Liddy Korner
Liddy is the founder and CEO. Her previous life was in international education. She’s lived and worked in Sydney, Hong Kong and also boasts a stint in Bathurst. She is the driving force behind Talent Now.
Liddy Korner is the Founder of Talent Now. We interviewed her to learn more about her journey in creating Talent Now, and what motivates and drives her.
What inspired you to create Talent Now?
When my son started day care, I realised how important a centre’s culture and staff are to a child’s development.
What really struck me was how profitable the industry was as a whole, but how little of that trickles down to the educators who nurture and shape our children during their most formative years. I quickly realised that we do not value the importance of early years education and educators as we should in Australia.
What’s been the hardest part of building a start-up in this industry?
What isn’t hard about building a start up?! Different challenges appear at different stages. I was nervous about moving from the pilot phase to making real sales because this meant asking people to truly believe in my vision. To my relief making the sale has been the easy part, the hard part is getting the meeting, as people still cannot get their head around our “no agent” model.
One thing that surprises me is how difficult it is to explain to the industry that we are not an agent. There is still no language to describe our on-demand staffing model. The closest is the “Uber of childcare”.
What would you have done differently?
Perhaps I should have been less of a perfectionist in the early days. Interestingly, I think I probably should have launched sooner, as the centres that signed up versus those that participated in our pilot have reaped the greatest benefits.
How do you see staffing changing in the near future for Early Learning Services?
One of my biggest fears is that unless the industry, as a collective, addresses the issue of low wages, then staff shortages will continue and perhaps become even worse. Another observation is that for such a regulated industry, I am surprised there is not tighter control around the number of new services that open up in close proximity to others. This puts a real pressure on providers to maintain high occupancy rates.
What’s the best part of your job?
I must confess I love it when I am on-boarding a service, they post their first shift and it gets accepted before I have even left the building — it feels fabulous because everything is working as it should! The other thing I love and least expected was hearing the amazing stories of our educators, I never realised how rich and diverse this group of people are. The journeys that have led them into early childhood education are often fascinating.
Where do you see Talent Now in the next 5 years?
It’s quite a privilege to build something from the ground up. What I would love to see is Talent Now as widely recognised and used as Uber in the casual staffing space.
Learn More about Talent Now
Talent Now takes the hassle out of sourcing staff and job hunting. Our mission is to make staffing easy and cost effective so that services and educators can focus on what they are most passionate about — children.
