Case Study: Philadelphia Works
Philadelphia Works
At radianHub, we help growing organizations get out of the weeds and into alignment—so they can operate with more clarity, confidence, and control. That’s exactly what Philadelphia Works needed: a better way to connect thousands of young people to work-based learning programs through a secure, scalable digital platform.
Philadelphia Works is the local workforce investment board for Philadelphia County. Each year, they help thousands of youth and adults access career readiness programs, with a particular focus on underserved communities. But their systems hadn’t kept up. With the launch of a new youth program—C2L PHL—they needed a portal that could handle onboarding, document uploads, attendance tracking, and reporting for thousands of participants.
And they needed it fast.
The Problem:
The legacy youth portal only allowed one application per youth, forcing staff to manually reassign participants if their chosen program filled up. Applications had to be rebuilt every year, clearance checks were slow, and time and attendance tracking was clunky.
“It wasn’t sustainable,” said Marcus Hall, Director of Workforce Operations. “The prior tools required a lot of steps for even simple tasks.”
The Solution:
Philadelphia Works selected Launchpad, a Salesforce-native portal platform, with radianHub as the implementation partner to configure, customize, and extend the solution to meet their needs.
In just a few months, radianHub delivered a production-ready system that supported a full public launch (no soft launch), handling 5,707 applications in the first four business days. Key capabilities included:
- Secure youth and provider logins with a mobile-optimized interface
- Ability for youth to rank 3–5 program choices with automated matching based on interest and prioritization logic for vulnerable populations
- Document upload and clearance checks via Justifacts API
- Comprehensive timesheet tracking and attendance reporting for stipend and payroll participants
- Consumer-grade UI designed for youth accessibility
- Performance testing with real stress loads to ensure readiness
- Extensive User Acceptance Testing with experienced program staff
The Results:
Over 15,000 youth applied during the four-week enrollment period—at peak, more than 10 applications per minute. The system handled it all.
The new matching process reduced manual work for staff and ensured priority populations were served, with nearly 4,000 youth in vulnerable groups accepted. Parents, providers, and youth praised the system’s ease of use, seamless document upload, and faster payments.
“Honestly, the platform is beautiful,” said Marcus. “It ran smoother, paid youth faster, and helped us deliver a better experience.”
Why radianHub
While Launchpad provided the platform, radianHub brought it to life. The team navigated a shifting scope, complex requirements, and a compressed timeline—without ever losing momentum.
“They were extremely responsive, patient, and creative,” Marcus said. “They didn’t just tell us what couldn’t be done. They explored every option, brought us new ideas, and made sure what they built truly met our needs.”