The ‘Learning to Change’ initiative provided more than 500 subsidy processors assistance when managing subsidy applicatiosn, right at their moment of need. Geertje Henrichs, Learning to Change Program Manager at the Subsidies Bureau: “The way in which we deal with subsidies in the City of Amsterdam has changed considerably over the past years. Granting subsidies is high on the political agenda. A new municipal vision underpins the ‘Learning to Change’ program. We offer Amsterdam City subsidy processors workflow support. If a colleague runs into an issue during the processing of an application, our new Performance Support solution gives them a clear explanation of what they need to do within two clicks and ten seconds. And they can take action. It is important  that all employees – now and in the future – are integrated into this vision.”

Increasing the scope after a successful pilot

During a pilot of Workflow Learning at the Amsterdam School last summer, a Proof of Concept (POC) was developed for the Subsidies Bureau in which key knowledge and information was structured into the AskDelphi Learning Experience & Performance Support platform. The solution was rolled out to 50 or 60 subsidy employees who used it over a number of months. After the pilot review they saw that this type of support in the workflow greatly reduced the margin of error in the subsidy application process. Geertje: “A fantastic result, which made us decide to implement this way of workflow learning throughout the whole Subsidies Bureau. We asked Xprtise to help us with this.” The key criteria for the Subsidies Bureau were:

  • To be able to consult the learning environment on a daily basis
  • Quickly find exactly what you’re looking for
  • Always have up-to-date information available
  • Help new employees get up-to-speed quickly

The workflow of a subsidy processor was mapped out in a cognitive map, a visualization of an Amsterdam metro line with a number of metro stations. The cognitive map shows the overall business process.

Read the full project case of Subsidies Bureau of Amsterdam here.