The Gig Economy Evolves: How On-Demand Staffing Solves Labor Gaps in Real Time

Gaurav Deshpande -

The gig economy is growing in triple digits, going from 2% of the total economy in 2020 to 20% in 2030 and traditional solutions for recruiting, planning, assignment, tracking and verification of work need an update to match these new on-demand workstyles. The team at Hyer has an approach to connecting companies with immediately available labor through their platform. As they describe it – delivering on-demand labor with the tap of an app.  

During Gig Work Summit 2023, Dan DelGiudice, VP of Partnerships at Hyer and his colleague Nick Katsarelas, Sr. Project Director sat down with us to discuss how Hyer has built an on-demand labor marketplace and achieves results like a 90% fill rate, a 50% referral rate, and over 300K gigs completed.  

Below you'll find a transcript of their session, edited for clarity,  and the video to the entire session.

Shortcut to session highlights here:

Nice to meet you all. My name is Dan DelGiudice. As Gaurav mentioned, I lead our partnerships here for Hyer, we are an on demand labor solution, powered by the gig economy providing real time labor to the retail, hospitality warehouse industries. And what we'll do today is myself and Nick, my colleague, who leads our partnership onboarding here, walk you through a little bit about the gig economy, kind of what's happening trend wise with labor. And then we'll also do a quick demo of the Hyer app. So without further ado, I'll share my screen here. And at Hyer, we like to say we're reinventing how work gets done.

Hyer's Vision for On-Demand Staffing

“In fact, you know, about 60 million people have actually done gig work or freelance in this country, So people just have changed kind of the way they want to work, They want flexibility, an on demand approach”

But before we talk about, you know, what we're doing here at Hyer in particular, let's kind of take a quick step back and understand kind of what's happening in the labor environment. So I think, you know, as it relates to labor, I think there's two big trends taking place as we see it here at Hyer, right? So on the one hand, you've got, people are still looking for people, right, labor is still a major gap across whether you go to a restaurant, or any kind of a retail grocery store, at the warehouse level at hotels, right, there's still help wanted signs everywhere, it's still a major gap. You know, we're probably on, you know, 50 60 calls a week where we're talking to executives, this is still the number one concern for executives, right from the C suite all the way down to the people actually making it happen. On the frontline.

So still a major gap, I think, you know, with COVID, a lot of people were displaced, that maybe they didn't want to be, whether it's a restaurant worker, or someone as a, you know, general stalker in a supermarket, etc. And so a lot of those people left the workforce and just didn't necessarily come back full time, right.

So there's still a major gap there. Now, on the other side, kind of the left side of the screen here, you've got this just burgeoning gig economy, right? These are people who, whether you're an Uber driver, right, maybe you're a shopper for shipped, or Instacart.

Choosing the Gig Economy

Or you're working at a company like Hyer, these people are saying, hey, we want to work like we're here.

In fact, you know, about 60 million people have actually done gig work or freelance in this country, which is a lot. It's almost one out of every three adults, right? So people just have changed kind of the way they want to work, right? It's this flexibility, this on demand approach.

And so you know, technology has really enabled people to finally work having want to work, you know, so for many individuals, that could be, you know, supplementing a nine to five job with a Saturday night shift at a gig with a gig app, or maybe you've just moved into kind of gig full time with a number of gig apps. So these two trends are kind of converging. And you know, with a company like ours, you know, our job is say, hey, gig economy, let's connect you into the retail restaurant hotel space where people actually need you. So I think that's a good foundation, as you know as to what's really happening right now in this space.

The Growth of Gig Workers and On-demand Labor

“So it's a great way to scale the workforce up and down. With technology, it's as soon as the same day.”

The other thing with gig you think about three big pillars, right? So already talked about filling labor gaps, literally, we're we're organizations don't have people gig can solve that, right? It's typically no commitment. It's as needed, right? It's on demand. So just literally filling gaps, there's millions of people who want to work, you just have to get connected to them.

