1. Home
  2. Illinois Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) Initiative

Illinois Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) Initiative

The Illinois Dept. of Employment Security (IDES) first transitioned to the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) initiative in 2016. With that transition, those UI claimants that were most likely to exhaust benefits were targeted and required to receive assistance with their reemployment efforts.

Overview

Each quarter approximately three thousand claimants, determined to be most likely to exhaust their Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits, and those receiving Unemployment Compensation for Ex-Servicemembers (UCX) are selected using the internally developed RESEA Profiling Model.

Every Monday, claimants that received a first payment during the prior week are selected for profiling in IJL-WPRS process. Each claimant is sent from IBIS (State's U/I system) to an interface in IJL (States Labor exchange system) built for WPRS. Each claimant is then transferred into a Pool Table, ranked based on the statistical model and assigned a coefficient.

Each day, all claimants that were transferred from IBIS are sorted on the assigned coefficient. There is an IJL-WPRS job that performs this selection based on the sorted pool of claimants and the configuration programmed for each local office holding RESEA Workshops. The procedure sorts descending (highest to lowest). Those that ranked higher get selected first. The job looks ahead 12 days in advance and selects the highest scored claimants first based on their geographic location and an available number of seats in the scheduled workshop.  Specifically, the procedure that runs each day will determine if there are any workshops scheduled for 12 days from the current day. If there are, the system sorts the pool of claimants in descending order and select those for which their assigned local office has scheduled workshops.

Once participants are selected, they receive a notification package instructing the claimant to report to the closest American Job Center (AJC), comprehensive center, affiliate center or local office providing RESEA services. They will attend a RESEA orientation and workshop, and participate one-on-one, with cognizant ES staff, in the development of their Individual Reemployment Plan (IRP) and provided additional RESEA services and/or referrals.

Prior to the reporting date for the workshop:

  1. Staff review all available information to determine UI eligibility and possible referral to adjudication.
  2. Ensure auto-enrollment in IJL has occurred and those demographics have been completed by selectees.

On the day of the scheduled RESEA workshop, Local Office Staff:

  1. Place and ensure attendees use a sign-in sheet
  2. Collect the RESEA Self-Assessment Questionnaires participant received in their RESEA Notification Package.
  3. Ensure that each participant has completed the assessment form and work search or instruct the claimant(s) on areas that need to be completed.
  4. Direct the claimant to the area where the RESEA orientation and workshop will be conducted.
  5. Conduct the RESEA orientation to familiarize the participants with the resource room and present the RESEA Workshop to provide an overview of the program, and additional relevant information related to other resources and programs, using the RESEA Workshop PowerPoint presentation. WIOA Partners, and other resource providers, commonly participate in these presentations.
  6. While the presentation is being conducted, staff review the RESEA Self-Assessment Questionnaire and work search forms to determine the claimant’s wants, needs and/or barriers to employment and meet with each participant to jointly create an Individual Reemployment Plan (IRP). (Approximately two weeks after IRP creation, staff follow-up with participants to gauge progress on completing IRP tasks.)
  7. Participants are provided information including:
    1. Individualized labor market information
    2. Availability of services
    3. Referral(s) to appropriate resource providers
    4. Other career readiness services         
  8. Staff record services provided within 2 business days to avoid the automatic generation of 500C1 issue in IBIS.

How RESEA is Being Used to Help People Get Good Jobs with Employers Who Say They are Having Trouble Finding Workers

Because an extensive amount of time is focused on building relationships with area employers, many clients can be hand-delivered directly to employers.  For example, when Meijer opened a new retail facility, IDES hosted a hiring event for them at the local AJC. Three hundred and thirty-three clients were hired from that event, including many RESEA clients.

How In-Person RESEA Services Are Helping Lower-Income or Lower-Skilled Workers Get Back on Their Feet

  • Tara F. is both an ex-offender and a RESEA client.  She was having difficulty gaining reemployment due to her background and lack of marketable skills.  She attended numerous workshops to become “job ready”.  IDES was able to secure her a position with another of our valued and faithful employers, Schneider Logistics.  Tara is currently enrolled in school through our WIOA education program, securing her associate degree in Welding.
  • Arthur is an 82-year-old US Coast Guard Veteran with no High School diploma.  He had retired from his job as a security officer at a local Hospital and went to work as a delivery driver for a local auto parts store for an additional 19 years.  The store closed ending Arthur’s employment.  While hosting a hiring event for a local Meijer store, an IDES staff had a conversation with the Recruiter and told her about Arthur.  They discussed jobs that would be suitable for him and helped him apply for a new position. They hired Arthur to be a Greeter, which falls under the umbrella of Loss Prevention, because of his Veteran status and his background in security.  He was so thankful and grateful for this opportunity
  • RESEA clients have been successfully placed in WIOA partner sponsored training including programs such as:
  1. The IT Career Lab through National Able.
  2. The Medical Assistant Program through Moraine Valley College.
  3. The Certified Network Associate Program through the Able Career Institute.

Why RESEA Is Important in Illinois

The RESEA program is a critical element of our states’ efforts to reduce unemployment and to improve job attainment and retention by our citizenry.

The grant monies provided to support this important program enables IDES to provide additional targeted, one-on-one employment services to those job seekers most likely to exhaust their UI benefits. Without this grant and the related DOL/ETA support, our efforts to improve employment goal outcomes, among this population, would be adversely affected as the cost of providing the additional time and more intensive services, in the current economic climate, would be prohibitive.

As with all states, Illinois seeks to reduce the time claimants remain unemployed.   The RESEA program is a vital and necessary component in the pursuit of this goal.

Innovations in RESEA program:

Some innovative functionality added to our LE system:

1) Auto registration in State's Labor Exchange system (AJLA)

2) Auto release of RESEA selection notification packages

3) Auto Notification of RESEA issues/determinations.

The Illinois RESEA program has adopted specific demonstrated best practices such as:
  1. Fostering increased in-person association with the physical AJC.
  2. Providing motivational contact prior to claimants reporting for services.
  3. Encouraging early enrollment and use of Illinois’ labor Exchange system.
  4. Reviewing claimants’ self-assessments prior to the meeting, for identification of appropriate services and referrals.
IDES continues to develop cross-agency relationships to further expand the capacity of RESEA program to service client needs.
  1. Enduring partnership with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) to better service Illinois employers.
  2. Improving educational development opportunities and outcomes through participation on the Illinois Community College Board’s Advisory Council.
  3. Improvement of technological capabilities through ongoing discussions with the Illinois Dept. of Innovation and Technology (DoIT)

OUTCOMES

While Illinois was late to implement the RESEA program, and the short period of time and relatively small sample size of participant outcomes render questionable statistical comparisons, the anecdotal observations of outcomes and the noted improved climate of satisfaction among both staff and participants, bodes well for our planned expansion of approximately 50% more participants over the coming year.

A Comparison between reported RESEA workload statistics (ETA 9128) from quarterly reports for periods ending 31DEC17 and 31DEC18 reveals the following:

  • The number of All RESEA’s scheduled increased from 2528 to 2999 (+ 18.6%)
  • Percentage of selectees that failed to report decreased from 25.4% to 23.8% (an improvement of 6.3%)
  • Data for a comparison between reported RESEA outcome statistics (ETA 9129) is not yet available for the same period.