Business & Enterprise
Hiring on proven skill for an operations floor
Overview:
Pwani Digital Services runs customer and data operations for clients across East Africa. Its biggest cost was not salaries. It was the churn of new hires who looked strong on paper but struggled on the floor. The firm partnered with IDEA to hire on evidence instead of interviews.
Approach:
Learners from the Digital Business and Operations course completed supervised placements on live client accounts, handling real customer queries and data tasks under Pwani's quality framework. IDEA trainers and Pwani team leads assessed the same work together. At the end of each placement, the firm made offers based on weeks of observed performance rather than a single interview.
Programme specifications:
Learners hosted: 20
Placement length: 10 weeks
Work types: customer operations and data quality
Assessment: joint IDEA and employer scoring
Tools: CRM, ticketing and AI-assisted workflows
Results:
Time to hire fell by 60 percent because the firm no longer needed long screening rounds. Placement graduates averaged a 92 percent quality score in their first month and reached full productivity three times faster than previous hires. Pwani now recruits its entry-level operations team exclusively through IDEA placements.
60%
Shorter time to hire
92%
Quality score, month one
3x
Faster to full productivity
