About the client

Workforce East is a collaboration of local authorities in the East of England, working together to recruit and retain children’s social workers. Their central jobs website acts as a hub where prospective candidates can explore opportunities and be directed to individual councils’ application portals.

The challenge

The original jobs website had been in place for several years but was no longer fit for purpose. Key challenges included:

• Accuracy issues: around 30% of listings were expired or linked to broken “Page Not Found” errors. In addition, about 10% of live vacancies from local authority websites were missing.
• Inconsistent feeds: while some councils provided automatic vacancy feeds, these were often inaccurate (e.g. one council’s feed showing 10 vacancies, of which only 3 were relevant).
• Manual burden: councils without feeds had to manually upload vacancies, creating inefficiency.
• Weak identity: the site branding did not clearly communicate that it was a recruitment portal and the split across two URLs created confusion.
• Lack of marketing tools: no ability to capture user details, promote jobs via email or track outcomes.
• Limited administration: content and vacancy management required technical intervention, preventing quick updates.

The solution

Hero worked with the Eastern Region to design a new recruitment platform with improved accuracy, usability and marketing features. The solution included:

• Automated vacancy management: jobs pulled directly from council websites, with automatic removal of expired or broken links.
• Flexible administration: councils and regional admins can override vacancies, edit details and publish content without technical support.
• Unified identity: a single branded website and URL, with improved design and headers making its purpose clear, while aligning with the Improvement East identity.
• Enhanced search: keyword, category and location filters to help candidates find the right role quickly.
• Candidate data capture: optional collection of name and email at the “Apply Now” stage, enabling email marketing about new roles while respecting opt-outs and GDPR.
• Content management tools: re-usable patterns to allow creation of landing pages (e.g. “Norfolk Children Social Work Jobs”) for targeted recruitment campaigns.
• Security-first build: password hashing, SSL, role-based permissions, encryption for sensitive data and protection against common vulnerabilities.

The impact

• Accuracy of vacancy listings has increased, reducing expired or missing roles.
• Processes for councils have been streamlined, minimising manual updates.
• The site’s identity and branding have been strengthened, clearly presenting it as the go-to recruitment hub.
• Proactive recruitment has been enabled through email marketing.
• A secure, GDPR-compliant platform has been provided, with modern authentication and data protection measures.
• Candidate experience has improved with mobile-friendly design, intuitive search and a single consistent domain.