Expanding training programs for both staff and customers
The Ventura County Workforce Development Board has explored human-centered design (HCD) in previous work. “We have had some basic prior experience…primarily during a redesign of the physical layout of the career center environment,” says Donald Frick, who serves as Ventura County’s performance and compliance manager, adding that, “Some elements of HCD were also explored when developing our [internal] WIOA 2.0 strategic initiative.” As a member of the Workforce Transformation Corps (WTC) cohort, Frick hopes to enhance their system’s user-friendly environment to support inclusive services. “Customer-focused and human-centered is an understanding of the needs and desires of the customer. Applying that knowledge toward practices, which increase comfort level and ease of utilization, can greatly benefit the customer,” he says.
Boglarka Kiss Fellow
Donald Frick Friend
Ventura County’s WTC fellow, Boglarka Kiss, also sees an opportunity to enhance inclusivity through the work of HCD principles: “In many ways, HCD to me is the ‘I’ in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. I view diversity as our reality in California, inclusion is what we can and should do: gather input from our stakeholders, identify problems, and co-design solutions.” Kiss comes from the community college system and sees many parallels with the public workforce system, noting that “both [systems] are dedicated to serving their communities in an inclusive way, and both exist within a complex system of processes adhering to rules and regulations.” Kiss identifies as strategic and action-oriented, valuing honesty, empathy, and cooperation in her work. Her hope in the fellowship is to collaborate with others to share ideas to support the work being done in other counties.
Frick hopes to not only refine programs that meet the needs of the community but to also shift stages in all areas of Jobs for the Future’s (JFF) HCD maturity model for Ventura County. “Our organization falls within both the alone and aligned stages…Moving toward the attuned and anchored stages would benefit customers and create more meaningful outcomes.” Kiss echoes that belief, seeing an opportunity for the Ventura County Workforce Development Board to examine its internal processes: “(Re)designing those [processes] for staff could provide a boost to how customers’ experiences are shaped. I also believe that we can begin conversations with specific customer groups to probe specific programs and their effectiveness.”
