The Customer

The Department for Work and Social economy is a governmental institution responsible for employment in Flanders. Through policy coordination, collaborations with the field, investments and supporting citizens towards work they advance employment. After some large organisational reconstructions there was an urge to align all departments towards one shared goal: the customer-centric future.

Expertise

Evolve into a human-centred organisation

Social themes

Work & lifelong learning

The Challenge

Expectations of customers are changing, we’ve gotten used to innovative digital services with instant feedback and real-time interaction. How does a large complex governmental institution that just tripled in manpower deal with this? How can they shift their focus towards delivering better services to their customers every day together with the whole organisation?

Illustration of a landscape with footpaths, trees and various buildings, including a house, a book statue, a futuristic structure, and a waterfront pavilion with a jetty. People can be seen scattered around the area.

Group of adults at a table busy building objects with LEGO bricks. They follow instruction booklets while using different coloured building pieces. In the background, flip charts and posters are visible in a meeting room.

Group of people sit around a conference table with documents, notes and laptops, busy writing and looking at papers. A flipchart can be seen in the background, and a view of a city and trees can be seen through the large windows.

A group of five people stand by a whiteboard with a diagram showing a stakeholder map. They discuss the contents together while looking at the board. In the background is a window with vertical blinds overlooking a modern office building.

Our approach

By conducting qualitative research we gave all stakeholders a voice. Citizens were questioned on the streets, partners invited to focus groups and employees of the department were interviewed through cultural probes. These qualitative insights were the basis of the new strategy that was co-created in a 3 day leadership workshop together with the department.

Illustration of various people in different clothing styles and professions. Above them are icons representing different fields, such as science, technology, mathematics, art, and music, each with a checkmark underneath.

The Result

This resulted in a customer-centric strategy that is carried by the whole organisation. A strategy that did not stop by formulating a vision but evolved into a concrete plan with manageable steps toward a customer-centric future. The quest is not over, in the next fase of the project we’ll continue co-creating customer-centric services together.