While the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission (OESC) was already planning a technology upgrade, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed just how dated the unemployment claims system was. On Tuesday, OESC announced a new technology upgrade plan that should be completed in 18 months.
“Considering the constraints that come with 40-year-old technology, we are incredibly proud of the work we’ve been able to accomplish during this pandemic,” said Shelley Zumwalt, executive director of OESC. “We have made significant progress in streamlining the processes now, but there is much more work to be done. This digital transformation project will help OESC process claims quickly and help get Oklahomans the money they need.”
Some of the work on OESC’s systems began in recent months. The goal is to finish the upgrade by the end of the first quarter of 2022.
Zumwalt says this will improve on the previous technology rollout plan.
“We are focused on people first,” Zumwalt said. “That’s why we’ll be working hard over the next several months to ensure our systems and processes are up-to-date and meet the demands we’re seeing today. This plan is ambitious and aggressive, but way overdue. The previous technology modernization plan, the 5/39 Plan, was created pre-pandemic and did not anticipate the needs that arose with the pandemic. We’re looking at this transformation and its requirements from the viewpoint of what we have learned from the past six months and we have reworked the previous technology plan to meet the greater need of the state’s citizens for OESC services.”
Zumwalt hopes this will give the agency the ability to handle another tidal wave of unemployment claims in the future should the need arise.
“Our goal for our digital systems is to create something that is sustainable, supportable, scalable, standardized, and user-friendly,” Zumwalt said. “We want to build something to last.”
