The Bureau of Customs (BOC) is adopting a new management system designed to improve work processes and accelerate decision-making in the agency to upgrade its service to stakeholders.
Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña on October 12 signed Customs Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 22-2017, institutionalizing a Completed Staff Work (CSW) Doctrine “in order to ensure that deputy commissioners are empowered and to enhance staff work process in the bureau.”
According to the new order, which took effect immediately, “there is an immediate need to improve its (BOC) work process and adopt a system that facilitates decision-making.” It noted that under the present system, “the bureau’s decision-making process relies heavily on the guidance of the Commissioner who also attends to various organizational and other concerns which already [occupy] his time and attention, thus, he is too preoccupied to still be concerned with data gathering that he can utilize for an informed and evidence-based decision.”
This situation, it added, also limits the roles of deputy commissioners, service directors, and other unit heads to assess situations and tasks and recommend evidence-based solutions or applicable sources of action.
Thus, the need to institutionalize the CSW, which is a management system “for timely, informed and evidence-based decision-making and aid in good governance and management,” it continued.
Under this system, staff members or offices work out the details of a task or activity by themselves, so as not to bother the decision-maker with having to sift through the documents and details. Subordinates are responsible for submitting written recommendations to superiors “in such a manner that the superior need do nothing in the process than review the submitted document and indicate approval or disapproval thus, saving the executive’s time by giving the legwork to the staff.”
Institutionalizing the CSW Doctrine is seen to improve BOC’s efficiency, timeliness, and effectiveness in performing its tasks “for better delivery of services to its stakeholders.”
It aims to promote lateral and horizontal coordination and consultation among deputy commissioners, service directors, unit heads, division and section chiefs, and stakeholders, It also encourages a bottom-up approach in management by entrusting the staff with the responsibilities of problem identification and data analysis, while enhancing their ability to develop or propose appropriate responses or suitable courses of action. It also standardizes the format of memoranda and infuses the CSW Doctrine process in documents that are for the acquiescence of the commissioner, the deputy commissioners, or the district collectors, depending on the levels of approval.
The new process is also seen to guarantee timeliness of tasks and activities, and avoid wasting of resources.
To ensure that the CSW is fully implemented and sustained, the customs commissioner shall be the CSW champion, with the deputy commissioners as his co-champions, and all heads of offices as implementers of the doctrine in their offices.
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