Designing a Human-Centered Framework for Workforce Recovery and Equity
Organization Type: National education and workforce philanthropy coalition
The Challenge
The COVID-19 pandemic intensified longstanding inequities facing Black communities and other excluded populations. Disproportionate job loss, health impacts, and barriers to education revealed how existing workforce and education systems failed to account for stress, trauma, and the realities of human development.
Many programs and policies focused on short-term relief without addressing the underlying conditions that shape learning, performance, and opportunity, ultimately reinforcing cycles of systemic dehumanization.
A national coalition convened a cross-sector working group to design a framework that could move beyond emergency response toward long-term, inclusive systems change.
Our Role + Solution
humanature served as lead designer and consultant for the coalition’s Vulnerable Populations Working Group. Drawing on human development science, learning theory, and trauma research, we co-created a systemic, evidence-informed framework to guide workforce and education recovery.
We designed a practical rubric for evaluating programs and policies through a human-centered lens and facilitated strategy sessions with national leaders across education, philanthropy, public health, and workforce development.
More than 60 ideas and recommendations were synthesized into a cohesive framework organized around five investment priorities:
Cultures of belonging
Agency and personal assets
Behavioral and technical skills
Organizational accountability
Transformative access
The Outcome
The framework was adopted by cross-sector leaders to guide funding decisions, program design, and policy development during and beyond the pandemic. It provided a shared, human-centered foundation for advancing equity at scale, anchoring recovery efforts in both science and lived experience.