case study
Hackney Opportunities
A digitally enabled and joined up service to connect
residents to learning & employment opportunities
challenge
Hackney Council has a free employment support service called Hackney Works, which helps Hackney residents access different pathways into employment. In 2018, FutureGov helped the them to re-think their service and helped prototype and build digital tools to support job advisors and residents to track goals and work towards employment.
In 2020, we were asked back to help expand the digital service to integrate with it’s Adult Learning service. With COVID-19 shifting services to be more remote, the council needed a way for residents to access support, free training courses, get help with applications and view vacancies, in a virtual and accessible way.
Opportunity
To expand on the digital service to:
- include Hackney’s Adult Learning services
- create one joined up digital service for all types of employment and learning opportunities
- create a fully digital service
- better support residents to self serve with actionable and practical steps
- enable partners across the borough to work more closely with the council
My role
- User research and testing
- Prototyping
- Synthesising and creating actions from research
- Facilitating working sessions with services
- Journey mapping
- Helping shape content strategy for routes into the service
- Working closely with employment teams and partners to uncover needs and requirements
- Onboarding and ways of working with partners and services
The team included: Delivery Manager, Design Lead, Front end developer, Back end developer, product designer
Approach + Process
01. the Adult learning offer online
Understanding the current experience
I conducted interviews with the service and users to better understand the current experience, challenges, needs and processes. An as-is map of the process of enrolling into adult courses was created with stakeholders. This allowed us to identify the areas we needed to improve and what we needed to do in order to digitise the service.
What we learned
- The Adult Learning service was mainly a manual and in-person process
- Paper and pdf forms were used to enrol and register students
- Records kept and manually created in excel sheets
- Partners also help deliver courses
- Lack of information online about courses
- No way to register online
What this meant for the Adult learning
We needed to:
- Advertise all courses online with details about them
- Make it easier for residents to understand what adult learning is and how to access
- Make it possible for residents to apply for courses
- Give residents a better progression pathway by joining up with Hackney’s wider employment & skills offer
- Support the team to work in new ways using the digital tools to support them to deliver the service
Design, prototyping and testing
Initial prototypes
- Adult learning digital offer, searching and applying for courses
- an integrated offer of employment, skills and learning opportunities
- Quiz based tool to help uncover and filter personalised opportunities.
Testing with residents that have used the employment service
What we learned from testing:
- The quiz tool was too complex and clearer content and routes into the service were more important
- Content needs (course details, dates, what you can learn)
- The lack of actual course information available meant we needed to work with the service to help create the content needed
MVP - 4 week pilot
Pilot test goals
A set period of time so that we can test with real users, measure and gain feedback and identify what we need to do to further scale the service successfully.
A test to learn if:
- Residents can understand the Adult learning offer, as well as find and apply for courses.
- Staff can manage incoming application using the case management system
- If WordPress was the appropriate way to manage courses
What we learned from the pilot:
- 187 course applications were made with no issues (27 courses online over 28 days)
- The service gave feedback about changing the actions to manage courses. Instead of accept/reject they wanted to be able to mark things as ‘reviewed’.
- Export list of course applicants as a CSV file was requested
Final adult learning offer
Iterated the final design
- Residents can search, view and apply for courses
- The service can add courses, see and manage applications
- We worked with the service to guide them in content design and onboarded a number of staff to start using the system
02. Creating routes and pathways into the service
Less about navigating by services
From previous experience and knowledge, we knew that designing by life events will enable content and routes into services to be more tailored around residents needs and challenges.
- With the service, we identified key life events and situations that residents face most often
- I worked closely with key employment team to help shape content around two main life events we started with
03. Designing for a joined up service across opportunities
Bringing opportunities together to one central place online
There were lots of different opportunities available but they were fragmented across multiple places making them hard to find and difficult to access.
To make it easier for residents, we designed an opportunity board as a central place for partners and the council to advertise opportunities. People are able to search for various opportunities, from jobs, placements, events, workshops to courses from one page.
Not just access, also preparation
We designed a ready to apply checklist customised to an opportunity that helps residents prepare before applying to vacancies. It adds value by signposting them to resources, advice and practical help related to the posting.
- Design workshop to come up with ideas and this one was taken forward
- I prototyped and tested with residents to see if a required checklist was needed and if it was helpful
- Facilitated working sessions with the service teams to create practical content/items that could be useful as a check list
Enabling partners to work more closely with the service
We worked with Hackney’s partners that provide provision for employment and learning opportunities to test and onboard them onto WordPress so that they could contribute and help manage the opportunities they provide. The use of WordPress allowed for the creation of multiple user types and permissions.
Enabling residents to self serve across opportunities
For residents, this meant designing and building a journey where they can directly apply to opportunities and find things most relevant to their situation through tailored content.
For Hackney Council, the impact was a more joined service by having Hackney Opportunities as the service for residents for learning and employment. The digital service also enabled them to have more time to work directly with residents.
For partners in the community, this meant being able to have a more central place they can contribute to and feel even more like partner working with the council rather than an outsider.
The outcome
2 months after launch…
15
local partners using the platform
500+
applications to opportunities from residents
2300
unique visitors
- All website content managed by the service
- Partners are involved in the process
- Residents can access an integrated learning & employability offer
- Pathways to opportunities designed around resident’s needs and life events
- Not only advertisement of opportunities but preparation support along the way
- Easy management of applications and less manual work for the service
- Improved the accessibility of the website
Learning
- Understanding the end-to-end service and where people are coming in and out is important to consider when designing touch points
- Digitising a service is more than just creating the online experience
- Working with service teams to own the work and handover is important for the success