The management maintains open communications with the stakeholders, to encourage exchange and suggestions on how the institution can be more responsive to their needs and concerns.

The management aligns and coordinates risk management activities across the institution to maximize synergies, avoid gaps and prevent duplication of effort.

The board and management ensure that the valuation of the investment portfolio is in accordance with international market standards on fair market value.

The institution’s human resources policies, rules and regulations are fair, impartial, well defined, documented and widely disseminated to all staff to protect the integrity of the recruitment process, to minimize political considerations and to enhance transparency and predictability. These include a policy of employment equity and protection against harassment.

Structure

The corporate application of ICT in social security institutions requires establishing policies and practices to carry out the wide spectrum of ICT-related activities in a consistent and systematic way. Such policies and practices are addressed by the disciplines of ICT governance and management, which aim to guide organizations (in particular, medium and large ones) to improve effectiveness and efficiency in their application of ICT.

The institution implements systematic and standard technical management practices to ensure the availability of resources to support the service life cycle.

Technical management activities involve planning, implementing and maintaining a stable technical infrastructure and ensuring that required resources and expertise are in place to design, build, transition, operate and improve information technology services and supporting technology.

The institution develops interoperable shared data services (basic registries) in accordance with the interoperability application model.

Shared data services play an essential role in the implementation of integrated social security systems. This includes the sharing of core social security data. Typically shared is data on benefits granted to beneficiaries, beneficiaries’ family links, employees’ worked periods, salaries and contributions, employers and contracted employees.

The institution considers the use of advanced hardware components (“gadgets”) in mobile devices to improve services, such as fingerprint readers for personal identification based on biometrics.

The institution establishes a framework for the management of the security and privacy of the master data based on the relevant regulations.

Security and authentication are critical features for systems implementing international social security agreements. First, given the interorganizational and cross-border nature of these systems, institutions have to apply security and data protection policies and regulations. Second, the ICT-based implementation has to provide the means to validate the authenticity of the operations and to replace the handwritten signature.

These guidelines are consistent with the ISSA Guidelines on Good Governance, a comprehensive set of guidelines covering a range of internal governance processes required in the administration of social security institutions.

As asset market values change over time, the investing institution is able to exploit variations in market valuations by investing differently than in the strategic asset allocation, while respecting the risk budget established in Guideline 7.

This process of dynamic investment (sometimes referred to as tactical investment) will be limited in time but the maintenance of such a position apart from the strategic asset allocation may subsist in the medium term.

Sufficient procedures are put in place to ensure an appropriate level of operational due diligence is conducted on investing institutions.

Any social security institution planning to set up or improve prevention services, as recommended, should first undertake a thorough analysis of the existing legal and institutional national framework for prevention activities.

Information and communication constitutes an inherent part of all prevention services. Information is the basic element which underpins all prevention services. It involves the systematic collection, processing, description, presentation and transfer of knowledge (e.g. through the education and training of staff dealing with prevention) and making effective use of all available communication channels. The dissemination of information to target groups as well as the general public is vital. In this process, knowledge in prevention is the key.

The institution defines a clear policy for handling cases of occupational disease. It ensures that a process is set up to assess the degree of disability caused by the occupational disease.

In general, the same rehabilitation principles and measures are valid for occupational disease cases and occupational accidents as described in the ISSA Guidelines on Return to Work and Rehabilitation (e.g. Guideline 8, Combining medical treatment and vocational rehabilitation).

The institution defines cooperation and networking as a strategic objective in order to benefit from the vast potential for increased impact and enhanced outreach, as well as the effective use of human and financial resources.

The institution learns from a broad range of international and national experiences.

The institution facilitates access to benefits and services by simplifying administrative formalities, better coordinating with other institutions and developing a clear multi-channel strategy.

The competent institutions support the mutual recognition of professional accreditations to facilitate the mobility of the labour force across countries.

The term “holistic” refers to the whole and not just selected parts of a person or system. The return to work is a complex and comprehensive process involving many stakeholders and several activities which must come together to achieve the common goal of the return to work of a person who has an occupational or non-occupational injury, disability and/or health condition. Therefore, it is important to adopt a return to work approach which is holistic, integrated and inclusive. The overall goal is to maintain the person’s work ability and existing connections to working life.

There is commitment to employee engagement – the process of getting employees involved in and building enthusiasm about their work which, in turn, will advance the interests of the institution.

The return-to-work programme takes an individual approach that focuses on the needs of the person concerned and monitors the effectiveness of its outcomes on them.

Assessing programme effectiveness requires assessment of individual outcomes, success rates and impact on the person concerned. This in turn requires an initial individual needs assessment, a person-centred action plan with performance indicators and a final assessment of the outcome(s) for the person concerned.

In all sectors of the economy, service standards are constantly improving. Social security institutions will need to respond as people demand levels of service comparable to those they receive elsewhere.

The social security institution develops a clear vision of its unique role in workplace health promotion and clarifies and builds understanding of this role through consultation.