The Labour Market Regulatory Authority plans to simplify services to customers by adding 6 new services in Post Offices in various governorates of the Kingdom starting April 5. LMRA’s Vice President of Operations, Ali Al Kooheji said the authority is keen on providing all possible facilities to save time of the customers.

He added that starting from next Sunday, additional services will include registering individual institutions or companies, adding or changing email of the client, sending password to client, adding or replacing the client, printing out of the Bahrinization calculation and adding or altering the client’s residential address.

Al Kooheji pointed out that this step was the follow up of the step initiated by the authority last September, on receiving the file for issuance of licenses for the recruitment of domestic workers and their employers, which contributed to reducing the time and effort of clients.

The LMRA refers to having large numbers of processes being completed to customers as quickly as possible, where the annual report for 2014 shows that 3,83,174 beneficiaries received customer service at the headquarters of LMRA, in which the average service time taken was 6 minutes while the rest of the operational matter rate was at 4 minutes with the waiting average time of 31 minutes.

The authority completed 20,996 processes of domestic work permits and their employers during September 2014 until January 2015, of which 13,689 were completed at LMRA’s headquarters and 7,313 through the post offices.

The total number of procedures completed by the authority overseeing issuing of work permits in the same year was 4,24,241 procedures, out of which 88 per cent were completed within 3 working days and 56pc within 1 day. These comprise work permit applications, applications for employee transfer, changing professions, authorizing agents, temporary work permits and applications for ending employment.

The LMRA’s Customer Services Director, Ashraf Imam decided to provide these services in post office available through different governorates in the Kingdom, including LMRA’s office and five post offices.

Applications may be submitted from 7:30 am to 7:00 pm every 6 days a week in four post offices, including Isa Town post office, Hamad Town post office, Riffa post office, Budaiya post office, while other post offices like Hidd offers a limited service from Saturday to Thursday from 7:30 am to 14:00, in addition to LMRA’s office during working times from 7:30 to 14:00 from Sunday to Thursday five days a week.