By Maryam Bello-Tukur MIEP, Employability and Volunteering Programme Manager at Imperial Health Charity
Employability programmes succeed not through systems or shortcuts, but through conversations that change people.
Drawing from Imperial Health charity’s Volunteer Employability Programme at Imperial Health Charity, this article argues that human interaction is the engine of Employability, powering three stages: co-design with jobseekers, employers and communities; co-delivery with partners; and co-journeying with participants. Human interaction lays the foundations of sustainable employment. If Employability were a software, the core engine would be conversation; everything else is a plug-in.
Do we really need all the bells and whistles? Or do outcomes still rise and fall on one thing: a transformational conversation held at the right time, by the right person, in the right tone? Strip away the portals, dashboards, and AI prompts, and Employability boils down to a single force: a transformational conversation between two humans.
That philosophy shaped every aspect of the Volunteer Employability Programme (VEP), a structured 10-week pathway into NHS employment. By combining hands-on volunteering placements, role-specific training, and personalised Employability support, the VEP creates the conditions for those transformational conversations to happen. Since its launch in September 2023, over 60% of participants have progressed into work. These results did not come from systems or shortcuts. They came from people.
Conversations with employers, jobseekers, colleagues, and community networks shaped every decision we made from the programme curriculum to the volunteering roles, mentoring sessions, and career conversations that underpin it. No platform or system could have done that. Human interaction isn’t a nice to have; it’s the engine of Employability. And it powers three vital stages: co-design, co-delivery, and co-journeying.
Co-Design with Jobseekers, Employers, and Communities
Effective Employability programmes are never designed in a vacuum. They are most impactful when co-created with the people they serve, the employers who will benefit, and the community networks that understand the lived realities on the ground.
When I began shaping the VEP in May 2023, my first step was not writing a plan, but talking to people. I visited local charities and libraries, observed how people used these spaces, and listened. I spoke with volunteers on the wards and the staff they worked alongside. I spent time with colleagues who managed nearly 900 volunteers across the five hospitals within Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
Each of these conversations gave me a better understanding of the community and its needs.
When designing the curriculum, I looked at the gaps faced by the people most likely to enrol. I built relationships with hiring managers and recruiters, asked them to review the course content, and worked with lead nurses and matrons to understand the challenges new staff faced when settling in. Hospital staff helped us shape volunteering roles and arrange mentoring and shadowing sessions, ensuring the programme reflected real workplace expectations.
Crucially, I continue to learn from our own participants. Conversations with VEP alumni provide invaluable insight into what helped them progress and what could be improved. Many tell us that the career conversations arranged with NHS staff and alumni, alongside the one-to-one coaching sessions, were instrumental in building their confidence and progressing into employment.
No dataset or survey could have provided this depth of understanding. It was conversations with jobseekers, employers, community groups, and colleagues that shaped the programme. That is the irreplaceable power of human interaction.
Co-Delivery with Stakeholders and Partners
If design is about asking the right questions, delivery is about building the right relationships. Successful implementation requires more than project plans; it requires trust, rapport, and collaboration.
Human interaction is what turns stakeholders into partners. It is through conversations that employers, NHS staff, and community organisations commit not just to ‘supporting a programme’, but to actively co-delivering it.
In the VEP, this meant NHS staff delivering workshops, running shadowing opportunities, and even providing resilience training alongside their clinical roles. Those contributions were not mandated. They came from relationships, from practitioners feeling invested in a shared mission.
One example was the resilience workshops delivered by NHS counsellors. They didn’t just share generic wellbeing advice; they shaped sessions around what they had heard directly from volunteers about their anxieties and barriers. That responsiveness, born from dialogue, made the sessions resonate.
Technology can facilitate communication, but it cannot replace the credibility, nuance, and warmth of a conversation where people feel heard. Delivery succeeds when people believe in one another.
Co-Journeying with Participants
The clearest example of the power of human interaction is on the frontline. People who have been long-term unemployed often describe a profound sense of isolation. According to the Community Life Survey 2023/24 (Office for National Statistics), 7% of adults in England, around 3.1 million people, reported feeling lonely often or always. Among young adults aged 16–24, that figure rose to 10%. For those facing unemployment or underemployment, the risk is even higher.
Isolation erodes social skills and confidence. The antidote is not a portal or a chatbot; it is being seen, heard, and supported by another person.
In the VEP, participants build this connection not only through coaching conversations, but also through volunteering itself. On the wards they are supporting staff, engaging with patients, offering companionship, and networking with potential employers and co-workers. Each of these interactions builds Employability: strengthening communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, while restoring a sense of purpose and belonging.
Crucially, it combats the isolation that so often sits at the root of long-term unemployment. I’ve seen the stark difference the level of human interaction makes.
According to research published by Cambridge University Press, consistent and personalised interaction is more likely to build the self-belief critical to employment progression (Social Policy and Society, 2024). Volunteering accelerates that shift by offering multiple layers of interaction with patients, staff, and peers in real-world settings. It does more to build confidence and transferable skills than any classroom-based course could.
One-to-one coaching is central to this. At its core, coaching is simply a series of transformational conversations: structured, intentional interactions that help participants reframe challenges, see possibilities, and commit to action. It is here that trust is built and sparks of hope are ignited. Participants often tell us that their coaching sessions are pivotal, giving them the belief to keep going when their own confidence falters.
This is also where resilience and job sustainability take root. Through these interactions, participants develop the mental fortitude and emotional resilience needed for self-management, the very qualities that help them not just secure work but sustain it.
Co-Journeying with Participants
Human interaction isn’t a nice to have; it’s the engine of Employability. But let’s not forget that those engines are people: frontline practitioners who give so much of themselves, often carrying the weight of others’ hopes, setbacks, and emotional offloading. If we want transformational conversations to continue, we must build their capacity, resilience, and belonging just as intentionally as we do for the participants they serve.
Transformational conversations are the foundation of Employability. Practitioners need to be continuously trained and supported in having the right conversations that surface barriers, identify needs, and then signpost participants to the right human interaction opportunities; whether that’s volunteering, mentoring, alumni groups, or community support.
Human connection isn’t an optional extra; it is the core professional competency of Employability Practice, and it cannot be replaced by AI. If Employability were a software, the core engine would be conversation; everything else is a plug-in. Technology may scale processes, but only people scale potential.
References
Irvine, A., McKenzie, J., Brass, C. and Kelley, A. (2024) ‘Working With the Whole Person: Employability Keyworker Experiences of Supporting People Furthest From the Labour Market’, Social Policy and Society, Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474746424000022