I work with a small local computer IT service business.  They provide
PC techs that maintain, troubleshoot, and upgrade our computers and
network.

They recently had one of their top techs quit.  Instead of immediately
hiring a replacement, we were kicking around the following idea.


The Concept:

The idea is that the company would put together a pool of about 4-14
local college students who would then work for us almost as though
they were working for a temp agency. They would handle the weekly
scheduled maintenance visits for a given client(s), occasional
installs for new clients, and eventually build enough of rapport and
comfort level with a given client that they could be the “on-call”
tech to handle emergencies via pager notification.

There would be a database listing each person and their skills, i.e.
NT Server troubleshooting proficiency or router config skills, and
their availability based upon their class schedule and other
commitments.

Each student would be “certified” for different areas after they were
able to show proficiency in them.   Each would have a rating, and that
rating would rise as they added to their skills or over time.  As
their rating grew, so would the hourly rate that they got paid.

A student would be selected for a job based on their availability and
whether or not their skills pertained to the job in question.

We kind of pictured it like this.  One of the permanent employee techs
would pick a student with skills in troubleshooting Windows 95 and go
down to Bob Print Store.   The permanent employee would assign the
student small tasks to make his visit go faster.   If they worked out
well (are bright, have the skills need, are interested and
enthusiastic), he would bring them back again and again.  He would
train them in the company’s processes and procedures, and act a bit as
a mentor to raise their skills.

When the client became 100% comfortable with the student, the
permanent employee would only show up every other visit, and only for
the first hour.  The student would carry a pager and start to become
the primary emergency “on-call” tech for that given client.  They
would get a small monthly retainer for being the primary on-call
person.  The permanent employee would become the backup “on-call”
tech.

To keep in close touch with everything the company is doing, the pool
of students would be required to attend one of two weekly staff
meetings, would be required to keep up on posting and other news on
the company’s intranet.

There are a lot of details to be worked out.

6.	What would the company need to guarantee each student in terms of
hours?
7.	How would they manage the pool and coordinate schedules and
logistics?
8.	Will training and testing become a big time drain?
9.	Does the company need to devise a system of checks and balances?


The question I need your research on is this.

Is there a precedence (or a real-world example) of this type of thing?
  Perhaps Dell, EDS, CenterBeam, Edison, or someone has done something
similar?  Is there another service company that has something that
would be somewhat similar?  A gym offering Massage Therapists perhaps
(not a great example).