With the recent turn of events and the mandated push to work from home, many of us have adapted to the new normal and are powering through. Adults and children alike are cooped up in the safety of their homes with virtual classes and remote working models. 

 

This was a huge pivotal moment, especially in the educational, self-learning and, upskilling space - as the pandemic has forced schools, universities, and companies to physically shut down and combine technology and learning to create powerful opportunities to gain new skills. Globally, over 1.2 billion children in 186 countries are out of the classroom.

 

Even before the pandemic, online learning has shown significant growth over the last decade. 

Research and Markets forecast the online education market at $350 Billion by 2025.  These numbers might change after accounting for the growth impacts of COVID-19 on the online learning market.

 

Today we see a lot of online learning platforms like Udemy, Coursera, Khan Academy, BYJU's, Lynda, Udacity, Skillshare, and more - each specializing in a particular area and catering to a different target audience (for children and adults). Even top tier universities like Stanford and Harvard are offering online courses in various subjects like mathematics, business, art, and personal development. 

 

The emergence of these platforms and their updated offerings indicates only one thing: there is an undeniable demand for people wanting to learn online. As education, learning, and edutech companies prepare for this rapid growth, it is of paramount importance for these companies to be able to staff quickly and build agile teams to meet this demand. 

 

This could mean hiring highly skilled talent from unconventional talent pools, including freelancers, part-time professionals, and remote workers. We, at FlexiBees, have been able to find the right kind of talent and offer a lot of benefits to this particular sector of our clientele. Today, we present some of our successful case studies:

 

Ability to hire the right SMEs with deep L&A industry expertise

Case #1: A 30-year-old international core Learning & Assessment company was looking for talent resources with niche skills to create and execute one of their learning and assessment modules in the digital marketing space. They needed people who knew the digital marketing space as much as L&A. 

 

Our solution: They hired a whole team of subject matter experts who were also practitioners, to create and execute their digital marketing content modules like Marketing Basics, Lead Generation, Email Marketing, etc. Each module had different deliverables like detailed Student Guides, Assessments, Articles, etc. We provided them with SMEs who specialize in digital marketing space and content. The team included content writers, instructional designers, reviewers, and a project manager. 

 

The benefits: Though they are a core L&A company, they needed specialists with deep expertise - people who were adept at creating content and assessments but for a particular industry and function - digital marketing. They also needed them only for a short duration - till the project lasts. The team would necessarily be disbanded after the completion of the project. The process of finding the right talent for their particular need would require long search hours (even though it is a short term hire) and it was beneficial for the client to work with recruiting experts who could invest in the deep vetting process that could find the right talent with dual expertise - in digital marketing as well as L&A. 

 

Access to industry experts with niche functional expertise

Case #2: A premier education institute that specializes in providing career-orientated courses was in need of L&A resources with specific Industry specialization with functional experience. 

 

Our solution: We helped the client find about 7 of these highly specialized talent resources as a result of which, the client spent less than 10% of the time that they would have spent hiring from other sources. 

 

The benefits: The client required experienced industry-specific talent resources with niche functional expertise. For example, financial & accounting expertise or reservations expertise in the hospitality industry, or safety for the aviation industry. Expertise only in hospitality or accounting wouldn’t do. Due to our end-to-end selection and deep vetting process, we ensured high-quality and experienced candidates who were the right fit for their specific business needs. 

 

Ability to scale up or down based on your business needs

Case #3: An online comprehensive learning management platform that delivers virtual courses & assessments, and offers online practice for various competitive exams needed a steady stream of language and math experts; to create question banks and assessments that can be a part of their products and offerings. 

 

Our solution: As the business grew, we were able to quickly provide them with a steady stream of experienced experts in English, Math, and Analytical skills - who could deliver from day one. 

 

The benefits: This helped them build extremely agile teams based on their needs or projects. For example, the English assistant writers who were hired were paused many times in the course of their project. We were able to refresh their contracts based on their demand; and whenever possible, we provided them with the same talent resources (or ones with similar caliber) that they have already worked with to further ease the starting inertia. Our process also ensures the quality of the match is top-notch, as a result, clients like these come back to us for repeat business and account for 65% of our business.

 

Ability to quickly ramp up the existing team with the perfect talent match

Case #4: An online education platform designed to develop logical reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills in children needed online tutors to ramp up their offerings, during the pandemic as schools closed and children resorted to online classes. 

 

Our solution: We were able to quickly find them experienced tutors who could provide online classes for children. This helped them quickly ramp up their team and also reduced the time they would have spent on training and onboarding.

 

Benefits: As the sudden business demand grew, we were able to quickly provide them with experienced and highly vetted talent resources for their immediate needs. Due to our deep vetting and selection process, we could make the right match of high-caliber and experienced tutors to their business needs. 

 

Access to unconventional talent pools to find the right talent fit

Case #5: An online education platform that passionately designs hands-on experiential science programs for children needed subject matter experts to create activity guides and kits for their products. This demanded talent resources who not only had expertise in science but also had a flair for creating content. 

 

Our solution: We were able to provide them with highly qualified and experienced scientists and Ph.D. veterans who were adept at creating content. 

 

Benefits: They needed specialists with deep expertise - people who were adept at creating content and assessments but with an expertise in science. As mentioned in earlier cases, apart from our end-to-end selection and deep vetting process, we were able to find these talent resources owing to our talent pool - which consists of young mothers returning to work after a maternity break. The generic freelance pools usually do not have these kinds of experts available. 

 

Working with various clients with their varying business needs and growing demands, we now know that building agile teams and finding the right talent is key to acting quickly in the face of an opportunity or a crisis.