Client: An industry-leading technology company headquartered in the USA with over 300,000+ employees worldwide.

 

Background

As a global leader in technology, the client has consistently sought to stay ahead of the curve by attracting and retaining top talent across the globe. With over 300,000 employees worldwide, they faced significant challenges in identifying, nurturing, and onboarding high-quality talent that matched their needs across various departments and specialized roles. This challenge was especially pronounced given the need for an extensive talent pipeline in product development and niche technology areas.

By partnering with Tekstac, the client aimed to tackle these challenges through custom-designed programs focused on skilling and assessment across multiple stages of their talent acquisition and development funnel. The engagement, which began in December 2019, targeted three key user types: 

• Pre-Final Year Students,
• Pre-Onboarding Students, 
• Fresh Graduates

encompassing over 110,000+ learners in total.

Challenges

The client faced several critical challenges:

1. Talent Identification and Assessment: The client needed a robust system to identify premium talent early from a pool of over 30,000 pre-final year students from selected partner colleges and universities. The traditional methods were time-consuming, costly, and often failed to capture the most promising candidates for roles in product development and niche technologies.

 

1. Skilling Before Onboarding: With 40,000+ pre-onboarding students annually, the client needed to ensure these candidates were adequately skilled before joining the organization. The challenge was to create a seamless, self-paced learning journey that would help these students acquire the necessary skills for their roles in Java, .NET, Python, and other specialized domains.

 

1. Effective Onboarding of Fresh Graduates: The onboarding process for fresh graduates was cumbersome and resource-intensive. With 40,000 graduates each year, the client needed a streamlined, cost-effective approach to equip these new hires with essential skills, without compromising on quality or engagement.

 

1. Optimizing Trainer Engagement and Costs: High trainer engagement costs and maintaining quality across a diverse range of learning paths presented an operational challenge. The client required a tightly-knit program management approach to control costs while still meeting the benchmarks set by various business units.

Solution Provided by Tekstac

Tekstac addressed these challenges through a series of customized, self-paced programs designed to enhance learning outcomes, improve engagement, and optimize costs.

1. Custom Program for Pre-Final Year Students

For the pre-final year students, Tekstac developed a custom-designed, self-paced program that included:

• Learning Content: Specialized courses tailored to the client’s requirements in product development and niche technology roles. 
• Labs for Skilling: Hands-on labs in a sandbox environment that allows students to practice and develop real-world skills.
• Skilling Assessments: Regular, auto-evaluated assessments that provided a benchmark for identifying top talent.
• Final Assessment: A comprehensive evaluation that helped the client pinpoint premium candidates.

Outcome:

• The program enabled the client to identify premium talent early, who were offered employment at higher salaries for select job profiles.
• Engagement among students from partner colleges and universities was significantly boosted by the micro-certifications offered and the prospect of a higher salary. This resulted in a more motivated and better-prepared candidate pool.

2. Pre-Onboarding Program for Final Year Students with Job Offers

For the pre-onboarding phase, Tekstac created a custom-designed, self-paced program for 40,000 final-year students who had received job offers from the client. This program integrated:

• Learning Content: Foundational courses across various learning paths, including Java, .NET, Python, and others, to ensure students were equipped with the skills necessary for their future roles.
• Labs for Skilling: Practical labs designed to help students gain hands-on experience.
• Skilling Assessments: Regular assessments that measured the student’s progress and readiness.

Outcome:

• The program helped students complete a significant portion of their foundational learning before they were officially onboarded.
• The use of progress dashboards provide transparency and insight to all stakeholders, including learners, college placement officers, and the client’s HR teams, facilitating better alignment with intended outcomes.
• It also proved valuable in engaging interns across various business units, ensuring they were job-ready from day one.

3. Onboarding Program for Fresh Graduates

For fresh graduates who were onboarding into the company, Tekstac developed a customized program that included:

• 100+ Learning Paths: Covering a wide range of roles and technical skills, from core programming languages to niche technologies.
• Integrated Learning Content, Labs, and Assessments: Provided a comprehensive approach to upskilling, ensuring that new hires were well-prepared for their roles.
• Program Management Tools: A tightly-knit program management approach gave trainers, operations, and leadership teams better control over the learning and engagement process.

Outcome:

• The client was able to maintain high-quality standards while optimizing trainer engagement and costs.
• The program met and often exceeded the performance targets set by various business units, ensuring that the new hires were well-prepared to contribute from the outset.

Impact and Results

• Reduced Hiring Costs: By streamlining the identification, skilling, and onboarding processes, Tekstac enabled the client to significantly reduce their overall hiring costs. 

This was achieved by:

• Reducing the time spent on evaluating potential candidates through automated assessments and a more targeted approach to talent identification.
• Lowering the cost associated with trainer engagement and program management through an efficient, self-paced learning model.
• Improved Return on Investment (ROI): The client saw a notable ROI improvement through the Tekstac platform & solutions. The early identification of premium talent led to higher retention rates and reduced attrition, while the enhanced engagement of pre-onboarding and fresh graduate cohorts led to faster time-to-productivity and a better alignment with organizational goals.
• Enhanced Talent Quality and Engagement: The use of micro-certifications, personalized learning paths, and hands-on labs fostered a high level of engagement among learners. This approach resulted in a better-prepared talent pool that was equipped with the necessary skills to excel in their respective roles.
• Scalability and Flexibility: The programs designed by Tekstac were scalable to meet the client’s global talent needs, handling tens of thousands of learners simultaneously without compromising quality or performance. This scalability was essential given the client’s vast global footprint and diverse workforce.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: The real-time dashboards and analytics provided by Tekstac gave the client’s HR and training teams valuable insights into learner progress and performance. This data-driven approach helped in making informed decisions, adjusting programs as needed, and ensuring that all stakeholders were aligned toward achieving the desired outcomes.

Conclusion

Tekstac’s innovative and customized solutions enabled the client to overcome their challenges in talent identification, skilling, and onboarding. By providing scalable, efficient, and engaging programs, Tekstac helped the client optimize costs, improve ROI, and ensure a continuous pipeline of highly skilled talent. 

As a result, the client could maintain its competitive edge in the technology industry while also achieving significant operational efficiencies.