The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) regional office No. 1 in San Fernando, La Union had set up feedback boxes in its regional and field offices.to gauge public sentiment about DOLE programs and services and to strengthen consultation with its publics,
The move was in line with President Aquino’s good governance agenda of strengthening the process of consultation and feedback in a bid to enable government offices to respond more effectively and quickly to the public’s concerns.
DOLE Region 1 director Henry John Balbuena said that the regional office in San Fernando, La Union, as well as its field offices in Laoag (Ilocos Norte), Vigan (Ilocos Sur), Dagupan and Alaminos (Pangasinan); and Rosales (Pangasinan) have installed “feedback boxes” where the public can drop in comments, suggestions, and questions involving labor and employment concerns.
“This is the easiest and most convenient way to gather feedback,” Jalbuena said.
“The “feedback boxes” will be a depository of our clients’ sentiments about how we perform our job, and we will listen and act on these sentiments,” he said.
The DOLE official said this mechanism involves a two-way process: the receipt of the feedback from the public and the response that the DOLE will make to the feedback.
He said the process begins with an officer-of-the-day requesting all clients who come to the DOLE offices to fill out a form after transacting business and to drop it in a box intended for the purpose. The forms will be collected every day and acted upon quickly. Reporting will be done to the DOLE Central Office every 15 days.
“We will improve the system as we go along,” Jalbuena said, noting that the feedback mechanism is aimed at providing better services and quickly responding to clients’ concerns and needs.
Jalbuena assured the public that all concerns on labor and employment that needed to be brought to the attention of higher authorities will be communicated and all concerns actionable at the regional or field level will be immediately responded to.
“All responses to client concerns will be documented by our communication office, which will communicate them back to the clients and the general public for their information,” he said.
Aside from the feedback boxes, the DOLE regional office has also a website which provides a forum for public queries. Since the website operation started, Jalbuena said his office had been replying to at least 10 queries a month.
To allow for wider communication between the DOLE and the people, he said the regional office will soon use other media, like the short messaging system or text, where clients may send their questions or concerns to a designated specialized number.
“Ultimately, these communication channels will provide the people easy access to all our offices, enable them to know more about DOLE services and capacitate them how they can benefit from our programs,” he said.
