Measuring and optimizing to be more efficient, the secret of success at Coopecaja

Digital transformation is advancing in companies, modifying their departments, procedures and communication methods. The optimization of time and human and economic resources is the obvious result. An unstoppable evolution accelerated by the pandemic in companies of all types, sizes and sectors. Banking, for example, is one of the sectors in which the implementation of software to digitize processes and services has developed the most.

The Challenge

An example of this is Coopecaja, founded in 1971 in Costa Rica as a small cooperative project that has grown to become in a few years one of the most solid and prestigious financial institutions in the Latin American country. Coopecaja has maintained a steady growth and in 2005 became the Costa Rican public sector workers' cooperative. The priority of this socially focused organization has always been to offer savings and credit services to its many members.

With the growth of the company, the volume of activity, personnel, procedures, documentation, etc., also increased. A generalized increase that was difficult to manage with traditional methods, and even more so under the teleworking modality. Until a year ago, the company lacked a system to measure the productivity and performance of its employees, which often resulted in not managing time in the best way. With the pandemic, telework was established and it is here where the Effiwork tool has proved to be of great help to the company. ?"With the arrival of the pandemic and remote working as a work modality in COOPECAJA, Effiwork is fundamental in the management to be able to measure the productivity of our collaborators."?, says María Mesén Román of Coopecaja.

The solution

After a thorough assessment of the situation, it was decided to implement Effiwork, the tool created to manage and measure people's productivity levels and to optimize time management.

?Here comes the change?, recalls Jorge Iván Arroyo Torres, a Coopecaja executive. Numerous tests confirmed that Effiwork was perfectly suited to Coopecaja's needs. Not only in terms of time management, but also in terms of out-of-office work, which required online information, since the company had increased the number of its remote workers to 160. "All employees involved in the same work are now constantly updated regarding the progress of the project", says María Mesén Román of Coopecaja.

The managers of the financial institution confirm that the employees have welcomed the tool with pleasure and interest, so that ?"their adaptation to the new system has been fast and smooth". This ease in the adoption phase has allowed the financial company to quickly extend the implementation of the system in all departments. ?"Previously, with the help of the Workmeter team, we had to carry out awareness-raising work in parallel to the pilot tests; prior awareness-raising work had been carried out together with the application of pilot tests. Constant communication and training of the work teams have been key to create and establish the company culture necessary for the efficient use of Effiwork"?, says María Mesén Román.

A great advantage for Coopecaja has been the integration of time and vacation tracking into the system, which helps the employee to manage them correctly so as not to harm individual and group results. There was some uncertainty at the beginning about how activity would be measured and what kind of information managers would have access to. "But everyone finally understood that this knowledge of all the work carried out in the entity would serve to improve their own work and the results of the entire workforce, which is a general benefit in the long term"?.

Results

One year after starting to work with the tool, Coopecaja confirms that it has saved a lot of useful work time in both project management and productivity measurement. Gone are the endless hours of employees and managers filling out spreadsheets and reports with data, which later had to be analyzed. Effiwork generates the reports and indicates the improvement path.

?Managers now have greater control and better manage the activities of their work teams, while employees are now aware of their level of productivity and can intervene to improve it. It is even the employees themselves who propose changes and adjustments to improve productivity. In this way, the time saved can be invested in other functions. And this is something that benefits both the employee and the company”, says Elizabeth Morales Rivera.

In short, through knowledge of productivity indicators, managers and employees can manage their time more efficiently, also identifying areas for improvement in the processes they manage.

The transformation is benefiting not only Coopecaja itself, but also its customers. According to Jorge Iván Arroyo Torres, "better and fuller attention translates into excellent quality service with the added bonus that it can be maintained over time".

Simple and successful experience

After the experience, Coopecaja is clear about the reasons why it recommends Effiwork for any business sector:

• It is functional and friendly.
• It allows to know the efficiency of the work of the work teams.
• It allows to obtain reports with which to make decisions.
• Allows adjustments to processes, areas and departments.
• The cost is reasonable and perfectly affordable.
• In today's circumstances, the measurement of teleworking equipment is essential and the tool provides it.

Thanks to Effiwork, the financial institution will be able to meet its objective of determining costs through the exhaustive knowledge that our tool provides with measurement and performance indicators. Knowing and measuring which, how, how much and by whom the company's various systems are being used is what it needed to complete the path to its goal.