Sure, we also work with talented developers, coders, UX and UI professionals to build the best app in supply education.
But everything they do starts with you and ends for you. Your glowing responses (thanks, by the way). Your constructive criticism (tough, but fair play). Your input.
But thanks to your feedback, we realised we were falling short in how we communicate payment information.
Here’s what happened.
Our app doesn’t register last-minute cancellations, sickness pay, or other eleventh-hour adjustments that affect your actual pay. So this created differences between what the app communicated and what your payslip and bank account reflected.
And here’s how we fixed it.
The updated history view shows the days and hours you work and the actual amounts on your payslip. And it shows you the pay rate for each booking before and after the job starts.
“Our job is to make your life easier and better when using our platform,” said Humly Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer Kristoffer Persson. “Nobody knows the challenges you face better than you, so the most important resource in building a better app will always be you,”
The updated history view simplifies things, ensuring what you see is always what you get you’re paid.
Keeping a high profile
Another one of our core values is efficiency. But with so many tasks, checks, and renewals you’re required to keep up-to-date as educators, it’s easy to lose sight of them all.
Until now.
The updated profile view gives you better control, ownership, and understanding of your data.
And by housing everything you need to keep track of post recruitment in one easy-to-access place, it makes it easier to keep on top of things.
Now, when a yearly task, such as Safeguarding, needs updating, you’ll know about it and what to do next within the app.
“Thanks to the data we get from talking and listening to educators, we’re able to grow and develop the Humly app so it always stays close to your needs. And it’s how we’ll always continue creating the best possible experience,” said Persson.
And all you need to do to get these new features is download our app update onto your mobile device.
So what’s next?
You tell us. What’s on your wish list? What can we do better?
Our doors are always open to make the Humly app what you need and more.
But keep reading, and you’ll see how we back up every word of it.
Our latest update allows any educator applying to Humly to now find, choose, and even book long-term jobs during your recruitment. Meaning you can book your first job before we’ve hired you.
Our Proof is the Pudding
For supply educators, you never really know what kinds of opportunities are out there for you. You pick a supply agency (or five), cross your fingers, and hope they’ll have enough consistent work for you. And you’re forced to hope because they don’t show you all the jobs you could book.
That’s not how Humly works.
The Humly way is about empowering you. Giving you complete choice, complete transparency, and complete say in your career. And with this update, that starts before we’ve even hired you.
You don’t have to hope there will be great opportunities for you. You can simply see them for yourself. Our proof isn’t in the pudding, it is the pudding.
The Details
After downloading our app, just click on the Find jobs tab to see all long-term opportunities and apply for the available jobs you want. You’ll still need to finish your recruitment to keep these bookings and also to unlock access to all of our available short-term jobs.
We think you should know what you’re signing up for before you sign-up for it. But this access also helps you get used to the Humly way of doing things, so you’re ready once you’re through recruitment.
You can use more features sooner, set up your profile and preferences right away, add your profile picture, and get familiar with the other app features.
The Bigger Picture
But what we love most about this change is that it goes against the way things work. And how they’ve always worked. Which, to us, usually means it goes towards the way things should work. The way things need to work to work best for the people who do all of the work.
You.
Why force you to wait a single second – or for an interview, or for references to clear, or background checks, or all the steps you have to take before you can start working – to see all the opportunities available to you right now?
Finding and booking Long-term jobs is now easier than ever
At Humly, we always work to improve how we empower our educators.
That’s why we’ve built six strategic hubs across the UK to grow our footprint and the network of schools and nurseries where our educators find work. And it’s why we constantly update our revolutionary app to make it easier, better, and simpler for our educators to find the best work.
That’s why Humly is the next generation of supply education. We focus on what’s next. We build what’s next. Then we make what’s next, what’s now.
Well, it’s now again.
“When we update our app, it’s to solve user problems, improve usability, and to create a smooth digital experience. The new Long-term job update does it all. It simplifies how our educators find these great opportunities,” said Humly Head of Product Kristoffer Persson.
