Creating a Culture of Collaboration

How might we better connect social services to employment services at the Montgomery County Jobs Center?

The Challenge
Administrators in Montgomery County, Ohio wanted to bridge the gap between social services and employment services at the Montgomery County Jobs Center. Annually, 500,000 people use the Jobs Center to receive benefits, but only 50,000 people accessed the center’s jobs services. By connecting more customers applying for benefits to employment services, the administration hoped to reduce the overall reliance on benefits in Montgomery County and improve the quality of the local workforce.

The Approach
We partnered with Montgomery County Job & Family Services (MCJFS) to build a staff-led initiative for interdepartmental collaboration that would improve customer outcomes.

The Details
Our work included:

• Going deep with over 30 interviews, engagement sessions, and observations with MCJFS leadership, frontline staff, and customers
• Engaging over 100 Job Center staff across multiple departments and leadership roles 
• Coaching 16 teams through implementing prototypes

The Impact
Staff launched several ideas, including an interdepartmental staff training program called “The Amazing Case, JFS on the Move, a remote JFS outreach program for hard-to-reach communities,  and a room makeover that simplified the form retrieval process. These simple but innovative prototypes not only vastly improved the customer experience, but built trust between previously isolated departments, JFS leaders, and frontline staff. Read the program evaluation.