How a Leading University Aces Innovation Goals With Independent Talent

One of the largest universities in the U.S. is consistently recognized for its commitment to innovation. The university stays ahead of the curve by prioritizing the student experience and by building its own solutions and applications through the university technology office.

The university’s enterprise technology department has an internal team of skilled individuals—including both student and full-time workers—but the team recognized the need to expand the talent pool to support continued innovation.

At the time, the department had a team of about 120 engineers, analysts, and UI and UX designers, and finding qualified talent was challenging. While skilled talent is available in the local market, the team recognized the opportunity and benefits of expanding their talent pool and having a more flexible labor source.

Leveraging Upwork to quickly access talent with in-demand skills

Educational institutions aren’t often known for being innovative and tend to follow traditional, standardized operating procedures that have been in place for years. When it comes to identifying and engaging talent, this can cause roadblocks and slow down the process. At this university, bringing in a full-time, in-house worker traditionally takes between six weeks and three months—and sometimes even longer.

To meet talent needs and break down barriers that often hold universities back from innovating, the university’s enterprise technology department embraced a mindset shift and expanded its talent pool to include remote, independent professionals. The team turned to Upwork to quickly engage skilled talent—often within days—and address immediate business requirements.

Dedicated support helps maintain compliance and encourage adoption

As is the case with any new solution, various factors need to be taken into consideration, including compliance, procurement, and legal requirements. The team realized that engaging talent on Upwork simplifies risk and compliance because these capabilities are built directly into the platform.

In addition to risk and compliance concerns, some individuals may be resistant to change and slow to adopt new technology. Through close partnership and dedicated support from Upwork’s Enterprise team, each university worker who engages talent through Enterprise Suite has access to educational resources and training from the start.  

Flexible talent drives innovation and a best-in-class student experience

A primary goal for the university’s enterprise technology department is to build applications and solutions that support the best possible student experience. As the university continues to digitally transform, the team needs to bring in talent with the latest technical skills to support new solution development. But they don’t always have the resources or budget to bring on full-time workers to fill evolving skill gaps.

The university has talented student workers, but sometimes the enterprise technology team needs to test out new tech skills, which are evolving all the time. Upwork offers the opportunity to access new skills when the team may not have the opportunity to bring in full-time workers. For example, by engaging independent talent from Upwork, the team can build a minimum viable product (MVP), then make the case for the solution or service to be developed.

Upwork offers the team the flexibility to access skills as needed to build and test innovative solutions. Independent professionals from Upwork helped rebuild the university’s mobile app from the ground up with a focus on the student experience—by asking students directly what they want in an app. They’ve also contributed to other impactful projects, including chatbot automation to streamline recruitment, admissions, and financial aid—easing stress and simplifying the process for tens of thousands of prospective students and their parents.

Independent talent extends across departments

The university initiated its relationship with Upwork to access engineering talent to support the enterprise technology department. When others at the university realized the benefits of Upwork, the partnership escalated.

Upwork is now a go-to source for departments across the university to access talented independent business analysts, functional analysts, UI and UX designers, writers, researchers, full stack developers, marketing and brand specialists, and many other professionals. Independent talent from Upwork has supported hundreds of projects over the course of more than three years.

Enterprise Suite is a powerful platform for hiring, managing programs, and scaling talent that has been cleared for legal compliance. With immediate access to highly skilled independent talent, you can empower teams to think bigger, work smarter, and scale to meet the needs of every moment. After all, the winner’s of tomorrow won’t just be the biggest—they’ll also be the most nimble. And we’re here to help your organization win.