We’ve just made it simpler and faster for our educators, or anyone who wants to join the Humly revolution, to find and book the Long-term jobs they want.
Here’s how.
How the new update works for you
Update: To access the new feature, first update the Humly app via the App Store or Google Play.
Activation: Then switch on Long-term jobs and Permanent jobs within your Work Preferences.
Navigation: Press the Find Jobs tab in the bottom menu, and you will now see the earliest available Long-term job at the top, plus a view all button underneath. Short-term jobs are listed below this.
Design details: The job details view has an updated and simplified look and feel, including job title, hours, pay rate and location, all within a sleek visual card. And the new user experience dynamic makes finding and booking Long-term jobs straightforward.
Contact info: We’ve also added a quick access Humly contact menu within the process. Simply press the email icon to get in touch.
One downside of supply education has always been the lack of guaranteed work. It’s simply the nature of supply. But with Humly’s revolutionary platform we’re making that downside more and more nonexistent.
Our educators can already find every available job that fits their preferences and schedule the moment they become available. And with this new update, we’ve made it easier to find and book long-term roles that help our educators find the guaranteed work they want.
“We believe this update makes it easier for our educators to find and book longer-term jobs. It signposts them to relevant, local opportunities. And it simplifies the steps for them to get the information they need to book them,” said Humly UX Designer Hanna White.
Being the next generation of supply education goes beyond simply creating and building the best supply company, the best technology and the best tools – though that bit is a lot of fun. It’s really about why we built it all in the first place – to help make nursery practitioners and teachers as important as the job itself.
We’re not just building the next generation of supply education. We’re building a better generation.
Humly revolutionises education by empowering supply educators with total career control. We disrupt the middleman agencies by giving you the freedom to find, choose, and book the best supply jobs that fit you. And the ultimate tool we use to drive that revolution is our app. Today, it just got better.
“Humly is about making it easier for educators to work when and how they want. And our new calendar views, availability setting, and simplified overall navigation will do just that and more,” said Humly Co-founder and Head of Product Kristoffer Persson.
A lot of work went into this update – over two months from disciplines like UX, UI, software development, design, marketing and more, with over ten professionals working over 1,500 hours.
We began with qualitative and quantitative research, conducted multiple interviews with educators, plus many rounds of tests, all to do the complex work of making a simpler, better app – so our educators’ work-life works better.
Here’s what we did and why we did it.
What’s new
With every app update, we have one clear goal in mind – to create a better experience for our educators.
But doing that requires taking a step back to see the bigger picture of what all our educators want. And what we discovered was a need for more simplicity, efficiency, and inclusivity to create a smoother, intuitive experience.
“This update offers three major impacts for our educators. First, the new monthly calendar views will help educators better visualise and plan their schedules. And long-term availability removes the need for educators to input their availability every week. Finally, we’ve simplified and prioritised navigation around two key elements: How educators find new jobs and how they keep track of schedules and upcoming jobs,” said Humly UX Designer Ludvig Andersson.
The app now works better for every kind of educator because it will be quicker to use. It will be easier to use. And it will offer a simple, straightforward navigation that prioritises what our educators care most about.
And through it all, we’ve been able to reinforce Humly’s ethos: create, develop, and drive technology with a human touch.
“We empower educators by giving them total career control to find, choose, and book the jobs they want. But how they do that through our app must be just as empowering. It demands a bespoke experience, providing flexibility and control. And we can only deliver on that by listening, understanding, and acting on our educators’ needs,” said Andersson.
And those needs are growing – just like Humly.
The drawing board
When we look to make changes to the app, we start by understanding the fundamental needs and problems of our educators. So it was a bit of a shock to learn that one problem was actually us.
We’ve gotten bigger.
The sheer volume of new educators, and new kinds of educators, joining the Humly revolution every day put a spanner in the works. It’s a good problem to have, for sure. But one that demanded a better-than-good answer.
