Loomio
Fri 3 Jul 2020 11:08AM

Remote onboarding to build trusted relationships

EHC Ellie Hale (CAST / Catalyst) Public Seen by 34

Overview

Summary of work

Challenge statement: How might we build trusted relationships online, by replacing our face-to-face onboarding activities (e.g. for learning journeys) with an accessible and safe online experience.

Loomio discussion period

7 - 13 July

Loomio decision date

13 July

Kick-off call with cluster

14 July, 3:00PM - 4:30PM (1.5hrs)

Latest start date

20 July

Expected contract length

4 weeks.

Budget range

Up to £10,000 for the digital partners.


About the work

Why the work is being done

This is a Cluster project, bringing together a group of organisations with the shared need of transitioning face-to-face training and support services online in response to COVID-19. 

Problem to be solved

The problem area is broad and includes:

  • Onboarding new users into the first stages of a learning journey

  • Building trusted relationships online

  • Creating a great experience for users by streamlining the process and tech

  • Bearing in mind different levels of emotional engagement for different online options

  • Working with users with a broad spectrum of tech access and literacy (combating digital exclusion).

Who the users are and what they need to do

There are six partners in this cluster. Their users are teachers, tutors, foster carers and carers for the elderly, each going through a recruitment process to join the charities’ networks/ communities/ services. 

They need to be onboarded into new services, ensuring the same level of trust and safeguarding that had previously been achieved face to face.

Expected outcomes for this work

  • Deeper dive to understand the shared challenge area and how this is experienced by the different user groups

  • Identification of key opportunities for shared digital tools or infrastructure

  • Achieving quick wins for the group by recommendations around reuse or repurposing existing tech, patterns, standards etc.

  • Identifying other relevant projects and partners this group, or the individual members, could connect to

  • Broadly scoping a Phase 2 piece of work

  • A case study and/or other useful documentation to be shared with the sector.

Any work that’s already been done

This work forms a part of wider support all organisations are receiving from Nesta.

As a Cluster we have had an intro session to identify the shared challenge. This Miro Board captures our discussion. 

Who the Digital Team will work with

At the kick-off session, reps from each charity will be present and we’ll agree on the lead point person from the cluster and the level of engagement from each partner.

How many days can the nonprofit team commit to this project?

The lead organisation is expected to commit two days a week to this project. Involvement from the other organisations might vary and needs to be agreed as a team.

Do they have internal developers and which tech stack are they using?

Some do, and others have volunteer support that has helped build existing systems. All organisations have been experimenting with running online webinars and remote communications with their networks. They each have existing tech systems and processes.

About the organisations

  • Tutorfair Foundation - provides free tutoring to students from low-income backgrounds, partnering with schools and third-sector organisations who are responsible for the development of disadvantaged young people

  • Flintshire County Council - recruiting and training foster carers, responding to an increase in child protection cases predicted when schools return

  • EmpathyLab - offering activities and teacher training programmes to build children's empathy, literacy and social activism through a systematic use of high-quality literature

  • Shared Lives Plus - membership organisation for shared living - the members are Shared Lives carers and schemes, and Homeshare providers. They support members with good practice, guidance, legislation and regulation.


Partner skills and experience

Essential skills and experience

  • Digital: 

    • Online safeguarding experience, as these organisations all work with vulnerable groups

  • Data: 

    • Data needs assessment and audit

  • Design: 

    • User research

    • Service design

    • Relational design

  • Strong knowledge of existing digital tools and techniques that support group learning experiences

  • Maximising connection and relationships online.

Nice-to-have skills and experience

  • Content design

  • Experience working with nonprofits

  • Experience with organisations that work with children and young people

  • Working with coalitions/ partnerships.


EHC

Ellie Hale (CAST / Catalyst) Fri 3 Jul 2020 11:21AM

Please contribute to the conversation by adding your thoughts and comments about this brief, including any helpful links or insights that might help improve/inform the brief and responses to it. Thanks! 🙂

EHC

Poll Created Wed 8 Jul 2020 12:58PM

Contribute to this Digital Team Closed Mon 13 Jul 2020 11:02AM

Outcome
by Ellie Hale (CAST / Catalyst) Mon 13 Jul 2020 4:31PM

Thanks for your input everyone! 🎉

To summarise, we have:

  • Two partners interested in the design role: @Darshan Sanghrajka @Matt (Deepr)

  • One partner interested in the data role: @Smag0.

@Darshan Sanghrajka hasn't added any additional information, which isn't ideal but for this test we'll let him off, as we know from previous Digital Teams work that his organisation does indeed have the skills and capabilities required. @Smag0 isn't a member of the Catalyst Open Projects organisation, so we wouldn't be able to add them to the partnership (unless they reveal themselves!) @Matt (Deepr) is interested in working alongside another partner, working in a small capacity around the relational design aspect.

Therefore we confirm @Darshan Sanghrajka (Super Being Labs) will be the lead partner for this work, working with @Matt (Deepr) as a support partner on the relational design aspect.

The kick-off with the cluster will be Tuesday 14th July, 3:00PM - 4:30PM (tomorrow). We will add you to the calendar invite @Darshan Sanghrajka @Matt (Deepr).

If, after the kick-off, either of you decides that in fact this isn't the right fit for you, we can revisit this match.

If anyone else has any comments or issues with this, please add them to the thread below, or emoji vote 👍 or 👎 on this outcome post.

