What you will learn
- How employment barriers are assessed: skills, health, transport, childcare, and confidence
- What a job readiness plan contains, and how it changes
- How training, work experience, and employer matching are tracked
- What placement and retention support need after the job starts
- How employment outcomes are measured honestly
What the project is
Employment support clients face varied barriers: missing qualifications, health conditions, lack of transport, childcare gaps, criminal records, or simply long unemployment that has eroded confidence. A case tracking system holds a barrier assessment per client, a plan addressing those barriers in order, records of training, work experience, and applications, employer matches, and placement and retention outcomes. The plan is a working document: as barriers are removed, new ones appear, and the plan changes with the client's reality.
Retention is where many programs fail. A placement is not an outcome if the job ends in three weeks because transport failed or childcare broke down. The system therefore tracks retention support after placement: check-ins at set intervals, emerging problems flagged early, and support offered before a job is lost. A program that measures placements but not retention will celebrate numbers that do not last, and the tracking system should make that visible.
Core features
Retention tracking is the feature. A job program that counts placements and ignores retention is measuring its marketing, not its outcomes.
- Barrier assessments covering skills, health, transport, childcare, and other factors, versioned as barriers change.
- Job readiness plans with actions, owners, and due dates, linked to the barriers they address.
- Training and work experience records: courses, placements, and qualifications, with completion tracking.
- Employer matching: employer profiles, vacancies, and match suggestions based on client skills and constraints.
- Application tracking: applications sent, interviews, and outcomes, so clients and workers see the search, not just the result.
- Placement and retention support: check-ins after placement, problem flags, and support actions, tracked for months after starting work.
- Outcome reporting: placements, retention rates, and barrier removal, for program management and funders, in aggregate.
How it is built
Build the barrier assessment and plan with employment workers and clients, not from a generic employability template. Barriers differ by community, and the assessment must reflect the real ones.
- Barrier study: learn the barriers clients actually face in this community, and how workers currently plan around them.
- Assessment and plan build: barrier assessments, readiness plans, and training records, tested with real workers and clients.
- Matching and application tools: employer profiles, vacancy matching, and application tracking, tested on real vacancies.
- Retention support: post-placement check-ins and problem flags, tested over real placements.
- Outcome reporting: placement and retention reports validated against a past program period before funder use.
Tech considerations
The technical priorities are plan flexibility, employer data quality, and retention workflows that workers actually follow.
- Flexible plan model where actions link to barriers, so a plan change shows which barrier it addresses.
- Employer and vacancy data with freshness handling, because stale vacancies waste applications and damage employer trust.
- Application tracking with status workflows and client visibility, so clients see their own search progress.
- Retention check-in scheduling with problem flagging and support task creation.
- Reporting on placements and retention with honest definitions, so a placement that ends in three weeks is not counted like one that lasts a year.
Challenges to plan for
Employment programs fail on barrier blindness, employer mismatch, and retention neglect. All three produce placements that do not last, and clients who lose faith.
- Barrier blindness: a plan that ignores transport or childcare will place a client in a job they cannot sustainably reach or hold.
- Employer mismatch: matching a client to a vacancy they cannot do, or will not keep, wastes the employer's goodwill and the client's confidence.
- Retention neglect: support that ends at placement abandons the client at the hardest moment, when a new job's problems appear.
- Outcome gaming: counting placements without retention, or counting any job as success regardless of fit, misleads funders and harms clients.
Who it is for, and honest limits
This fits employment support programs, welfare-to-work providers, and community organisations helping clients into work. It fits less well for a general job board, where the need is vacancy listing, not barrier-based case tracking.
It does not create jobs or remove barriers by itself. It makes barriers visible, plans trackable, and retention supported. If local jobs are scarce, the system will show application volumes and placement rates plainly, which is the evidence for employer engagement or training investment.
Frequently asked questions
What barriers are assessed?
Skills, qualifications, health, transport, childcare, housing stability, and other factors relevant to the client, assessed with the client rather than about them. The assessment should lead to a plan, not just a score.
How are employers matched?
By client skills, constraints such as transport and hours, and employer requirements, with worker judgement as the final step. A match suggestion is a starting point for a conversation, not an automatic referral.
What happens after placement?
Retention support: check-ins at set intervals, problem flags for transport, childcare, or workplace issues, and support actions before problems cost the job. Retention is tracked for months, not days.
How are outcomes defined?
Placements, retention at set intervals such as 13 and 26 weeks, and barrier removal, each defined clearly and reported consistently. Definitions should be published, so funders and clients judge the same numbers.
Can clients see their own plan?
Yes, clients should see their plan, their progress, and their applications. A plan the client cannot see is not their plan, and it will not motivate them the way a shared plan does.