“Historically, we’ve had a lot of educators doing supply as a secondary occupation, working one to two days. But last year, the number of educators working all week long increased dramatically. And during our evaluations with educators, we discovered the Humly app didn’t meet their needs properly,” said Andersson.
So by redesigning the app to enhance the experience and usability for full-time supply educators, with monthly calendar views and more efficient availability settings, we’ve set the stage for them to find even greater success.
One that’s bolstered by all-new aesthetics.
Look, and feel
Nearly all human communication happens non-verbally – as much as 93%. And while that’s more about person-to-person interactions, it illustrates the absolute importance of brilliant art direction.
“The visual design must be instantly easy to follow. It’s not just about using the best colours, icons and fonts but incorporating the right balance and spacing, tying it all together. With this update, we’ve created a visually consistent, intuitive experience, ” said Humly User Interface Designer Hanna White.
But beyond the importance of a dynamic style comes the need for an inclusive one. Because if we’re not building something everyone can use, we’re not really building something everyone should use.
“As a UI designer, my job is about empathy. It’s about putting myself in our users’ shoes. Because keeping our app accessible for everyone is a crucial part of Humly’s DNA. So when we discovered one user had a visual impairment differentiating between reds and greens during testing, we immediately knew our design needed an adjustment,” said White.
To recap: Our update improves usability. It simplifies and amplifies the elements that matter most to our educators. And it ensures an intuitive experience for every educator.
So are we finished? Nope.
“As a designer, you’re always aware the job is never really done. It’s just done for now – as there’s always room to improve. So to keep Humly relevant, we must continue advancing the tools and platforms our educators use to find the jobs they want,” said Andersson.
On the horizon
The moment we complete a project at Humly is the moment work starts to make the next one even better.
“In 2023, we’ll focus on what we call the ‘matching experience’ within the app. This includes how you keep your profile up to date, how you set matching preferences, how you find new jobs, what information you have access to, and what happens after a completed job. We’re looking forward to improving all of this together with our users,” said Persson.
And while we’re excited to release this update and see it improve the experience for our educators, and empower them to greater success, we know the work’s not done.
Humly launches a brand new development program with Humly Academy.
Humly Academy launches this week as a built-in feature available to our educators once they download the new app update. And it represents our next big step in revolutionising education. Humly disrupts by empowering supply educators with total career control. But our revolution can’t just be about dramatically improving how educators find, choose, and book the best jobs.
It must go beyond.
It has to include improving the work that happens outside the classrooms or nurseries for our educators. And with Humly Academy, it will.
“The academy will give access to courses and learning paths, in a fun and simple way, to empower and propel our educators daily,” said Humly Co-founder and Head of Product Kristoffer Persson.
And while there are many benefits of making Humly Academy an in-app feature versus an online experience, one stands apart: It gives our educators another tool that helps them do what they love right at their fingertips.
“Currently, Humly Academy offers a free and great Safeguarding Training educators can take to renew their Safeguarding Declaration each year, earning a certificate upon completing the course,” said Persson.
But that’s just step-one.
The ultimate vision for Humly Academy is to become a hub where supply educators can have the room and space they want to grow professionally – on their terms. And it’s something that’s needed.
Full-time educators have an advantage. They work in a static environment. Their schools or nurseries become their communities, their tribes, offering easy access to mentors and continuing professional development where they can grow and progress.
But supply educators are often nomadic, tribeless. And because of that, they miss out on these fundamental growth opportunities. Humly Academy aims to change that.
“Humly Academy is for educators. Our hope is to build it together, grow it together, and make it all it needs to be for them and more,” said Persson.
It will give supply educators the same kinds of opportunities full-timers get. And it will help grow Humly as more than just a partner to teachers and early years practitioners, but establish Humly as a fully realised third space.
A space where supply educators get more than an income, more than consistent work, more than full-career control and the freedoms that go with that.
Humly can become a space for growth and community for all our educators.
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