Victoria Kelly has worked at Hawkes Learning since 2018 and is the company’s go-to for all things customer experience. From working with student ambassadors to interviewing clients and developing creative customer relations initiatives, she has hands and expertise in a variety of areas of the company.
As the Customer Experience Coordinator, it’s no surprise that she is well-versed in all things customer care but she is also an awesome ambassador and resource for potential customers and job-seekers interested in joining the Hawkes Learning team. As an ambassador, Victoria was recently invited to participate in a Business Ninjas podcast to chat more about Hawkes and the company’s direction in the near future!
So, according to Victoria, what’s it like to work at Hawkes Learning? We’ve asked her a few questions to get her behind-the-scenes perspective and here’s what she had to say:
What is the Company’s Industry and Niche:
At the heart of everything we do, our mission is to support student success. We do this by serving instructors and students in the higher education community. Our mission is “Driving Student Success Through Service and Innovation” and we do so by implementing our values of unity, service and adaptability.
What Problems Does Hawkes Solve?
Student success is our passion and what drives everything we do. Dr. Hawkes is a statistician and taught at the College of Charleston for over 20 years. When Dr. Hawkes founded the company, he saw a need for students to have more interactive opportunities with their learning materials as well as a need to help them truly master their concepts not just simply check off their homework assignments for the day. He implemented the Mastery approach with our materials, and no matter which discipline a Hawkes instructor is teaching with, the materials will be presented in a way that is designed to help the student truly master the learning objectives.
Another passion here is efficiency, whether it’s reviewing assignments or grading quizzes and tests, the instructor side of Hawkes strives to take a lot of load off the instructor’s shoulders in comparison to traditional pencil/paper graded homework.
Lastly, we know that learning to use a new software can feel intimidating. We provide incredible support so that both students and instructors feel that they are supported every step of the way of their Hawkes journey.
What Makes Hawkes Stand Out From the Competition:
There are two major areas we stand out and shine in the ed-tech industry and those are our concierge-level customer service and our mastery approach! In my opinion, Hawkes is truly unmatched in this area!
How Has Hawkes Learning Grown as a Company?
We’ve actually been around for over 40 years specializing in the development and distribution of an online learning platform and published textbooks, but Hawkes has seen a lot of growth over the last several years as a result of the shift to a new market and because of the shift to online learning during the pandemic.
While our roots are in mathematics with about 30 different courses specific to the math discipline, about ten years ago we branched into the humanities and social sciences realm, and we have our sights set on a number of new disciplines.
In addition to our products, Hawkes is always expanding in professional development opportunities. Some of these opportunities include our annual Innovative Educators Virtual Summit and the Learning & Growing webinar series. Both are free for anyone to attend!
What Does Hawkes’ Onboarding Process Look Like?
It has been quite a while since I’ve been in that onboarding process myself as a new employee, but I must say that I was really impressed by the onboarding process because I felt consistently supported and encouraged; anytime I made a mistake it was met with complete support, encouragement, and made into a teachable moment.
Something that really stood out to me as a new employee was that the company truly wanted to lean into a community-style atmosphere. When I started at Hawkes, it was my first job post-grad, and though I was this young 20-something new graduate, upon my arrival I was encouraged to meet with the VP’s and all the managers at Hawkes just to get to know them and hear their stories. This was incredible as a new employee, because not only did that make me feel welcomed and valued but it also allowed me to hear the stories of employees who’ve been with Hawkes for quite a while! Many of our employees are very invested within the company and that shows with their years of working with Hawkes. For example, our VP of Research and Development has been with us for 24 years and our VP of Sales and Marketing has been with us 15 years! We have some incredible people who work with the company– they’re just stellar and you can just see their passion come through their work.
What is the Office Dynamic and Community Like?
I love the teamwork and collaborative atmosphere that I’ve experienced at Hawkes. Something that has changed during my employment is that we’re hiring remote positions now. Once the pandemic started, we all started working remotely and since then our company has been able to evolve into regional territory sales representatives. This means that our sales reps service the region they live in, which certainly makes it easier for them to initiate new instructor relationships. Before we were pretty much all in Charleston but now, we’re all across the country!
Being remote has been an adjustment because I really loved my team’s office environment and face-to-face collaboration. I’m an extrovert, so I love being around people, but thankfully, being remote I get to work with my dog Waffles in my home office!
I love the trust that has been established and upheld with our team and our remote work. We utilize slack and zoom, so I feel connected with my teammates this way. As a company, we also plan fun virtual events like bingo, yoga classes, trivia, and holiday events. On a team level, we also have quarterly team builder fun activities that our management organizes-it’s always a fun time that I look forward to and is always very thoughtfully planned. While it is virtual, it’s still so great to connect with my team members in this way – it really reflects the company’s culture.
Another thing I love is that Hawkes is that not only are we passionate people about what we do but almost everybody has some type of connection to education whether it’s a spouse who works in education or the employee themselves are former educators. I think that this insight just brings so much more to the table for what we do because at that point it becomes so much deeper than just a job because you personally know the impact that we are making.
Another thing I would like to mention is that while our customers work one-on-one with the sales and training and support team members, of course, we couldn’t do what we do without all of the other teams at Hawkes. We are just presenting the product that’s coming to fruition from so many other teams within the company. Everything we produce truly is such a team effort and I love that we can connect with one another and collaborate across departments.
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