VDAB

 Public employment service for Flemish region located at Flanders

 Head office at Brussels with further 68 training centres and 360 one stop shops providing training, employment
Services, career guidance.
 Job placements were organised regionally through local one-stop-job shops centres providing integrated services
and information
 Vacancies on VDAB website were made available by public computers with touchscreen at various public places
 VDAB publicly funded autonomous agency , accountable to Flemish government as per policy set by them, but not
directly.
 VDAB run by a board of directors including the CEO and representatives from employers’ associations,
trade unions, and the Flemish government.
 VDAB and government set mutual commitments every five years, earmarked policy priorities/strategic goals and
resources required.
 VDAB combined face-to-face contacts with call center, internet,text messages, e-mail, and social media.
Changing labor market
 2012-labor market was undergoing significant changes
 Demographic pressure- Due to aging population & shift of balance between working age and retirees
 Qualitative mismatch between workers’ skills and the skills required for vacancies.
 Large impact of globalization
 Economic cycles were shortening,
 Need for flexibility to cope with changing labor market conditions.
 Career security taking the place of job security.
 VDAB perspective
 people will have to show more self-management
 different labor market actors will have to adapt
 mismatch on the labor market can only be solved if more people work longer.
 working longer is only feasible if people can work differently.
 This requires a broadening labor market and career policies.
IT-enabled world,
 labor market processes became IT driven.
 New technologies for data collection, data mining or data exchange alternative communication ,collaboration channels,
increasingly social and mobile internet, altered ways recruitment process.
 PRIOR TO 2011 VDAB FUNCTIONING
KEY PARTNERS-goverment KEY ACTIVITIES-JOB VALUE PROPOSTION- CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS- CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
PROVIDER ACCESSIBILITY COUSELLORS NICHE :
ACCOUNT MANAGERS MANDATORY JOB SEEKERS
FACE TO FACE TYPES
INDIVIDUAL JOB SEEKERS

KEY RESOURCE COST STRUCTURE-INFRA AND REVENUE STREAMS- CHANNELS-

• PHYSICAL RENT GOVERNMENT FUNDS • PHYSICAL
• HUMAN • INTERMEDIARES
• CMPTR TERMINALS WITH • DIRECT
TOUCH SCREENS

NEW VDAB FUNCTIONING

KEY PARTNERS- KEY ACTIVITIES-JOB VALUE PROPOSTION- CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS- CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
GOVERNMENT- PROVIDER , AND EMPLOYEE, ACCESSIBILITY COUSELLORS ACCOUNT NICHE :
OPTIMISATION AND ECO OF 24/7 ONLINE DIGI PLATFORM, NEWNESS MANAGERS MANDATORY & INDIVIDUAL
SCALE NETWK ORG COST REDUC FACE TO FACE, JOB SEEKERS
ACQUISITION OF KEY RISK REDUC TELE,VIDEO,EMAIL , COMPANIES ESP MSME, EDU
RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES INST, RECRUITERS,
COMMUNITY GROUPS

KEY RESOURCE COST STRUCTURE-INFRA AND REVENUE STREAMS- CHANNELS-

• PHYSICAL GOOGLE GOVERNMENT • PHYSICAL
• HUMAN FUNDS,EMPLOYERS,personalized • INTERMEDIARES
• CMPTR TERMINALS WITH services • DIRECT
TOUCH SCREENS • DIGI PLATFORM

1989 VDAB FOUNDED

2005 CEO-LEROY appointed

2007 CIO-Daneels appointed
2010 VONK strategy mooted
2011-2015 New agreement signed
Change Required?-Strategy
VDAB had already prepared for this,released a strategy document also.

VONK sought to change VDAB

“A service provider to job seekers
To a conductor orchestrating volunteering participants”

Change Required?-Management Agreement

New management agreement

 Agreement acknowledged technology driven, service provision
 Encourage individuals’ self-reliance and self-management

New Strategic goals for the VDAB

 Activate all job seekers and other non-active citizens on the labor market.
 Activate in a individualized a manner,with a view to their long-term deployment on the labor market.
 Provide career services for working citizens (i.e. support career design decisions).
 Ensure effective approach for all employers (with a special focus on SMEs).
 Organize labor market-oriented, flexible and future-proof services for competency recognition and development.
 Extend partnerships.-collaboration
 New agreement placed emphasis on the provision of services for employers on career services, and partnerships vis a
vis previous agreement far more exclusively concerned with the provision of services to job seekers.
 Target group now included non-active citizens as well.
 VDAB would now target some 4 million people of working age in Flanders, instead of approximately every year.
 New management agreement first to contain explicit goals for web-based learning and competency recognition.
 New agreement therefore stipulated that collaboration with all partners must be stepped up.

VDAB IT department
 IT well prepared as kept in the loop from the start.
 Prepared the infrastructure in advance.

