The Employment Agency of Sweden worked with Transformator Design to address declining trust among customers through a project called Greenhouses. Greenhouses involved prototyping new services with customers and frontline employees. Seven local employment offices served as pilot sites for Greenhouses. This led to new services co-created with customers and a cultural shift within the organization to more customer-centered, iterative approach. As a result, declining trust has stopped and begun improving as more employees and offices adopt the new service design methods.

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Award Category:
Non-profit/Public Sector,
professional work
Greenhouses
Improving the customer and employee experience by
prototyping for change in a Governmental Organisation
Transformator Design
Client: The Employment Agency of Sweden
Sophie Andersson | @sophioso

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Arbetsförmedlingen, the Employment Agency of Sweden,
a governmental organization with the mission to maintain
and improve the labour market.
For several years Arbetsförmedlingen have been struggling
with declining trust among customers.
The organization has 13000 employees, 320 local offices and
has more than 27 million customer interactions annually.

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The aim was to regain trust by creating a
new way of working, where both customers
and front line staff were put in charge of
the final development of the Employment
Agency of Sweden future services.
Front line staff being the designers
interacting and developing solutions
with the customers.

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So we created Greenhouses.
A greenhouse is:
• Customer involvement
• Employee engagement
• Prototyping as a way of working
• A iterative way of working
Many local employment offices
volunteered to become a Greenhouse.

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THE KEY STAKE-
HOLDER OF
CHANGE WAS
CUSTOMERS,
THE OFFICES
AND FRONT
LINE STAFF.
2013

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START OF THE
GREENHOUSES
Many local employment
offices volunteered and
7 were selected with
different pre-conditions.
2014

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3 day local service design
introduction training at
HQ with all Greenhouse
involved employees.
SERVICE DESIGN
TRAINING
2014

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Concepts co-created
with customers
were adapted and
prototyped locally.
REALITY CHECK
2014

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Local greenhouse work were
moderatedand supported
by newly formed and trained
central competence group.
ENCOURAGEMENT
2014

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SUPPORT THE
SUPPORTERS
Transformator
coached and supported
the central group who
supported local teams.
2015

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Experience and
knowledge gained
at Greenhouses was
gathered centrally.
ORGANIZATIONAL
OWNERSHIP
2015

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SPREADING WIDELY
Guidelines and best
practice solutions
was spread to all
300 local offices.
2015

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CULTURAL
TRANSFORMATION“We have found a mind
changing way of working,
there is no turning back.”
Employee at Arbetsförmedlingen.
2016

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Customers and trust
In October 2015 a new booking system for the first
meeting between the jobseeker and Arbetsförmedlingen
was implemented throughout the organization.
This service improvement makes the initial contact easier
and more relevant to the customer.
More than 74000 job-seekers have benefited from the
improvement so far.

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Employees and internal trust
The decentralisation of developing new services led to raised
engagement among most affected employees. The new way
of thinking, acting and doing have empowered employees and
improved collaboration between the headquarter and local offices.
New services developed this way, adapted to the everyday
conditions, is implemented with a greater buy-in from the front
line staff creating a feeling of organisational ownership.

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Organization
The customer driven development is now seen as an essential part
of the organisation’s future way of working and in June 2016 a new
support function, with about 10-15 employees is implemented to
establish the greenhouse concept throughout the organisation.
Until now approximately 1600 employees including 400 managers
have been introduced to customer driven development based
on service design methods. The goal is to offer this introduction
to all employees.

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Result
The declining trust among customers has been stopped,
and a minor improvement was presented during 2015.

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Recipe for a successful transformation
Prepare a solid base of Courage
Filter it trough Simplicity
Let it ripe trough Action learning
Practice what you preach
Make sure to use a bake tin of Persistence
Let it drizzle of Reality
Finalize it trough Organizational Ownership
Do try this
at home!