The Basque Employment Service, Lanbide, completed a consultancy project and hybridisation process based on an artistic and cultural foundation (under the Creative Pills format) by using the applied creativity methodology of Conexiones improbables.

The initial aim was to conduct work on Lanbide’s general strategy as part of a participatory process involving 6 agents: a core group (comprising people from various levels of Lanbide), a broad group (including the participation of all local employment office directors), a management team, 3 artists, 6 local employment offices, Lanbide users (both individual job seekers and companies requiring workers) and a consultant team.

Work began with the broad group following the initial results obtained in the core group sessions and the 3 challenges of the Creative Pills were defined:

• Challenge 1: How to work to become a public employment service internally: organization, structure, etc.? This was developed by the pair made up of the offices in Zarautz and Barakaldo-Gurutzeta and the artist Álex Carrascosa
• Challenge 2: How to work to become a public employment service, but this time focusing externally, in other words, towards users? The pair was made up of the offices in El Antiguo and Amurrio and the artist Carles Gispert AA:Tomic Lab), as well as the participation of companies potentially seeking workers.
• Challenge 3: How to improve the social perception of Lanbide? The local employment offices that worked within this pair were those in Mazarredo and Miribilla and the artist on this occasion was Lluis Sabadell (Co-Creable). Lanbide users were also included in the Creative Pill.

The results of these 3 Creative Pills subsequently led to the broad group deciding 5 actions and these began to be developed in the following 3-month period. They were:

• Action 1: Project for Implementing Anti-Aggression Protocol.
• Action 2: Project for Improving Lanbide/Company Relationship.
• Action 3: Project for Permanent Continuous Training to Manage Knowledge and Experience.
• Action 4: Friendly Office Project.
• Action 5: Project for Improving Internal Relationship Channels.

Various methodologies were used over the project’s 6-month duration and many of these had been developed by Conexiones improbables, such as the Workshop Improbable Path to Innovation and Workshop Strategic Innovation Challenge and Creative Pills, as well as others by the artists and the focus group or documentation analysis.