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The Ontario Digital Services Lab (ODS) is a small team within Ontario’s government consisting of “coders, user experience experts, content designers, product managers, digital strategists, data experts, and partners shaking things up inside government to make life better for all Ontarians” - ODS
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“We’d like to be able to reach a more diverse range of backgrounds when hiring and provide opportunities to students who would be considered marginalized on the basis of systemic racism, income, gender, education, and other previous employment opportunities.” -ODS
To begin this project we needed to understand current tools and methodologies currently used for diverse hiring, the Ontario Human Rights Code, and ways to measure success. Once we felt comfortable with these topics we moved onto interviews.
The goal of our interviews was to understand the process students go through when applying to co-op jobs. Our focus was not only on the work involved with the process but also their emotions at each step of the process, this helped us empathize with the target audience of the project.
Through synthesizing our research we wanted to create a service design blueprint so that our client could easily follow the steps required to implement our changes. We also included a journey map to help with empathizing with their perspective co-op students.
Once we understood what needed to be researched we split into teams to learn about our three initial topics.
We researched a variety of existing programs that are used to anonymize job applications such as Gap Jumpers, Textio, and Jopwell. While these are only a few examples, this type of software take personal information away from job applications and only leaves relevant work experience so that applicants are not discriminated by anything that could identify them as a member of a certain group.
After reading through the Human rights code we learned that the goal of the code is to eliminate discrimination from the workplace. This includes everything from the onboarding process to dismissal of employees. The code also covers employee benefits, regulates engagement in the workforce, and enforces compliance management to ensure every employee has an equal work environment.
Through our research, we found that most employers do make hiring decisions based on merit and experience. While at first glance this seemed like ethical hiring, we found that this was very limiting for candidates who were not as privileged in gaining experience, whether that be due to race, economic status or a variety of other factors. This realization made us shift our focus to providing opportunities to people who have limited experience to allow them to gain more skills.
This research led us to our problem statement for the project:
A comfortable environment is pivotal in an inclusive workplace and it was one topic that was spoken about in every interview. Applying to jobs is a daunting process and most interviewees spoke about how uncomfortable they felt with every application.
Interviewees spoke about how if they saw someone like them in the workplace they automatically felt welcomed and appreciated.
Every applicant showed some interest in the company before applying. This led to a majority of them researching the company first and the more transparent the company seemed, the more comfortable the applicants felt.
Every person we interviewed spoke about how they believed the hiring process needed to change to be more inclusive of everyone.
Andrew White
Andrew White is a persona based on the typical applicant that the ODS team sees when hiring. He is someone who has had the privilege of having multiple work experiences as well as multiple industry connections.
Nancy James
Nancy James was a persona created based on our interviews with our POC participants where we included a lot of the pain points that we identified were specific to our target users of unrepresented individuals.
Access is a major barrier, as many applicants feel they have no real chance of getting the job. This discourages them from applying and reinforces the idea that they won’t fit in, limiting diversity in the hiring pool.
The wording in job ads matters. Women tend to apply only if they meet all criteria, while men apply regardless. Using an open format makes experience requirements more flexible and attracts a more diverse applicant pool.
Lengthy interview processes can be a barrier for those with jobs, as they require taking time off for multiple rounds or job-specific projects. Some candidates may even avoid applying if the process takes months.
Requiring a portfolio adds challenges, including the cost, which can exceed $200 per year—a significant burden for unemployed applicants. Keeping a portfolio updated is also time-consuming, creating an additional hurdle for those with busy schedules.
Interviews are often stressful and favor extroverts who can confidently sell themselves. One interviewee said, “Some people just don’t have the personality to sell themselves in 15 minutes,” highlighting how this process overlooks skilled but less outspoken candidates.
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Changing hiring practices is only step one to creating an inclusive workplace. A truly inclusive workplace requires an attitude shift where everyone feels open to be themselves. We believe that if a workplace thinks in inclusive ways, it will be easy to get diverse applicants because marginalized applicants will feel welcomed to join the team.
To visualize the internal attitude we developed a service design blueprint that the ODS could use to guide their transition:
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While we truly believe there needs to be an internal culture shift to fully implement the changes, we also made a service blueprint with specific changes that can be made to the co-op hiring process in order for the ODS to reach more diverse candidates for future hiring cycles. This service blueprint covers every step in the process from the applicants searching for a job all the way through to the ODS team selecting a candidate.
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Job Posting Information
This is the revised job application we created based on our research. Some notable differences are no portfolio requirement, personal letter, or video submission so that the applicant can express who they are in a different form, as well as changing the text to be more comforting and inclusive.
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ODS Team Information
This page is focused on showing the inclusivity of the team so applicants can see that the team has diverse representation as well as a short description of the team so the person feels like they are applying to a transparent company that openly shares their values.
We created a new metric sheet to guide the ODS team in hiring decisions. It avoids weighted sections, ensuring applicants aren’t penalized for missing criteria, making the process more inclusive. We also added a “Valuable Characteristics” section to assess personality fit. Additionally, we included a section highlighting our goal of accepting students from various programs, recognizing that non-design applicants, like a film student skilled in storytelling, could bring valuable skills to the team.
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