Global education institution accelerates research hiring with Lifted, an Upwork Company™
Lifted, an Upwork Company™ enabled a global education institution to rapidly onboard 60+ field researchers across Ghana, Uganda, and Nigeria using its AOR model.
At a glance.
Summary
This global education institution needed to deploy over 60 field researchers across Ghana, Uganda, and Nigeria to support a time-sensitive research initiative. Internal teams had identified the right contributors, but lacked the infrastructure to contract, pay, and onboard them quickly, especially across multiple jurisdictions. Lifted enabled rapid onboarding through its AOR model for pre-identified talent, delivering contract-ready contributors within one business day, without the legal or operational friction of traditional hiring.
Challenges we tackled
Distributed Workforce Activation and Jurisdiction-Specific Compliance
Dozens of researchers needed to be onboarded simultaneously, and compliantly, across several countries
Cross-Border Payments
Managing international payments securely and reliably without burdening internal teams
How our solution helped
Lifted deployed an AOR-based solution built to support high-volume onboarding of pre-identified workers across multiple regions.
What We Delivered
Onboarded pre-identified researchers in two coordinated deployment waves
Processed payments within one business day of approval, eliminating typical payout delays
Handled contracts, classification, and documentation under a single compliant infrastructure
Positioned the program to scale into seven additional countries with no workflow disruption
Eliminated administrative burden of hiring and onboarding logistics
Key success factors
Lifted’s approach gave the client full control over who they hired, without needing to build internal systems for engagement, compliance, or payment.
Pre-Identified Talent Model
Enabled fast onboarding of known contributors without requiring upfront sourcing
AOR Compliance Structure
Managed classification, contracts, and risk mitigation across borders
Hands-On Support
Lifted’s program team provided day-to-day guidance, timeline coordination, and live issue resolution
Scalable Design
Processes and systems were built to expand into additional regions without workflow redesign
The outcome
From Recruitment Bottlenecks to Global Research at Scale: With Lifted’s AOR model in place, this education institution can focus on mission delivery while rapidly launching a complex, international research project. They do not need to compromise speed, compliance, or internal resources while meeting their goals. Onboarding timelines were cut to less than one business day on average, payments were streamlined, and program operations will now scale seamlessly into new geographies.
While this work was performed when these Enterprise solutions were embedded in Upwork, the same offerings and more are now available through Lifted, an Upwork Company.
