Pre-work services

Views about the features of effective practice

Job Broker staff and managers highlighted aspects of their pre-work services which they thought contributed to their success or were particularly effective. Some specific elements of the service were mentioned here, particularly in-work support (discussed in the following section), but also vocational guidance, in-house courses, work placements and financial incentives.

However, more emphasis was placed on approaches to delivering the service than on specific types of help. Job Broker managers and staff stressed the importance of staff being innovative, flexible, ‘working smart’ to find ways of helping clients to overcome barriers to work, and being empowered to make decisions about the best way forward for each client. They emphasised the importance of providing an in- depth service. This involved both providing a complete package of support which covered all relevant issues and left ‘no black holes’, but also ensuring that staff get to know their clients well, are good at listening, and elicit all the necessary information to build up an in-depth understanding of the client’s circumstances and needs. They also stressed the importance of providing a tailored service in which clients are treated as individuals, and the importance of helping clients to find the job which would be right for them. High caseloads were sometimes thought to undermine these preferred ways of working. They described their own services as operating at the client’s pace and not involving pressurising or rushing people. Some also talked about the support being client-led, with an emphasis on empowering people to make their own decisions.

As reported in Chapter 3, all elements of the service were of salience to at least some clients. They placed more emphasis on financial incentives where there had otherwise been fairly minimal support: although it was appreciated as useful where they had received more intensive support, they generally placed more emphasis on the impact of the practical or personal support they had received. More generally, they echoed the views of Job Brokers about the importance of support which addressed all their needs, staff building up an in-depth understanding of their individual needs, Job Brokers maintaining personal contact and taking an interest, and being able to set their own pace. They valued staff who took time to explore their individual circumstances and needs, and occasionally thought staff were overloaded, particularly if they were slow to follow up action, if there were long waits for appointments or if meetings were rushed.

Jobcentre Plus staff similarly emphasised these broader features of provision. The positive benefits of having a Job Broker adviser who was able to take time and who was seen to be doing all they could for a client were stressed. Some also observed

that clients were attracted towards Job Brokers who offered financial incentives. DEAs identified as effective Job Broker practice, the provision of confidence building; help with job applications and interview skills; intensive support including job coaching and attention to lifestyle areas where relevant; funding for training courses, and work placements and trials.

Analysis across the performance groups

Looking at patterns in service delivery across the performance groups is complicated, in part because of the range of types of help provided across the Job Brokers, and in part because where the Job Broker manager only was interviewed there is more limited data. It was noted in Chapter 3 that three broad groups of Job Brokers were evident in terms of the range of services provided. The first group appeared to focus on more immediately labour market barriers; the second appeared to have a broader focus with more structured support around confidence and other personal issues; and the third provided a particularly in-depth service, sometimes within the supported employment model and sometimes working with clients with more severe and enduring impairments. Looking at the performance groups, all three types of service were apparent among the highest performing group and among the middle group, with no obvious bias. The Job Brokers with lower entry levels but higher sustainability rates who worked with clients likely to be further from work all provided a broader and more in-depth service. Among the Job Brokers with lower performance levels, there was more focus on immediate labour market barriers. There was more explicit emphasis on vocational guidance among the highest performance group, and much less emphasis on providing in-house training or funding for external training, and on confidence and other personal barriers, among the poorest performing group.

As noted in Chapter 2, the use of financial payments to clients either as incentives or to cover costs such as clothing and equipment had generally increased since Wave One. Not all the best performing Job Brokers used them, but it was here that the use of more extensive and higher payments was concentrated. Among the medium performers there was a mixture of Job Broker services which used incentives and those that did not, but there was little use of them among the poorer performers whose access to direct financial support for clients was mostly through either internal or Jobcentre Plus discretionary funds.

There were no clear patterns in caseload size across different patterns of performance: higher and lower caseloads were described across the performance groups, and with no more emphasis among some performance levels than others. In terms of arrangements for maintaining contact with clients, across the groups Job Broker advisers and managers stressed the importance of maintaining contact with clients (as discussed in Chapter 3), and noted a contractual or organisational requirement to be in touch every 15 or 20 days. It was rare for advisers or managers to be self- critical of the level of contact or to say that contact is often initiated by clients or that they focus more of their activities on clients who contact them, but where this did occur it was among the medium or poorer performing Job Brokers.

Finally, as noted in Chapter 2, Job Brokers described most of their contacts with employers as ‘client-led’ and there were some doubts about the efficacy of what were seen as more ‘employer-led’ approaches such as setting up arrangements for notification of vacancies or more general marketing and awareness-raising activity. The number of Job Brokers who placed emphasis on the proactive development of relationships with employers, rather than a client-led approach, was relatively small. However, none of those placing most emphasis on employer-led approaches were among the highest performing Job Brokers; those that appeared to be more active here, or who were planning to become more active, were all in the medium or lower performance groups.