Renewal through continuous improvements within the Employment Service

Employment Service has a complex assignment with high requirements for continuous development of the business. The goal is a modern authority with a customer-friendly business where the Swedish Employment Service delivers results in accordance with what customers expect. The renewal journey is the collective name for the pervasive reform of the authority that is ongoing.

As an important part of this work, the Employment Service has chosen to work with continuous improvements in order to learn how to develop the business based on the needs of the customers and the knowledge and experience of the employment services.

Before the Employment Service introduced its work on a broad front, a pilot study was conducted at a number of different offices in the country. Here, employees had to try and evaluate different methods and structures to create employee engagement and to establish systematic work with continuous improvement. Ekan Management was given the confidence to make an external evaluation of the pilot project in 2016 based on the consulting company's multi-year experience in both implementation and evaluation of improvement work.

- We saw it as very positive that Ekan Management emphasized that it was a learning evaluation and no detailed review of our pilot, says the Employment Service's project manager Ulrika Wahlberg. 

- This meant that it became a very positive approach and a support in finding the right working methods for us.

The evaluation was done through both interviews and site visits, with managers, with people in different development roles but also with employees in the business who meet the customers every day.

- By taking the help of an external evaluator, who interviewed various staff groups across the country, we gained a greater understanding of how work with continuous improvement was received in everyday life and were able to capture the nuances that are difficult to obtain in a written evaluation, continues Ulrika Wahlberg. 

- We have used the lessons we learned and they have influenced our wider choices. 

Want to know more about introducing or evaluating continuous improvements as part of your own renewal journey? Contact Christian Maloney at Ekan Management.

christian.maloney@ekan.com, 031-761 60 22

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