection payment system to the one remaining unit of the team and weave them into a system of continual main branch, as well as the organization’s regional data-collection within the Ministries of Health offices. These will be integrated into a third round (MoH) and Education (MoE). Specifically, the team of RRIs. Because each team’s hard work established focused on ensuring that 75 percent of applications positive proof that a new level of performance is coming from the Ministry of Education and Ministry possible, NBP’s senior managers expect a relatively of Health contain a complete data set, and that a easy time getting the rest of the organization on complete database on 100 percent of MoE and MoH board with the new payment system. employees is established. This target was achieved within 120 days. Ramping up Data Collection: In this first RRI round, a separate team focused on significantly To achieve this, the team developed an intensive accelerating the pace at which demographic and and creative training and advocacy program within salary data on government employees was being each ministry. Additionally, they worked closely collected and entered into the organization’s with key personnel from each ministry to identify database. Without this data, the NBP could not process breakdowns and gaps in communication make accurate actuarial or financial projections, a that were preventing a more robust flow of key to maintaining the organizations sustainability. information. Other key innovations included: While a group of dedicated NBP staff had been working passionately on this issue for 12 months,  New Mandate: With the assistance of the NBP’s they had only been able to collect information on a Chairman, the team convinced the Council of small percentage of individuals. This fell well short Ministers to issue a mandate requiring all of the number needed for relatively accurate Ministries to create a pension unit within their forecasts. organizations. These pension units would work “upstream� to ensure that pension applications Using the Rapid Results Approach, Senior Leaders are provided to the NBP in complete form to created a multi-functional team from appropriate allow for faster processing. offices across the organization, and challenged this team to collect as much data as possible in a short  Revised documentation requirements: The period of time. Additionally, they laid out the team reduced and standardized documentation expectation, and secured permission for the team to requirements after realizing that the NBP’s try new ideas and approaches to the task at hand. standards were out of date and varied across This created an environment that allowed the team to experiment, innovate and engage in independent, units. As part of this effort, the team created a proactive decision- making. manual that was distributed to pension officers. They also undertook similar efforts to train NBP Within 120 days, the team developed, tested and staff on the revised standards. implemented a host of creative methods of working with public and private sector organizations to collect accurate employee data. In total, the team December 2011 · Number 51 · 2  Improved/Revised Form 1: After speaking with  94 percent felt a significant increase in pension officers in counterpart organizations, accountability for results within the the team realized that the data entry form was organization  85 percent felt a significant improvement in too complicated. As such, the form was revised. cross unit collaboration  94 percent put a greater focus on ambitious  External Communications: The team also results in their work-plans than they used to significantly improved its communication with in previous work-plans pension officers, not only using traditional methods (e.g., pamphlets) but also exchanging While these survey results are not scientific, they do email addresses and phone numbers. Team indicate a significant shift in organizational culture members now routinely communicate with and the expectations that staff have of themselves and of each other. pension officers, answering questions and following-up on problematic cases. A Focus on Institutional Culture Change: According to 1st and 2nd round team members, the While gaps in existing files have been filled, and the Rapid Results program produced changes that go rate of incoming files with incorrect data has been beyond process and policy innovations. The reduced, there is still a significant gap in the total program produced “soft� changes to the number of files for public sector employees. organization’s culture and staff’s capacity. These Currently, NBP staff estimate that they only have included the following: files for 50 percent of public-sector employees. In response, the team recommended continued work,  Improved internal communication and team with specific focus on ministries and Governorates where incoming data rates are lower. Additionally, work: Team members feel that work on the the team also suggested focused work on RRIs helped improve their team work within developing a similar system of outreach and and across units in the NBP. Additionally, they communication for the private sector pension now feel more comfortable interacting with staff scheme. from other units within the organization. As one team member put it “we now work together The “Soft� Changes: The Rapid Results work regardless of department affiliation. I can now go to reveals a surprising revelation: An effective way of creating the “soft� changes needed for long-term Legal, Military, Accounting or the Director improvements in performance is to focus staff on the General’s offices when I need to.� Others described achievement of short-term ambitious results. the work atmosphere as “more intimate� and Evidence for this is seen in the survey of NBP staff “more like family.� involved in the Rapid Results work. Among the 34 staff surveyed, all of whom had a significant role in  Improved comfort with computers and the IT efforts to achieve rapid results: system: The increased integration of computers  91 percent improved their team work skills in the NBP’s systems has led many staff  100 percent improved their creative members to begin using computers routinely for thinking/problem solving skills the first time. According to senior managers,  97 percent increased their self-confidence to this change has gone relatively smoothly since perform daily duties and to face challenges staff felt inspired by the RRIs to change their at the workplace work patterns.  100 percent felt an improvement in the effectiveness and efficiency of the  Improved Confidence: It is not just staff organization in areas targeted by the Rapid members expressing improved confidence in Results teams their own abilities and those of their colleagues. As one senior manager stated that, before the December 2011 · Number 51 · 3 RRIs “we thought some staff were asleep and Contact MNA K&L: unmotivated . . .[but after the RRIs]… we realize that Laura Tuck, Director, Strategy and Operations. MENA Region, The World Bank staff have many solutions and lots of energy.� Regional Quick Notes Team:  Improved Morale: Several members of the Omer Karasapan, , Roby Fields, and Hafed Al-Ghwell “Arrears� teams stated morale in their unit is Tel #: (202) 473 8177 much higher because they can see the results of The MNA Quick Notes are intended to summarize lessons learned the work (payments to pensioners) within a day. from MNA and other Bank Knowledge and Learning activities. The Notes do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, Moving forward, the NBP has developed a “Scale- its board or its member countries. Up and Sustainability� agenda, and is now preparing for the launch of a third round of RRIs, to take place December 2011 in Amman, Jordan. This latter effort will focus mainly on scaling up the results achieved to Governorate pension offices. December 2011 · Number 51 · 4