Please complete the poll - you can update your vote any time.

Results

Results Option % of points Voters
This one isn't quite right for me 33.3% 4 DS J HH JSD
I'm interested and don't have capacity right now, but please keep me updated 33.3% 4 BW GH AB( EN
I'm interested and will give an answer by the end of the week 8.3% 1 M
I'm signalling interest in the digital role 8.3% 1 EP
I'm signalling interest in the design role 8.3% 1 DS
I'm signalling interest in the data role 8.3% 1 S
I'm signalling interest for a role I think should be included but isn't currently listed 0.0% 0  
Undecided 0% 17 JBA DB CLF SH ALP AM EHC SD DM NSL G HH G JD( LB DS RA

12 of 29 people have participated (41%)

EHC

Ellie Hale (CAST / Catalyst) Wed 8 Jul 2020 3:52PM

Update: The kick-off meeting for this cluster is confirmed for Tuesday 14 July, 3:00PM - 4:30PM (1.5hrs). I've updated the above.

If anyone has any relevant knowledge/research they'd like to share (and like us to share with the cluster), even if you're not interested in the brief, please post it here!

@Matt, just to let you know, we shared your Human Connection prototypes with this group at their cluster intro session and got a message from Empathy Lab saying they're looking to try out the framework 👍

M

Matt (Deepr) Fri 10 Jul 2020 12:05PM

This is great. We've done some of this work with Grapevine on converting their offline outreach and onboarding into new digital 3rd spaces (the idea that most people have a third safe space in addition to work and home where they can feel comfortable and 'themselves'). We don't have all the answers yet but we've done a chunk of discovery in this space - as well as the tools - thanks @Ellie Hale (CAST / Catalyst) + great share @Andy Bell . We think there's a design role for us in this as part of a wider partnership

AB(

Andy Bell (SIDE Labs) Thu 9 Jul 2020 9:44AM


Thanks for this. Sounds like a very interesting brief and very relevant to challenges that lots of organisations are struggling with.

From an initial read-through, some questions spring to mind:

  • What do you imagine the output looks like? Is it a piece of documentation or is it a piece of technology? (I imagine you might say it depends on the outcome of research… but what’s your gut instinct about the direction this project is heading in.)

  • Have you got any pointers to examples who have done something like this well? It sounds to me that the user needs are so diverse and specific to the details of the onboarding task that it will be hard to find common threads.  

  • What happens if it emerges that the user needs for the 6 organisations significantly diverge? Who has ownership of the product vision?

DM

Debby Mulling (Catalyst) Thu 9 Jul 2020 10:26AM

Hi @Andy Bell

  • We don't expect a piece of tech for this brief, rather an option suggestion for a greater next step which might be the development or refinement of tech. So this will be a research focused project to better understand the common needs across their users to access remote on boarding activities. The organisations will have different needs to, so it need to be further explored if there is alignment.

  • Out of the 6 organisations, only 4 have been interacting with us, so it is likely this cluster is smaller. Although they have different audiences, there is a clear common challenge about needing to onboard new teachers, pupils, homeshare lodgers and foster families.

  • This brief is help create a better insight in need and options to approach this. The outcome of this research should be highlighting if this is the case and the next step will then not be taken together. (and separate phase 2 briefs could be put forward)

AB(

Andy Bell (SIDE Labs) Thu 9 Jul 2020 10:02AM

Also - just to check I’m clear about what’s common to all these projects:

  • Is it always onboarding new users? Rather than switching existing volunteers to online? 

  • Is it always the volunteer always on the trainer side of the equation? Rather than the learner? 

  • Is it always education? Tutirfair and EmpathyLab sound similar, but SharedLives Plus and Flintshire are less explicitly education organisations.  

DM

Debby Mulling (Catalyst) Thu 9 Jul 2020 10:31AM

@Andy Bell

  • yes, the focus for this brief is new users

  • Sorry, can you be more clearer on this point.

  • Yes, you have this right. 2 organisations have an education focus. Shared Lives matches volunteers for co-habitation with vulnerable, isolated elderly people. Flintshire is accessing potential foster carers. All of them used to do their assessment and inductions mainly face 2 face, but now have to move as much as possible online. This includes 1:1 session, workshops/training, learning modules, signing documents, verifying identity.

AB(

Andy Bell (SIDE Labs) Thu 9 Jul 2020 11:07AM

Thanks for the replies @debby

Sorry, I could have been clearer with the question 'Is it always the volunteer always on the trainer side of the equation? Rather than the learner?'

I was just trying to get my head around what is meant by 'Onboarding new users into the first stages of a learning journey'

With Tutorfair and EmpathyLab, it sounds like we are doing remote onboarding for someone who becomes a volunteer trainer (i.e. the volunteer will be leading the learning journey). With Shared Lives and Flintshire, it sounds like the remote onboarding for someone who will help at the organisation (i.e. the volunteer is being lead through the learning journey). Is that correct?

DM

Debby Mulling (Catalyst) Fri 10 Jul 2020 7:26AM

Morning @Andy Bell

Tutorfair and Emphathy lab indeed need to remotely onboard people who become a volunteer trainer (i.e. the volunteer will be leading the learning journey). Although will also have the need to lead volunteer through the learning journey.

With Shared Lives, yes, the volunteer is being lead through the journey. Flintshire will be leading Foster Carers through a learning journey. They also have on-boarding admin needs.

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