In its establishment phase in early 1996, the CCMA took a strategic decision to be part of the "Information Age" and cast its eye globally in search of an electronic Case Management System (CMS) to manage its workload.
Despite looking at many electronic systems, there was nothing available that mirrored the requirements of the CCMA.
It was back to the drawing board and the CCMA was set the task of designing its own system which would incorporate the various legislation that it had jurisdiction over as well as the number of standard operating procedures and policies that were crafted to ensure that it delivered on its mandate.
A tall task was at hand and a group of South African resources was assembled to ensure that the system was ready before the CCMA opened its doors on 11 November 1996.
Fast forward to fifteen years later. The CCMA has continuously updated its CMS with the latest available technology and has, in the recent years, web-enabled the application to make it available to similar dispute resolution entities in the South African and SADC labour markets.
During this period, the CCMA has systematically integrated features such as the SMS and email notification to parties and created a fully integrated financial subsystem to process and manage commissioner and interpreter claims.
Since its inception, the CCMA has processed over 1.7 million cases, all of them recorded on the CMS. With its user friendly design, cases are processed with ease and speed.
Parties can contact the Call Centre to find out about the status of the case.
All Call Centre agents have access to national case related information and can provide the required data within minutes of the call being answered.
The CMS is not only used to process cases, but is used as an internal management tool to ensure that the CCMA resources are managed efficiently, while meeting its performance driven objectives.
The CMS is the primary vehicle in ensuring that the South African public has access to 'social justice' - one of the key objectives of the CCMA.
In the last while, this access has been extended to all Department of Labour (DoL) offices, where any person can visit their nearest DoL office to enquire about the status of their case.
In early 2012, the facility will be extended where people would be able to lodge their disputes at any DoL office and the CCMA will pick up the case electronically and process it in terms of its procedures.
It's about taking the CCMA services to the people and improving accessibility for those that ordinarily find it difficult to access CCMA.
In addition, some ten sectoral bargaining councils also use the CMS to process their cases. In 2012, all bargaining councils will be phased it to use the CMS.
The use of the CMS by more labour dispute resolution entities has resulted in a positive spin off - the CCMA has a minefield of data which is used to analyse trends in the labour market.
The Employment Promotions Programme (EPP) has played a significant role evaluating the CMS from a labour market research point of view.
The CMS is currently being enhanced to accommodate the recommendations of the EPP, which will cater for more in depth labour market research.
In the words of Arnold Zack (arbitrator from Harvard University), the CCMA's Case Management System is light years ahead of its time.
World Class Case Management System
In its establishment phase in early 1996, the CCMA took a strategic decision to be part of the "Information Age" and cast its eye globally in search of an electronic Case Management System (CMS) to manage its workload.
Despite looking at many electronic systems, there was nothing available that mirrored the requirements of the CCMA.
It was back to the drawing board and the CCMA was set the task of designing its own system which would incorporate the various legislation that it had jurisdiction over as well as the number of standard operating procedures and policies that were crafted to ensure that it delivered on its mandate.
A tall task was at hand and a group of South African resources was assembled to ensure that the system was ready before the CCMA opened its doors on 11 November 1996.
Fast forward to fifteen years later. The CCMA has continuously updated its CMS with the latest available technology and has, in the recent years, web-enabled the application to make it available to similar dispute resolution entities in the South African and SADC labour markets.
During this period, the CCMA has systematically integrated features such as the SMS and email notification to parties and created a fully integrated financial subsystem to process and manage commissioner and interpreter claims.
Since its inception, the CCMA has processed over 1.7 million cases, all of them recorded on the CMS. With its user friendly design, cases are processed with ease and speed.
Parties can contact the Call Centre to find out about the status of the case.
All Call Centre agents have access to national case related information and can provide the required data within minutes of the call being answered.
The CMS is not only used to process cases, but is used as an internal management tool to ensure that the CCMA resources are managed efficiently, while meeting its performance driven objectives.
The CMS is the primary vehicle in ensuring that the South African public has access to 'social justice' - one of the key objectives of the CCMA.
In the last while, this access has been extended to all Department of Labour (DoL) offices, where any person can visit their nearest DoL office to enquire about the status of their case.
In early 2012, the facility will be extended where people would be able to lodge their disputes at any DoL office and the CCMA will pick up the case electronically and process it in terms of its procedures.
It's about taking the CCMA services to the people and improving accessibility for those that ordinarily find it difficult to access CCMA.
In addition, some ten sectoral bargaining councils also use the CMS to process their cases. In 2012, all bargaining councils will be phased it to use the CMS.
The use of the CMS by more labour dispute resolution entities has resulted in a positive spin off - the CCMA has a minefield of data which is used to analyse trends in the labour market.
The Employment Promotions Programme (EPP) has played a significant role evaluating the CMS from a labour market research point of view.
The CMS is currently being enhanced to accommodate the recommendations of the EPP, which will cater for more in depth labour market research.
In the words of Arnold Zack (arbitrator from Harvard University), the CCMA's Case Management System is light years ahead of its time.
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