What does working competently mean as regards Task Management? It means several things, including, mastering the basics of the job and prioritizing daily tasks. Whether you are an establishment worker, enforcement, finance or in any other area of casework. In order to manage your workload efficiently it is important to develop skills and utilize the tools available to you, both your own personal tools as well as the ones provided to you by your team and CSS.
What Is Your Learning Style?
Before getting into the topics of mastery of the basics and prioritization of tasks, it is important that you identify your personal learning style. Are you someone who can learn from being told a process or seeing it written out? Are you someone who learns by doing tasks for themselves with guidance? Do you have another style of learning? By identifying your personal learning style, you can assist your trainer and others in gearing their teaching to your unique needs.
Mastery of the Basics
Mastery of the basics includes, knowing the OSIS screens with which we work on a daily basis and the information those screens provide. This can seem daunting, since there are many screens to learn. One way to master this is to create mnemonic devices for yourself. These might include coming up with your own names for the screens (Although the names are listed at the top of each screen). Ex. You might differentiate DOCL from DOCSL by remembering DOCL is Document List and DOCSL is Document Service List. APEU is Absent Parent (NCP) Employer Update, CSXFRU is Child Support Transfer (XFR) Update.
Other great tools available to you for mastering the basics of your job are CS Quest and utilizing checklists that may be available in your office. CS Quest is a great tool that covers many, if not most, aspects of your job. You can find great articles on registration of foreign orders, the basics of building Arrears Calculations (A/Cs), articles on proper and professional communication, interviewing techniques, and many, many more topics that may be of interest to you in learning how to do the duties you have been assigned.
Learning to do good research is also very important. While learning screens and using checklists are great for ensuring you are not leaving things out, the screens can be daunting to a new Child Support Specialist. There are many items of data that are presented using codes (i.e. on the CCPU screen, if a Custodial Person is in non-cooperation for not returning needed documents, the NON-COOP REASON will be 05). You can utilize the OSIS Screens Cheat and Simulations article in CS Quest to learn what these codes mean. Be sure to be thorough in your research. It can be easy to miss credits that might need to be given for things like other children in a person’s home that is not on the case you are working, insurance premiums being paid, if Indian Health Services (IHS) is available for the child(ren), etc. This can sometimes mean looking at screens that may or may not show on the checklists you have available to you. Creating a personal notebook of additional screens and their functions can serve you as a quick reference guide to items and screens that may not have been covered in your training or are not on CS Quest (if there is not an article on CS Quest please use the contact button and suggest an article be added).
In addition to your own job duties, it can be very helpful to learn what other departments do and what information you might have access to from them. For example, learning what the Employer Service Center (ESC) does, and how you as a Child Support Specialist might be able to utilize their resources for locating parties, updating health insurance information, finding employers, adding employers to OSIS, among many other useful services. Other departments/divisions to learn about include AFS, CWS and the Center for Coordinated Programs. All of these (and many more) can be useful in both research as well as working other tasks you may have.
It is useful to keep emails, especially those that address items you know you will likely need guidance on in the future. Creating an e-mail archiving system can make it easier to store your important emails and make it easier to find them should you need to reference them. Creating a folder system for this is very easy in Outlook. At the top of your Outlook application, there is a Folders Tab, from there you can create new folders and arrange them according to topic or by person from who you receive the e-mail. This will keep you from having to recover e-mails that haven’t been permanently deleted, as well as having to sift through received or sent emails in one general, “catch-all” location. While this may take some time to do in the short-term, it will help you work more quickly, accurately and efficiently in the future.
Our organization is built on relationships and partnerships, and you should work to build relationships with both your own team as well as partners outside of your office. At OKDHS, we all have the same goal of ensuring that all Oklahomans can live healthy, supported and productive lives. But each department may approach these goals in different ways. Building relationships outside of your office and outside of CSS can be beneficial in learning new methods of approaching your tasks as well as having a toolbox of resources at hand to assist customers with their needs.
Prioritization of Tasks
Prioritization of tasks and sticking to them is also very important. While this can be difficult with all that you have to do, fortunately there are a lot of tools at our disposal to help with this. Utilizing Planner, Outlook Calendar, or even a paper planner can help with planning your day and ranking tasks by level of importance or immediacy. It is also important to learn timeframes for each task you have received. For example, if you receive a CARE Follow Up, you must respond within 3 days. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out if you are struggling with this. We have a lot of resources at our disposal. This includes our PFRs, your supervisor or even other members of your Child Support Specialist team.
Prioritization also includes recognizing best practices and the best actions to take on your cases in various circumstances. For example, if you are looking at doing a contempt for non-payment, it is important to look at screens like HEARL to see if a Notice/Order of Child Support Lien (Annual Notice) or a modification has previously been done. If other enforcement actions such as those haven’t been done, it might be better to do one of those first, rather than pursuing an action that could potentially carry jail time for a Non-Custodial Person.
Ask Your Attorney
Lastly, but certainly not least, as a Child Support Specialist you have at your disposal your offices state attorney. They can help you to understand how your individual district office works the various type of actions within the basic context of statute and policy. Your attorney can be one of the single best resources for ensuring you are doing things in accordance with office practice, statewide policy and procedure, as well as State and Federal law.