2005 C.I.P.A. Winners

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Régie des rentes du Québec

RRQ's Intranet: A Service for Employees

The Régie des rentes du Québec is a government agency created in 1965. Its mission is to contribute to the financial security of Quebecers at retirement, to indemnify them in the event of disability or death, and to provide financial assistance if they have dependent children. The Régie is responsible for the application of the Act Respecting the Québec Pension Plan, the Supplemental Pensions Plans Act, and the Act Respecting Family Benefits.

The Régie has 1,228 employees working in nine regional service centres. It manages a budget of $124 million and is the fiduciary of a $23-billion fund administered by the Caisse de depot et de placement du Québec, a fund that pays almost $7.5 billion in benefits each year.

Challenge

In keeping with management guidelines established by the Quebec government, the Régie needed to create an intranet site both useful and used -- a portal that would be easy to navigate and update, that integrated 43 existing intranet sites and that offered a comprehensive range of services to support employee professional and social life.

• For users, the portal needed to be reorganized, to be personalized and simpler to navigate.
• For site managers, a standard template was needed to facilitate creation and updating of well-planned and uniform sites.

Objectives

The overhaul was intended to confirm the intranet as the preferred provider of operational support, as mentioned in the Plan directeur en gestion du personnel, or government employee management guidelines, with the following objectives:

To provide employees an easy-to-use tool for communication, knowledge-sharing and operational support;

• To encourage personal development;
• To offer site managers a user-friendly toolbox that facilitates updating and development;
• To help optimize the contribution of employees to organizational performance.

Solution

The new intranet incorporates simplified navigation tools that make it easier and faster to manage and use. Implemented between June 2003 and March 2004, it has produced impressive productivity improvements. The Régie estimates that search time by employees has been reduced by 28 per cent.

Benoît Fecteau, director of the Direction des systèmes d'information, Régie des Rentes du Québec, says, "The overhaul of our intranet site has helped to optimize the contribution of our employees to the government performance in a unique way, by supporting them in the role they must play in the modernization process and in enhancing service delivery to Québec citizens."

The intranet circulates communiqués from managers and provides access to a management dashboard, ministry publications, studies, Web sites of interest and many more resources. As an operational support tool, the intranet offers innovative functions such as an automated system for meeting-room reservations, a classified ads system, a traffic light indicating real-time computer problems, and an extranet dedicated to the board of directors.

As a preferred communication tool, the site provides direct access to reference documents that employees need to perform their duties, including laws, regulations, work procedures, forms and self-training modules. As a personal development tool, it provides easier access to government job listings and sites dedicated to employee social life.

Statistics confirm that employees have adopted the intranet as a work tool. Site visits climbed to 742,000 in 2004 from 642,000 in 2003, and surveys show that satisfaction levels have increased.

The home page uses dynamic information updating functions. It is refreshed more quickly and only as needed, thus limiting needless server requests. Site managers report that they spend 20 per cent less time performing management duties.

The Web tool used to manage communiqués from managers makes adding news as easy as adding a paragraph to a text. Management of the communiqués is then assumed by the system in chronological order with automatic archiving. Managers' time spent on these communications -- adding, removing, archiving -- has been cut by 50 per cent.

The project was developed and implemented by Régie staff, with more than 50 people involved.

Innovative Use of Technology

The Régie's innovation resides in its capacity to reuse, improve and integrate existing technologies.

Content in its raw form can be easily reused in any application. Site managers modify menus and create headlines directly using Internet Explorer, instead of dedicated software.

The technology that supports home page programming respects specifications and guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), thus simplifying page maintenance, reducing loading time and rendering interpretation by other browsers more effective.

A 2005 CIPA Winner!

For its exceptional and innovative application of information technology to solve real-world business problems and bring greater benefit to all its stakeholders, Régie des rentes du Québec has been awarded a Silver Award of Excellence from the 2005 Canadian Information Productivity Awards in the Efficiency and Operational Improvements Not For Profit category.

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