A test preparation platform sells lectures, practice tests and doubt support for competitive and entrance exams. Its year follows the exam calendar, and its educators, question writers and support staff are stretched hardest just before each sitting.
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Share your requirementsA test preparation platform helps students prepare for entrance, recruitment and school-leaving exams through recorded lectures, live classes, mock tests and doubt solving. The team has star educators who bring in students, a back room of question writers and reviewers who build the test series, and a large group of doubt solvers and mentors who answer students at night. Work rises sharply before an exam and again when results come out, then drops. Many educators are freelancers with their own following, and some are poached by rivals each season. Question papers and answer keys are sensitive material. 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.
Students join for a name, and when that educator leaves or goes to a rival, enrolments and trust follow.
Doubt queues, live classes and mock tests peak together, and the team works late for weeks before the sitting.
Good writers are hard to find and poorly recognised, and errors in a question show up in student complaints within hours.
Papers, keys and answer explanations are drafted, reviewed and uploaded by several people, with little control over who sees what.
Many are recent graduates or exam aspirants who leave for a job or their own results, and the queue is only as good as its newest members.
Some have a fee, some a share of sales and some a fixed salary, and each compares with the others.
Tired staff answer faster but less carefully, just when students most need clear answers.
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Learning and Development; Policies, Compliance and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for education, not in general.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
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.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
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.
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 test preparation platforms business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A year plan showing peaks by subject and the people needed at each.
What this coversHideA year plan showing peaks by subject and the people needed at each. The HR strategy and workforce planning work builds it.
A short sheet covering subject depth, clarity, pacing, handling doubts and student results, used for hiring and review.
What this coversHideA short sheet covering subject depth, clarity, pacing, handling doubts and student results, used for hiring and review. The competency and talent management work covers it.
A shared guide on style, difficulty levels and checking, with a record of who reviewed what.
What this coversHideA shared guide on style, difficulty levels and checking, with a record of who reviewed what. See the learning and development process.
A written rule on access, storage and what happens in a breach, signed by everyone involved.
What this coversHideA written rule on access, storage and what happens in a breach, signed by everyone involved.
A week of training, a senior to check early answers and a route to reviewer or mentor roles.
What this coversHideA week of training, a senior to check early answers and a route to reviewer or mentor roles.
Fee or share, material ownership, notice and non-competition expectations in one agreement, following the HR documentation process.
What this coversHideFee or share, material ownership, notice and non-competition expectations in one agreement, following the HR documentation process.
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 year plan of staffing around exam dates, so peaks are met with trained people and not last-minute hires.
A clear picture of what makes an educator, writer or doubt solver good, used for hiring, review and progression.
Training for question writers, reviewers and doubt solvers, so quality holds in busy weeks.
Educator and writer agreements covering fees, ownership of material and confidentiality.
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
Hiring decisions made one request at a time, in the month the pain is worst. What a workforce plan contains and why a twelve-month view changes what you hire.
7 min readRead article
Plastics training dies when it waits for a free Saturday. Tie it to mould changes, purges and cold starts, use one-point lessons and a visible skill ladder, and protect it in peak months.
7 min readRead article
A practical contents list for an employee handbook in a growing Indian business: what to cover, what to leave to policies, and how to keep it usable and current.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Build a team around each, with a second educator, strong notes and recorded sessions. Reward the star fairly, and also grow others so students come for the course and not only for one face.
Set difficulty levels and checks in advance, require a second reviewer for every question and plan writing earlier in the year. Rushed weeks produce errors, so move the work forward.
Limit access to those who need it, store material in one controlled place, write the rules and have each person confirm them. Ask a qualified professional about the wording of confidentiality terms.
Give a week with sample doubts, a style guide for answers and a senior to check the first fifty answers. Share common errors weekly. A clear route to reviewer roles helps them stay.
Each has a place. Fees suit one-off courses, shares suit stars who bring students, and salaries suit core teachers. Write the basis in each agreement and be able to explain why they differ.
We would ask how many people you need in the four weeks before your biggest exam, who can see unreleased papers, and what is in writing for your top five educators. A good first project is a year staffing plan plus educator agreements. Scope is written down for you to accept or change.
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