Case Study: Rapid Staffing and Loan Operations Response for Critical SBA Pandemic Relief

Challenge/Scope

In March 2020, the pandemic left thousands of Americans facing financial hardship. Under the expansion with the CARES Act, The Small Business Administration was faced with rapidly and exponentially scaling their disaster relief loan operations to meet the needs of small businesses, entrepreneurs, and citizens across the nation.

Approach/Solution

Highlight rapidly expanded our disaster loan support team, providing resources in response to the pandemic to review, administer, and audit loans provisioned by the various programs of the CARES act.Our team recruited, and vetted  over 500  financial and administrative in one week to help support SBA Loan Servicing Centers nationwide, resulting in the onboarding of over 1800 support staff within 90 days.  Highlight’s team leveraged our recruitment infrastructure, scalable operational procedures, and holistic staffing workflow to expand scope and capability coverage to meet the mission needs. Our integrated workflow used experienced recruiters, subject matter experts, operations coordinators, human resources team members, and program managers to source, vet, and manage personnel, with agile adoption of agency feedback and shifting contract requirements.

Highlight used our Mission-at-Scale (MAS) delivery framework to manage personnel performance and individual development, while maintaining quality across the program ecosystem. Foundational to our MAS approach is giving management access to the essential software systems for financials, personnel, and performance to inform day-to-day operations decisions. We leveraged operations coordinators as integral keys to our success, providing additional support to our employees and serving as liaison between program manager rand  customer to ensure alignment with key mission objectives and service delivery. This integrated approach enabled leadership real time access to critical resources to solve problems, answer program personnel questions, and support the overall mission of our customers.

Capabilities

• Financial Management
• Contact Center Support
• Full Lifecycle Loan Management
• Risk Management
• Legal Support
• Information Technology 
• Strategic Communication
• Administrative Support
• Staff Augmentation

Results/Outcomes

Highlight provided over 3000 financial professionals over the course of the pandemic, assisting the SBA in providing a critical financial lifeline for American small businesses. Our team of dedicated lending, administrative. legal and information technology professionals supported SBA Centers and Offices onsite and remotely with staff in 48 states.  Our team aided the SBA in reaching impacted businesses to provide needed support with the overarching goal of increasing economic stability across impacted communities.