From 2023 to 2025, Jewish Vocational Service, a workforce provider, partnered with the Economic Mobility Lab to develop strategies for increasing its training completion rates. This case study describes this partnership and its outcomes.

About the Economic Mobility Lab. The Economic Mobility Lab (EML) is a technical assistance initiative launched by MDRC to support sector-focused workforce training providers in improving training experiences and outcomes for participants. The initiative’s approach combines MDRC’s workforce expertise and evidence-based practices with human-centered design strategies. In an EML project, staff members from MDRC and the provider form a project team that works to identify a critical service delivery challenge for the provider, design potential participant-focused solutions, and implement and test those solutions. EML is made possible through the generous support of Ascendium Education Group and The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

About Jewish Vocational Service. Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) is a nonprofit workforce provider focused on transforming lives by helping job seekers build skills and find work. JVS provides training in several high-demand occupations, such as those of medical administrative assistant, medical assistant, and dental assistant. Since 1973, JVS has served over 100,000 people in California.

The process used in the JVS and EML partnership involved four phases, following standard EML protocol: the discovery phase, the design phase, the learning cycle phase, and the sustainability phase. For a general description of what occurs during each phase of an EML project, see The Economic Mobility Lab Process Framework.

Discovery Phase: Explore a Focal Area

JVS’s focal area—the operational challenge the provider wanted to address— was low training completion rates for Black and Latino/a participants. The organization sought to increase training completion rates for these participants by increasing completion rates across all its training programs for all participants.

Confirming the focal area. To verify the focal area, MDRC reviewed program data on completion rates for JVS’s training programs. The data confirmed that the training completion rates for Black and Latino/a participants were below JVS targets and lower than the completion rates for all other participants. To gain more insight into training completion rates, the project team interviewed front-line program staff members and program participants, reviewed additional program data, and created a customer journey map.

Discovery findings. Data collection and analysis identified four main factors that were hypothesized to contribute to lower-than-desired training completion rates:

• Financial support was available but had to be requested, and many participants were unaware this support was available.
• The dual role of JVS staff members—enforcing program compliance while offering support—made participants hesitant to seek additional help. This tension hindered the development of trusting relationships between staff members and participants.
• Participants who delayed seeking help often fell too far behind to recover during the training. By the time they requested support, it was frequently too late for support to have an effect. 
• JVS did not have up-to-date referral lists to help participants seek out additional resources.

Design Phase: Design and Plan

Based on the findings in the discovery phase, the project team hypothesized that changing how staff members and participants interact could help more participants complete their training. Team members outlined a strategy focused on building supportive relationships as a necessary condition so participants would be open to disclosing personal challenges. Staff members would then proactively offer support.

Design activities. The project team designed an intervention with the following components:

• An approach to coaching in which staff members proactively offer support, such as funding for childcare, to participants facing challenges, before reminding participants about the program’s policies and rules.
• A substantive one-on-one meeting with each participant during program enrollment to build a supportive relationship. During the meeting, staff members:
  • Identify existing barriers and proactively offer support to address them
  • Identify potential future support needs, such as how to help the program participant navigate getting to and being successful in the program’s internship
  • Schedule future meetings with participants to coincide with the next major milestone to ensure they have the support needed to transition to the next phase of the training
• Follow-up meetings with participants to check in on existing and new barriers and proactively offer support.

Target outcomes. JVS set the following outcome goals:

• Stronger relationships between staff members and participants. Stronger relationships would be evidenced by:
  • Increased knowledge of participants’ barriers to attendance and engagement before the start of the program (or shortly after), based on insights gained through the initial meeting
  • An increase in the amount of support proactively offered to participants, based on insights gained through the initial meeting
  • Increased frequency of interaction early in the program between staff members and participants
• Improved use of financial support due to more participants being offered and receiving financial assistance earlier in the program.
• An increase in the percentage of participants who complete training.

Learning Cycle Phase: Test and Learn

JVS piloted the intervention in learning cycles across three training programs—first for a randomly assigned group from one training program and then for all cohort members of the three training programs. The tests took place in late 2024 and early 2025.

Measurement strategy. The project team used program data, frontline staff input, and participant interviews to assess the intervention's effect on employee workflows and participant outcomes.

Results. JVS staff members implemented the intervention, leading to:

• An increase in the number of interactions staff members had with participants during training. In one training program, the average number of interactions per participant increased from 11 in the prior cohort to 39 for the intervention cohort.
• An increase in the duration of the meetings between staff members and training participants. Staff members also reported that having the substantive one-on-one meeting early in the training helped them better support participants with challenges not disclosed during enrollment or that the participant did not think of initially.
• An increase in the support offered to participants. For one training program cohort, participants received an average of $587 in resources compared with an average of $408 in the prior cohort.
• An overall increase in training completions across multiple training programs. The program completion rate increased by 8 percentage points for one training program and by 19 percentage points for another. 

Sustainability Phase: Sustain and Extend

JVS is continuing to support the intervention discussed in this case study while using EML’s approach to address other focal areas.

Expanding the intervention. JVS is in the process of incorporating the same intervention into all its training programs. The JVS employees who implemented the EML pilot tests will lead training to prepare their colleagues for the launch.

Applying techniques. MDRC led workshops with a JVS division that was not involved in the intervention described above. Workshops focused on applying the EML approach to new focal areas and on integrating the EML learning cycle approach into JVS’s change management strategy.