An online course company sells recorded and live courses through a small core team, a wide ring of freelance creators and a sales group paid on launches. Its people work from many cities and are rarely in the same room.
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Share your requirementsAn online course company packages skills into courses sold on a website and an app, from coding and design to cooking, finance and exam topics. A course goes through script, shoot or recording, editing, review and launch, then support in a forum or live class. The core team is small: course managers, editors, designers, marketing and a learner support desk. Most of the content comes from freelance experts and trainers, and sales staff or affiliates are paid when launches do well. People work from home in several cities, and the busiest weeks follow a launch. The wider edtech and online education hub and the education sector page give the background.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
Someone starts from a different city, gets a laptop and a login, and spends the first fortnight guessing who decides what.
A course depends on an outside specialist who delivers late, rewrites on a whim or goes quiet before the recording date.
Rates, revisions, ownership of recordings and what happens if the course is withdrawn are agreed on chat and forgotten.
Editors and support staff are idle for weeks and then work every night before the cohort opens.
Freelancers and part-time mentors report hours by message, and the finance team cannot tell which course they belong to.
Counsellors earn well in a launch month and little after, and the best of them are tempted away by the next company.
Support staff and mentors are reviewed on a bad reply or a learner post, with little steady measure.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Onboarding and Probation; Employee Administration; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for education, not in general.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a online course companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A daily plan with named people, tools, introductions and a first small task.
What this coversHideA daily plan with named people, tools, introductions and a first small task. The employee onboarding process sets it out for remote joiners.
One short document for experts and instructors covering rate, deliverables, revision limits, ownership and withdrawal.
What this coversHideOne short document for experts and instructors covering rate, deliverables, revision limits, ownership and withdrawal. The HR documentation process shows the paper trail.
Script, sample, first record and final record each get a date and a payment point, so delay shows early.
What this coversHideScript, sample, first record and final record each get a date and a payment point, so delay shows early.
Freelancers and part-time mentors log hours by course in a shared sheet, reviewed weekly.
What this coversHideFreelancers and part-time mentors log hours by course in a shared sheet, reviewed weekly. The attendance and leave process covers the routine.
Plan a pool of trusted freelance editors and support staff who can be called in launch weeks, rather than stretching the core team.
What this coversHidePlan a pool of trusted freelance editors and support staff who can be called in launch weeks, rather than stretching the core team.
Counsellor pay that includes retention and learner completion alongside sales, following the compensation and rewards strategy.
What this coversHideCounsellor pay that includes retention and learner completion alongside sales, following the compensation and rewards strategy.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A first week for remote joiners that names the people, tools and tasks, so no one starts alone.
A clear creator agreement and file for each freelance expert, covering rates, revisions and recordings.
A simple hours log by course for freelancers and part-time mentors.
Variable pay for sales and mentors that holds up between launches.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in education, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Faculty, administrative and support staff leave for different reasons. How to ask what shaped their decision and act on it within the academic calendar.
7 min readRead article
Hour by hour, then week by week, for a recruit's first month at a module, inverter, pack or junction box line: safety and handling first, a practice bench, a buddy, a sign-off and a day-30 review.
7 min readRead article
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
How to design incentives for operators, setters and inspectors in fastener, gear, spring and valve units so that accepted lots, not piece counts, earn the bonus.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Plan the first week hour by hour: a welcome call, a buddy, tool access ready on day one and a small real task by day two. A short check-in every Friday for the first month catches problems early.
Scope of the course, rate and payment stages, number of revisions, ownership and reuse of the recordings, what happens if the course is withdrawn and credit. Ask a qualified professional to review the wording.
Break the course into stages, each with a date and a part-payment. A late script is seen in week two and not in week ten, and you can plan around it.
They should be treated well, but the form of engagement matters. Ask a qualified professional where the line lies for your arrangements, and keep the paperwork and the way you manage them consistent with it.
Add measures that continue after launch, such as learners who finish the first module or stay beyond a refund window. A part of pay tied to those keeps counsellors thinking about fit.
We would ask how a joiner from last quarter spent their first week, what is written down in your creator agreements, and how freelance hours are tracked by course. A good first project is a remote joining plan plus a standard creator agreement. Scope is then written down for you to accept or change.
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