Working principles
 Project delivery model relied on partnership with the businesses for all IT projects.
 Portfolio-based functioning, selection and prioritization based on strategic fit, costs, and risks, ensured clear
Agreements , plans & project coherence.
 IT resources were allocated and managed at a corporate level to ensure professional support with Procedures.
 A strong internal core IT team, supplemented with external service providers, ensured maximum flexibility and agility.
 Work was done on an overall architectural framework (to enable and facilitate the integration of
aplications and systems).
 A controllable and robust infrastructure and reliable service delivery ensure good availability of it-enabled services.
 The information strategy ensures easy access for internal and external users.
IT Organization
 Initial task-reorganizing IT department to ensure better alignment with
business.

 Strategy and general management outlined by CIO.

 IT Core Committee , comprising CIO and members of Management

Committee, set up to determine IT strategy and the sourcing strategy using
internal resources vs outsourcing.

 core committee also allocated budget for different IT areas. monthly

recurring agenda item of Management Committee meetings was discussion
of IT dashboard and problems.

 CIO office took care of budget monitoring, invoicing, and staffing across all
projects.

 HR and Logistics monitored all administrative work associated with

recruitment, purchasing,and asset management.

 IT department adopted a project-based organizational structure.

The IT project portfolio organization were divided into to reflect budget
allocation principles
 Strategic Projects
 Business Projects
 Technical Projects
 Project teams retained ownership from concept ,implementation to rollout
 Approach reduced the number of handovers and hence errors.
 Project teams staffed by internal vdab personnel , supplemented by external consultants. For more flexibility and cost-
effectiveness to varying demands.
 Project control ensured by regular consultation between business project leader and the it project leader.
 Joint business and it control groups ensured project monitoring of deliverables, milestones, and budget.
 Joint groups also optimized value creation and business satisfaction , vdab adopted scrum6 to actually run the projects.

 Process Innovation Team (PIT)

 The Process Innovation Team (PIT) monitored if project proposed by business would contribute to the achievement of the
strategy and its budgetary impact both on IT and at the business level.
 Management Committee decided whether to take on a rproject
 The PIT reported to the CEO
 The team consisted of people from the business, an IT architect,and external consultants.
 The PIT had been created for –
 To assist professionalize project identification and project management on the business side.
 Analyzes project proposals and organizes challenge meetings to assess the strategic, budgetary, and architectural
fit of proposed projects, monitor portfolio budget, consolidates project reporting for Management Committee.
 PIT is responsible for creating the business architecture, i.e. it maps business processes and develops master data
concepts.
 Architecture and Innovation Unit managed the technical roadmaps.
 IT architects worked as team members on the different projects to ensure that newly developed components could be
integrated into the existing architecture rather than imposing methods and standards in advance and relying on sporadic
controls
This unit also had to look out for new technologies and new ways of working via test bed projects undertaken in collaboration
with external partners such as universities, business schools, or service providers.

 Strategic projects had a margin in budgetary allocation incorporated approx. 5%.

 Service Delivery & Operations negotiated, established, and monitored Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and maintenance
contracts with internal and external service providers.
 IT had devised a sourcing process that made use of framework contracts for service providers and for outsourced
infrastructure management with external partners.
 It was responsible for the development of framework and process improvement initiatives
 Provide follow up of incidents,on-site support (IT experts) at job shops and local training centers.
 Took care of technical management and support of the telephone, network, and application infrastructure.
 The team also provided technical application support (databases, middleware, tools including e-learning).
 Actual infrastructure hosting and management were outsourced (network and server management, backup and storage
management, and end-user infrastructure support).

Strategic IT themes
 VDAB gave a platform with necessary information, tools, and standards for data exchange, while ensuring quality
assurance of the information provided.
 VDAB permamnently improved the transparency of labor market processes ensuring maximum exchangeability of data,
while providing transparency on the source and status of data (i.e. distinguishing between validated data, such as
certificates and diplomas, and other non-validated data entered by an individual).
 More interaction with VDAB digi platform to provide or access information, the more dynamic and relevant it would
become and add to its added value in creating a transparent and flexible labor market.
 VDAB’s strategic projects were linked to strategic
Themes
themes are essential strategic elements that form the
foundation for our digital platform, which is the basis for
our business model. They all revolve around enabling and
stimulating stakeholder engagement
 A convenient and appealing career portal for individuals, a tailored approach to employers, competency-based matching,
and collaboration and co-creation, were the themes the VDAB had identified. These were translated into concrete
tools and applications, the components of the digital platform.

