Hello,

I’m excited to share that the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation has accepted for publication our article: "Inside the workday of employment consultants: New insights on strengthening employment services"

The article describes how 13 employment programs that used ES-Coach for at least one year, with a daily response rate of at least 60%, allocated their time on key activities and best practices.

Check out the abstract, key charts, and conclusions from the article:

Abstract.

Background. Most employment consultants access professional development to learn about best practices in supported and customized employment that lead to individual integrated employment. However, little is known about how widely these best practices are actually implemented.

Objective. This article provides a window into how a typical 8-hour workday of an employment consultant aligns with best practices in supported and customized employment.

Methods. We estimated employment consultants’ average daily time allocation to key activities and best practices using 12 months of data from 96 employment consultants across 13 employment programs in seven states.

Results. On a typical 8-hour workday, employment consultants dedicate about two and a half hours on supports leading to hire—one hour in community settings, 29 minutes on specific best practices, and six minutes engaging with job seekers’ families and social networks. Administrative tasks account for nearly three hours per day. Time allocation varied widely across the 13 employment programs.

Figure 1. Time dedicated to key activities and best practices in an 8-hour workday across 13 employment programs.

Figure 2. Time dedicated to support leading to hires in community settings in an 8-hour workday across 13 employment programs.

Figure 4. Time dedicated to best practices in getting to know job seekers and finding jobs in an 8-hour workday across 13 employment programs.

Conclusions: While employment consultants play a vital role in helping job seekers with disabilities secure individual integrated employment, they often dedicate limited time to key activities and best practices emphasized in the supported and customized employment literature—particularly those involving community-based support and direct engagement with job seekers’ networks. The considerable variation across employment programs highlights the need for clearer expectations, stronger guidance, and improved supports that prioritize and sustain these effective practices. To advance the field toward fulfilling the promise of supported and customized employment—helping more job seekers obtain and retain individualized, integrated employment aligned with their career goals—it is essential that state funding agencies actively support employment programs by providing data-driven tools and resources for ongoing quality improvement. Such support can enable programs to monitor performance, set meaningful goals, and implement evidence-based strategies that strengthen service delivery and outcomes

Other updates:

• Watch for a one-page grant proposal next time, showing what we are working on—feedback is most welcome!
• We are also about to submit a second journal article on how best practices changed while using ES-Coach.
• A new ES-Coach pilot will launch in early 2026

Stay tuned!

ES-Coach is a project of the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston in partnership with the Institute of Community Integration at the University of Minnesota. For more information, visit www.es-coach.org or email info@es-coach.org.

Gut feelings can only take you so far – analyze the right data, spot the trends that matter, and adjust your game plan in real time (Dave Kline, MGMT Playbook).

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