NIB Pilots Online Portal for Employers

Pictured from L-R: Khrystle Rutherford-Ferguson, BCCEC Chair; Dr. Nicola Virgil-Rolle, CEO & Director of NIB; Rochelle Rolle, Senior Inspector, NIB; Jeffrey N. Beckles, BCCEC CEO

The employer’s self-service portal will simplify the process of making contribution payments

On October 7th of this year, the National Insurance Board (NIB) celebrated 45 years of social security administration in The Bahamas. Throughout its history, the Board has improved its service delivery by introducing innovative and convenient products and services to thousands of workers and employers who participate in the social security programme.

The Employer’s Self-Service (ESS) portal is just the latest innovative tool being piloted by the Board to improve its business processes for the many employers it serves. The Employer’s Self-Service portal is a website where employers may logon from anywhere at anytime to manage their NIB accounts. Through the new Employer’s Self-Service portal, employers will be able to submit c10 contribution forms; make contribution payments using a debit/credit card (Visa or Mastercard only); and manage their employee register.

One of the key benefits to employers is that ESS will digitize and simplify the process of submitting c10s and making contribution payments, from anywhere and at anytime thus avoiding long lines and unnecessary trips to NIB. For NIB, the ESS will eventually prevent contribution backlogs as employers can upload contributions directly into the system and eliminate the additional step of manual data entry by NIB personnel. The ESS portal puts the employers in control and simplifies this process. Our goal is to eliminate contribution backlogs, which is expected to result in a higher level of compliance in the future.

Contributions are at the heart of NIB’s operations, and are used to accurately calculate benefits and determine claim eligibility. In May 2018 the Board commenced the v3 stabilization project. Since then, some 260,000 c10s was placed in the backlog processing system. These represent backlogs from April 2016 to 31 October 2018; of which some 245,000 have been digitized and about 188,000 of these have been posted to Employers and Employees accounts. With the implementation of a special initiative geared toward reducing the accumulation of excess contribution forms, this number was significantly reduced.

The portal is aligned with NIB’s five-year strategic plan

Director Nicola Virgill-Rolle noted that the roll-out and eventual full implementation of the Employer Self-Service portal is aligned with the Board’s newly developed Five-Year Strategic Plan, themed “Towards a Sustainable NIB 2019-2024: Creating a World Class Organization”. One of the key pillars of the Strategic Plan is “Providing Exceptional Customer Service”. Director Rolle stated that, “At NIB, we recognize the need to effectively deliver services to our customers whether it is in-person, online or via telephone. NIB is therefore committed to customer engagement with the use of customer-centric technology for an overall positive customer experience”.

There are forty-one companies participating in the pilot phase of ESS portal which kicks off on Tuesday, October 29, 2019, with training of the first nine (9), and is expected to last for a three (3) month period. The forty-one (41) employers included in the pilot programme represent small, medium size and large companies with varying numbers of employees and contribution payments amounts. By working with a cross-section of employers during the pilot stage, the Board is able to analyze how different employers interact with the system. At the end of the pilot program, Employers will be able to share key findings as a result of their hands-on experience gained from using the portal to manage their NIB accounts. The feedback received from these employers will be valuable to NIB as it seeks to improve the portal. Employers interested in accessing the online service are asked to contact the Compliance Department at 502.1625 or email compliance@nib-bahamas.com.

The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation held a Power Breakfast on Tuesday, November 12th from 8 am – 10 am at the British Colonial Hilton to share information about the ESS portal with its members and the public.

Click here to view photos of the event.