Convenient and appealing career portal for individuals

 any individual who wanted to develop and manage his or her career would use the portal to
 find a job,
 develop his her competencies to enhance employability,
 validate personal information such as training certificates, or
 access any relevant labor market information.
 Theycould manage their portfolio,add or update information, and exchange it with other labor market actors
 One of the tools to assist individuals in their career management-
 My Career,
 an e-portfolio grouping all career related information such as diplomas and certificates, jobs,competencies, and trainings
 Additional tool, PDP
 To support competency and skills gap assessment, enabling devising own personal development plan.
 would closely integrate with My Career to avoid duplication of data entry.
 Individuals would remain owner of their PDP providing access to other labor market actors at their own
discretion.
The career portal would support -
 online job applications (i.e. the selection of vacancies, either manually or through automatic matching, and résumé
submission)
 competency development (i.e. online registration for trainingin one of the VDAB competence centers or with the
participating labor market actors, and e-learning).
 the 24/7 online self-service portal,individuals could still call upon a VDAB counselor for personalized information,
assistance, or coaching, either in person,via videoconferencing, telephone, e-mail, or chat.

VDAB Services Tailored approach to employers

 employers now select eligible candidates manually or through auto matching, for qualified, employable personnel.
 Employers now could contact with selected candidates via their employers’ portal as well.
 Employers could access competency development services and IT-enabled business model innovation at VDAB for training
and development .
 Integrate their internal talent and competency management with the tools and applications of the digital platform (PDP,
Competent) to enhance transparency and efficiency.
 The employers’ portal would also provide access to certified information from authenticated sources (e.g. certificates and
diplomas) as well as to any other relevant labor market or policy information.
 Like individual users, employers would have access to personalized services via alternative channels: face-to-face
contact, videoconferencing, telephone, e-mail, or chat.
Competency-based Matching
maximizing an individual’s employability –equal to finding right fit between his or her competencies, preferences, and
aspirations on the one hand and the job requirements on the other.
Employability now based on competency with diplomas and previous work experience no longer the only criteria to for
suitable candidate.
This approach was supposed to underpin all labor market transactions.
VDAB integrated and enriched an existing competence platform into a Competent, dynamic database to act as a central,
standardized competence backbone for the labor market.
Competent would be integrated with the other building blocks of the VDAB digital platform, such as My Career, PDP, and
MasterVac, to enable more sophisticated automatic matching of job seekers and vacancies.

Collaboration and co-creation

 Information exchange and collaboration between all labor market actors enhanced through integration with social media
and by making as much information as possible available to other labor market actors, enabling them to develop their own
applications to enrich the digital platform.
 The tools and applications supporting the strategic themes (e.g. My Career, PDP, Competent, and MasterVac) is integrated
into a mobile-ready digital platform, made accessible via the internet.
 Platoform developed from an outside in perspective:
 IT develops systems and applications to support the internal VDAB organization & requirements of all stakeholders.
New ways of working – enabled by IT
 Role of VDAB –now service provider and conductor of the labor market.
 VDAB chose to experiment with new, cutting-edge technology.
 VDAB first government agency to move mail and collaboration platform to the google cloud.
 Google Cloud had advantages-
 Cost savings
 It eliminated the need to invest in hardware and client software,
 It enabled low-cost development of custom applications.e.g training reservation system for a Dutch language course
that was set up by one of the VDAB counselors in a matter of minutes using Google Docs, without any intervention
from IT.
 Was a strategic fit As VDAB needed to become as open and accessible as possible for all its stakeholders.
 VDAB platform was for all to use, to share information without any technological barriers.
 Cloud supported Bring Your Own Device which enabled
 Different ways of working , as all applications were available over the internet.
 Counsellors or any stakeholder could work from home or anywhere else; with internet connection.

 Other ways like GOOGLE app where IT contributed to rethinking and simplifying the functioning of the business.
 Test bed projects (proeftuinen) were another.
 Architecture and Innovation Unit to experiment with initiatives fitting with strategic IT themes ,set up in a win
fast/fail fast manner.
 Three areas of interest were identified as follows:
 Data discovery: to check how VDAb could use available info.
 for e.g design and development of queries to extract competencies from unstructured data such as résumés or
vacancies for use in matching algorithms, or profiling of job seekers by looking for meaningful patterns in the
available information.
 Open data:
 focused on making information available in a structured way, using publicly available Application
Programming Interfaces (APIs), to enable other stakeholders to develop their own applications such
as all the offices of the VDAB, vacancies, and trainings.
 Communication with job seekers and other stakeholders:Initiatives in this area were to enable more proactive
and flexible communication with stakeholders.
 The initiatives that had been launched until then were all related to encouraging the use of the Google
collaboration platform:
 Open appointment system for counselors, synchronizing with the agendas of counselors, job seekers, and team
leaders.
 IT-enabled business model innovation at VDAB S Viaene and S Broeckx
 Online job-application coaching using Google Hangout (video application) and the Google document-sharing
application.
Achieve ments
Had reorganized the IT department and governance structures.
The vacancies databases for internal and external purposes had been integrated into a single source (MasterVac)
First version of My Career had been launched .
Org familiar with Google Apps and organized a virtual job fair successfully post IT changes.