Amman, Jordan (ILO News) – The International Labour Organization has successfully trained 50 outreach officials from 18 Social Security Corporation (SSC) branches on effective communication strategies drawn from Behavioural Sciences.

The objective of capacity-building is to enhance the knowledge of the SSC officials and equip them with the necessary tools to conduct field visits and engage effectively with local Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs). These visits aim to encourage firms to register their wage workers with the SSC, thereby ensuring the inclusion of informal workers in national social protection systems.

During the training sessions conducted in the previous months, the outreach officials focused on key messages, drawn from Behavioral Sciences, to be communicated with local employers. They were also introduced to the fields of Human-Centered Design in the context of policymaking.

In February, outreach officials began field visits to 800 MSMEs across the country to address information and financial barriers preventing firms from registering their workers. During these visits, officials demonstrated the insurance benefits that firms would obtain through ensuring the social security coverage of their workforce and addressed widespread employers' concerns and misconceptions about social security registration.

As part of the initiative, the officials will also address the financial barriers to registration by demonstrating contribution subsidies and coverage rewards provided by the Social Security Corporation (SSC) to support the enrolment of informal workers. The field visits are expected to encourage more MSMEs to register their workers and provide them with the necessary social security coverage. The initiative is a significant step towards ensuring that Jordanian and non-Jordanian workers, including refugees, have access to social security benefits and are protected against risks, such as work-related injury, maternity, disability, and unemployment.

During the visits, the outreach officials distribute information packages containing all the necessary details for firms to understand the process of registering their workers in the SSC.

The content of the information packages was developed ahead of the training and is the result of a behavioural map that identifies those biases and bottlenecks preventing the uptake of social security registration among vulnerable populations in Jordan. The packages also outline the behavioral tools that could be used to overcome these challenges. Their content is delivered through in-person visits and SMS messages.

The capacity-building of outreach officials is part of a broader experimental initiative launched by the ILO and the SSC to test the impact of financial and informational interventions on the extension of social protection coverage in Jordan.

The initiative is supported by three ILO projects; PROSPECTS Partnership, a programme supported by the Kingdom of the Netherlands; Estidama++ project - Extension of Coverage and Formalization, a multi-donor programme with contributions from the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of Netherlands, and the United Kingdom; and the European Union-funded project “Towards an inclusive national social protection system and accelerating decent job opportunities for Syrians and vulnerable Jordanians,” EU-Madad.

The projects are working in partnership with Development Pathways, a leading global consultancy specialising in designing and developing social protection systems, and Nudge Lebanon, a Lebanese NGO focused on applying behavioural insights to policy challenges using tools based on behavioural economics.