A CHILDCARE BENEFIT FOR WORKING PARENT
ALLY - CITIVENTURES X PARSONS INNOVATION CHALLENGE
The Brief
The US has approximately 6 million unfilled jobs and roughly the same number of underemployed or unemployed people. Part of the reason for the mismatch is lack of appropriate skills and/or mismatch in geographies. Thus, causing unavoidable economic mobility.
As part of the academic collaboration with CitiVentures, the team is tasked with validating this finding with research interviews and understand the root cause behind the number of unfilled jobs and jobless individuals. Students should then evaluate what services or products are available to close/fill the skills and job gaps while also developing prototypes and testing solutions with individuals.
Project Duration: January -May 2018
The Process
Key Contribution: Design research, Branding, UX & UI Design, Research synthesis, Concept Ideation, Prototyping, Workshop facilitation.
Phase 1: Discovery & Empathize
To reach a deep understanding of the problem, the team conducted desk research and general interviews through multiple sources. The objective was to have a holistic understanding of the problem space and the relationship within the problem environment. Below are some of the visualizations that could provide more knowledge on the problem.
From the early stage of research, we can clearly see that the majority group of unemployment are female. Although the ratio might not be much different, we discover that the household condition and environment played a significant factor in economic mobility especially the one with an attached family member.
To further understand the condition of the environment, we create an ecosystem map of the general household condition in relation to the female daily involvements. The map content generated from reports, in-depth interviews, and observations that the team conducted.
Some of the information we came across;
“No women should have to choose between being a mom and having a career”
Some of the key findings are;
“I’m definitely willing to sacrifice part of my salary in exchange for childcare benefits”
“Recruiting difficulty has continued to increase over the last five years and competition for
talent is high.”
● 80% of women will eventually become a mother by the age of 44
● Most of working mother income goes to childcare service or babysitting
● People don’t understand that family is a priority for parents.
● Working mothers are struggling to balance their work life and mother role
● Women do not have an adequate environment to work meanwhile being pregnant.
● Parents are willing to sacrifice salary for benefits related to their children.
● Sometimes divorced parents can’t move because of divorce agreements and state law.
● Parents save their sick leaves for their children.
● Sometimes employees get benefits they don't need/use.
Phase 2: Synthesis
In this phase, the team has compiled the information from primary as well as secondary research, and conduct the synthesis session which included diverse stakeholders. This process helped identify the critical pain point in which can be further developed in the ideation phase.
After the synthesis process, the team prioritized the key insights and theme to narrow down the potential direction for the ideation process. We reframe the theme and come up with Hoe might we questions that will help generate diverse ideas.
After the synthesis process, the team prioritized the key insights and theme to narrow down the potential direction for the ideation process. We reframe the theme and come up with Hoe might we questions that will help generate diverse ideas.
Create 'how might we' questions for co-creation process;
Provide the best benefits for our employees?
“I'm afraid of mentioning I'm a mom and not getting hired because of it”
Provide more flexibility to women with children?
“I want to stay home because my child is sick and I need to take care of him/her”
Fix the income gap between genders?
“Paying for childcare costs me almost as much as I make working”
“I know for a fact I’m making less money than guys in my same job position”
Offer parents access to activities for their kids or childcare discounts as part of their job benefits?
“Kid´s extracurricular activities are essential to managing their free time and my buzzy one”
Persona and Customer Journey
JULIE
Phase 3: Ideation
Within this process, the team conducts several brainstorming and co-creation workshop in order to generate as many potential concept and implementations as possible. It is essential involves stakeholders in the process ensure that all the key factors and needs have been considering and evaluate. This is a crucial moment of the project development to conduct collaborative environment
The implementation approaches were;
Approach 1: Parental benefit provided by employer
Approach 2: Self sustain parental support community
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Daycare paid by the employer
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Bring your baby to work day
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Corporate babysitter
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Corporate pediatrician doctor on site
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Children extra sick days
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Work from home opportunity
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Self-help groups for working mothers
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Create a community of working mothers with mentors who have successfully re-entered the workforce
Phase 4: Prototyping & Testing
Prototype 1: The Business Origami prototype for scenario-based strategy.
The low-fidelity prototype was set up as scenarios for imitating working parent journey and pinpoint the situation with best for creative intervention and business implementation. Through this model, the team was able to clarify the best medium and potential behavior with the solution. From the discussion and testing different scenarios, the best concept is to provide childcare service while minimizes the parental initiation but effective within the limited parameter.
Prototype 2: The paper prototype for features and user experience
After developing through the mobile application format, the second prototype was conducted to test the user interface, features, and experience. The goal was to develop the user-friendly system with affordable service the parent while leveraging the interest, growth, and behavior of the children.
Prototype 3: The digital prototype for features, user experience and user interface
Several prototypes have been made and refine to the final prototype in digital format. The parent can use the application to reserve immediate childcare within the preset parameter while the expense of the childcare will be collected through the employer with the credit system.
Explore interactive prototype here
While the actual benefit goes to the working employee-parent, the company can benefit in the long term through the reduction of childcare related absent which has cost to the U.S. companies. It will also reduce the turnover rate and increase work efficiency without the need to provide employee in-house or corporate benefit.
Phase 4: Marketing & Final implementation
The team tapped the service in between Employment benefit and childcare service. It allows us to operate the service in conjunction with necessity in daily life and career efficiency which very few businesses tackled. This position enabled us to leverage the needs of the parent and convert it to the potential improvement in professional life which we hope could decrease the economic mobility in the long term.
Although we have identified the daycare as 48 Billion Dollar market, formed mainly not form our competition but from potential parties or allies. Currently, there are more than a thousand business related to child care in the New York City Area. Places Like Apple seed, Gymboree and even Bright Horizons.
But it won’t be only a partnership, we will bring benefits to their business by:
• Increasing the traffic
• Reducing underutilization
• Becoming part of a shared economy