Finding work is essential in the formal integration and the new Civic Integration Act, for which the municipality is now responsible (Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, 2022a). A publication from CBS found that 41% of the asylum holders who came to the Netherlands in 2014 had a job after five and a half years. In addition, newcomers, more than non-newcomers, have a temporary contract or work part-time (2021b). Although there is a shortage in the labour market (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2022a), newcomers do not always seem to profit there.

OpenEmbassy, the client for this thesis, researched the subject in Rotterdam and found several insights contributing to the problem. For instance, newcomers perceive informal work as more accessible than formal work (2021). Moreover, a significant driver is the minimal financial difference between a formal job and the social assistance benefit (OpenEmbassy, 2021).

The problem of the non-accessible labour market for newcomers can be described as complex (Snowden & Boone, 2007). This project explores the complexity of the labour and integration system while focussing on the individual needs of newcomers and municipal civil servants. The approach is a combination of the double diamond approach (Design Council, 2019), combined with elements of Vision in Design (Hekkert & van Dijk, 2011), the use of an interaction vision (Pasman et al., 2011) and various mapping explorations.

The research consists of OpenEmbassy’s analysis, including insights from twelve interviews. Furthermore, additional literature research, seven in-depth interviews and thirteen street interviews contributed to the insights. A deeper analysis resulted in journey maps and thirteen driving forces from clustering interview quotes, supported by the literature research and synthesised in three frames or design directions. Directly discussing informal work with someone from the municipality can cause trouble. The newcomer may get a fine or be seen as a fraudster, or the municipal officer is summoned because of not reporting it and not thus not following the legislation.

Thus, the design direction resulted in the following design statement:

The design intervention wants to make talking about the underlying reasons for informal work more accessible by creating a more symmetrical and trusted relationship between municipal officers and newcomers.

The design statement resulted in Werkkaart, a card set municipal officers can use with newcomers. The intervention has as its primary goal to make the conversation more symmetrical and to create shared ownership, starting from the game’s main rule. Both players choose cards to shape the conversation, during meetings at the municipality. Werkkaart does not tackle informal work directly but purposely indirectly. The design consists of 45 cards, categorised into eight themes, an appointment booklet with an opportunity card, a manual and a gameboard. The cards’ content comes from different inputs, of which the framework of OpenEmbassy (2019) based on Strang et al. (2019) forms the base. Fifteen participants evaluated Werkkaart and noted, among other insights, that the physicality of the cards supports ownership in the conversation.