Intermediaries: The Key To Scaling Work-Based Learning
I’ll admit it. I’m sort of a Ryan Craig fan girl. Not quite like Barry Manilow level fandom, but definitely up there on the work front. I love how he thinks about work-based learning, apprenticeships, and talent development in general.
I’m specifically drawn to his position and research around intermediaries being the key to scaling all types of work-based learning. Someone between the employer and the student/school needs to do the heavy lifting of setting up and running the work. If we leave it up to the end employer to do everything to engage students in work, we will not be able to scale the work opportunities desperately needed by both students and employers.
Anyone who has tried to develop and execute an apprenticeship or internship program knows exactly what Craig is talking about. Both are heavy lifts for employers, with apprenticeships being the hardest. The time spent on apprenticeship paperwork alone would come close to canceling out any benefits for the employer. But if someone else did that work, it’s a no-brainer for an employer to spin up these programs.
At Work Simpr we know the importance of an intermediary for all types of work. We knew right away we didn’t want to enter the apprenticeship or internship arena. There are several companies fighting this good fight. So we focused on leveraging students to do short-term, paid gig work. Fractional work seemed easier and required less paperwork and regulatory hurdles for us to maneuver. We could focus on the employer needs and not worry about school/professor buy-in or curriculum integration. And, it provided us with a way to help students earlier, before they had any work formal experience (which is required for most internships), but still had skills and motivation to work.
FINDING PEOPLE IS EASY… SCOPING AND MANAGING THEIR WORK IS HARD
We found out pretty quickly that finding a vetted person to do your work is only a part of the battle. One could argue it’s the easiest part of the process. Go to any freelance marketplace and you will find hundreds, if not thousands, of people ready to help. Of course, you won’t find many students on freelance marketplaces and it’s nearly impossible for them to compete or get noticed even if they tried. However, finding eager people, even students, to do work is not hard.
The bulk of the hard, time-consuming effort begins AFTER you find a person. Off-loading short term project work requires an incredible amount of time and energy for an individual or company. The effort includes: scoping the work; breaking the work down into small chunks to make it manageable for the student(s); creating clear directions for someone else to follow; monitoring the work to ensure it’s on-time, accurate, and thorough; providing feedback; paying students; and gathering and creating applicable tax documentation. When you look at a list like this, any one of these is a hurdle that might get you thinking “let me push this work to the bottom of my to-do list because I don’t have time!”
As a former SVP at a large company, I can’t tell you how many times I thought about what was required to off-load even small amounts of work and said, “l’ll just do it myself,” only to find myself working on weekends and stressing out. I can assure you that was not the best use of my time or of the salary my company was paying me for that type of work. Even assigning work to other people internally within a company is hard, and that’s assuming you have people who can take on the work!
I built a virtual micro internship program at my prior company because I thought that would help. Everyone was enthusiastic, but almost no one took advantage of it. That really got me thinking about why? Students want the work. Employers need the help. Why don’t more people take advantage of posting short term projects to attract and hire student talent to do the work they are desperate to get done?
JOB BOARDS AREN’T ENOUGH
Quite simply, posting a project or work to a job board, doesn’t make the process easier or less time-consuming. Once you post the work, you still need to spend time sifting through candidates, creating clear directions, monitoring the work, providing feedback and paying someone. The work behind the work is duanting. Even the best intentions to work with students are quickly ditched. And, what happens when your work could benefit from a team of people? Job boards and marketplaces are, at best, unnecessary hurdles and, at worst, essentially useless.
I directly experienced the challenges of not having an intermediary. No one wanted to off-load the work more then me, but the process was a barrier. This is why we built Work Simplr. Let someone else take on the pain of getting your work done — not just one part of the process, but the entire process. Tackling only one piece of the process doesn’t solve the problem for employers.
All of this is to say I agree with Ryan Craig. Intermediaries are key to scaling all types of work-based learning and talent development initiatives. Work Simplr is the intermediary for short term work, making it fast and easy for companies to off-load their project work year round to students, including teams of students. Connecting students to all types of work is a win-win opportunity for everyone.
