The Engagement Lab

From Local Expertise to a Network wide Intelligence System

Transforming how Ireland’s Connected Hub managers learn, apply, and share Engagement strategy.

92%

Overall quality score from participating hub managers

4.8/5

AI and digital enablement score

Practical experimentation

Behavioural strategies tested in active hubs for relevance, realism and immediate feedback

Training and e-learning

Behavioural science-informed strategies

National Hub Summit

2025 & 2026 presentation

Rural and remote work Public sector Network-wide capability building Policy impact

Counties represented Nationally in Pilot Phase

The Organisation

The Connected Hubs initiative, led by the Western Development Commission (WDC), is creating a more connected future of work in Ireland. By bringing together a nationwide network of remote working hubs, it enables people to work closer to home while strengthening local economies and communities.

The Opportunity

Hub managers across the Connected Hubs network were experienced, motivated, and deeply embedded in their communities. They understood the importance of engagement, retention, and growth. The issue was not awareness, it was execution. The network had all the right ingredients, but they weren’t yet fully connected:

Valuable experience existed across hubs, but was not consistently shared. Newer hub managers were at a disadvantage.
Engagement strategies were being developed locally, rather than systemically
Knowledge was growing, but not being captured as reusable assets

This meant that progress was happening, but not at the scale it could reach.

✓Longitudinal Innovation Intensive Development model

Move from capability building at the individual level to capability scaling at the network level

This required:

Embedding behavioural science into everyday decision-making
Supporting measurable improvements in engagement, membership, and acquisition

The goal was not just better-trained managers, but a network that learns, improves, and scales itself over time.

Building ‘The Engagement Lab’

Applying Behavioural Science and Expert Insights to Drive Meaningful Engagement

The Foundation Structuring Peer knowledge sharing Scaling Insights Across the Network

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Evidence-led foundation

The programme was grounded in prior commissioned research with the Western Development Commission (WDC) and Connected Hubs, which identified consistent challenges in engagement, capability, and knowledge-sharing across the network.

This was further informed by surveys and ongoing input from hub managers, ensuring the programme addressed real, shared needs rather than assumed gaps.

Designing a behavioural system

Rather than a traditional training format, the Engagement Lab was designed as a multi-channel behavioural system.

It combined self-paced digital learning, live facilitated sessions, and real-world application, ensuring that learning was not isolated, but continuously reinforced across different formats and contexts.

Structuring peer knowledge creation

Practice Pods were introduced to turn individual experience into shared, transferable knowledge.

Within these small groups, participants co-created playbooks and strategies based on real-world application, strengthening both expertise and confidence. The ambition was not just participation, but to position managers as practitioners and contributors within the network. The outputs from the Practice Pods will be discussed in the Upcoming 2026 Hub Summit.

A 1:1 check-in provided additional support, helping participants apply frameworks effectively and refine their engagement strategies in practice.

Scaling insight across the network

Post surveys were used to understand the impact of the project.

Outputs from the programme, including tools, strategies, and co-created playbooks, were designed to extend beyond the pilot cohort.

These resources contribute to the wider Connected Hubs ecosystem, supporting future cohorts and enabling the network to build a cumulative, evolving knowledge base over time.

Four frameworks. Embedded across the system.

Each framework wasn’t introduced as theory; it directly shaped how the programme was designed, delivered, and applied inside the hub environments.

Experiential Learning

David Kolb

Insight

People learn best by doing, reflecting, and refining — not through passive instruction.

Design

Each module followed a learn → apply → reflect → refine cycle, built around real hub activities rather than hypothetical scenarios.

Impact

Increased confidence, knowledge retention, and real-world application of engagement strategies.

Connect, Convince, Convert

Carol Benton

Insight

Building engagement requires moving people from awareness through to ongoing participation — each stage has different barriers.

Design

Managers applied the framework to attract new users, build trust, and convert initial interest into sustained hub membership.

Impact

Helped managers identify exactly where engagement was breaking down and take targeted action on acquisition, retention, and participation.

EAST Framework

Behavioural Insights Team

Insight

Time pressure and complexity often prevented managers from following through on engagement strategies, even when they understood them.

Design

Managers learned to make engagement Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely — then tested these principles directly in their own hubs.

Impact

Provided a practical, repeatable strategy that improved engagement across hubs without requiring specialist expertise.

Social Learning Theory

Etienne Wenger

Insight

Learning is stronger when people share experiences and solve real problems together within a community of practice.

Design

Practice Pods — small cross-hub peer groups — gave managers a structured space to test ideas, share what was working, and troubleshoot challenges together between sessions.

Impact

Individual insights became shared knowledge across the hub network, accelerating learning beyond what any single training session could achieve.

Have a look inside ‘The Engagement Lab’.

Key Features: Behavioural Experiments

Embedding real-world application

Learning was designed to be immediately actionable within each hub.

Participants engaged with the Engagement Lab platform at their own pace, using it not only to access content but to share experiences, reflect on experiments, and learn from peers across the network.

This was supported by two facilitated Zoom sessions, which focused on:

strategy sharing
applied exercises
peer discussion and reflection through breakout groups

An in-person workshop in Ballinasloe brought participants together for a full day of co-creation. Managers reviewed their live experiments, developed strategies collaboratively, and used structured tools such as goal-setting exercises and vision mapping to connect programme learning directly to their hub’s ambitions.

What are BEHAVIOURAL EXPERIMENTS?

Participants were encouraged to conduct experiments in their workplaces to explore, understand, and identify engagement challenges and potential solutions. They evaluated different engagement strategies through direct interaction with users, with one of the most effective “lab experiments” emerging from this cohort. Participants engaged with a diverse range of users to gain a deeper understanding of what was and was not working within their individual hubs.

An experimental mindset was introduced to Hub Managers to encourage continuous learning, testing, and refinement of engagement approaches, extending beyond the programme itself and supporting ongoing improvement in their engagement practices.

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Sustained system-level impact

Scaled national rollout: Recurring cohorts building continuous capability across the network

Living playbook library: Each cohort contributes new, field-tested resources

Onboarding integration: New managers embedded into the system from day one

Cross-sector application: Model transferable to any distributed workforce or ecosystem

“Running a second iteration of an event post-Engagement Lab… resulted in twice as many vendors, twice as many attendees, and double the revenue. Implementing additional consumer feedback touchpoints led to a significant increase in 5-star Google reviews and generated valuable testimonials now being repurposed in digital marketing strategies.”

Hub ManagerFeedback Form

“The Engagement Lab is a programme that tracks and optimises the hub journey for clients from initial query all the way through to an office space. As a participant in the pilot, I found the programme exceptional and highly recommend it.”

Hub ManagerFeedback Form

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