Number two, here, the concept of scaling your workforce in real time based on the ebbs and flows of your business. So think about a supermarket, or think about maybe a party, retail Halloween store right now with the seasonality, right, you need extra hands on deck, based on the seasonal projects and ebbs and flows. But maybe you don't need full time people.

So it's a great way to scale the workforce up and down. And again, with technology, it's as soon as same day.

So imagine a world where you could actually do that without planning in advance and saying, oh my gosh, I need 12 People here tomorrow, four people to hear today, etc. So that's kind of the vision here. And then this concept, you think about recruiting, right?

Embracing HR Technology: Try Before You Buy


So in many ways, this is HR tech, if you will, the concept of a worker, right, maybe testing an employer out before they commit to a full time job, and then the employer getting to work with someone before they commit to hiring them. So this try before you buy concept is really novel. And it's really a part of the future of work, how we see it. And so this is kind of the you know, the way we think about workforce optimization division at Hyer. This is how gig works.

I think, if you look at some of the stats on the bottom of this page here, you know, churn is still incredibly high turnover is high. So we talk to people all the time, a lot of the work we do is in the grocery space. And it seems like it's a revolving door, right? So gig can help solve that where every time someone comes in right as full time, it seems like someone is leaving right behind them, right, this revolving door concept.

And it gets really expensive to write when people are leaving, even if they've come back to work. And now they're leaving to go down the street, maybe to make $1. More literally, that's what we're hearing, you're now paying maybe this $5,300 per employee, maybe twice a year per role, right, if everyone is coming in and leaving them on the churn side, so things are getting very expensive. recruitment costs, onboarding costs, and again, multiple times a year. But then there's a solution like ours, right. And there's others as well, or someone like Hyer, it's free to use the app. So it's kind of a great tool to have in the toolkit. There's no commitment or anything like that. And this concept of hiring people and maybe as a provisional, right, you can test someone out before hiring is really novel and quite unique. So a little bit about us and how we work.

A Marketplace for Hiring Gig Workers

“It's kind of like Uber, but for labor.”

So we're a two sided marketplace. You know, on one side, we've got 367,000 Gig workers, these are 1099 contractors. And on the other side of the marketplace, if you will, we've had about 170 Plus partners, again, primarily grocers, restaurants, hotels, distribution centers, that work in over 10,000 locations, and these workers are all background, checked and insured, you can see their resume and everything like that, like I said, there's no commitment, the type of jobs that we really specialize in are kind of that frontline labor.

So when maybe in a retail space, it's merchandising or curbside picking. At a restaurant, it could be food prep, dishwashing, hotel, attendance in hotels, etc. So we have about probably 300 different types of tasks or jobs that we've done on our app. It's really simple to use. It's kind of like Uber, but for labor.

And probably the best of all, you know, who are these gig workers? You know, these are people just like us, right? They've either left the nine to five rat race fully to work at a number of Gig companies, or in some instances, it's just supplemental income. And you know, a couple of columns here, you look at someone like Kathy, right, you can get someone like Kathy's an experienced person who retired, but it's come back to the workforce. So imagine that, right? You get to choose who you want, or someone like you know, Dominica on the far right, this is great for her because she gets to finish her bachelor's degree while she's making some extra income when it makes sense for her. And that could have been flow based on her schedule.

So it's really about flexibility. And you know, our taskers. Love it, right? We talked about fill rates a lot in this space, the fill rates with us are about 90% Plus, which means if you post 10 jobs overnight, we'll get filled, because these people want to be here, right, they've gone out of their way to download the app, and apply to your job because they actually want to be here to make money. It's super simple.

So like I mentioned, Nick, my colleague, will walk us through a little bit of a demo on how this all works. But this is just kind of the vision on how this actually works.

The Hyer Solution for On-demand Tasks and Gigs

From the viewpoint as a gig worker

So once you're a Tasker, in gig apps, like Hyer, for example, you log in, and you can actually see different, you know, different job opportunities, different gigs, if you will, you're gonna see when it is how much you're gonna get paid. You work exactly when you want, right, the second screenshot there, you're not kind of dictated to what is good for someone else, you choose tasks when it's good for you. And then think about this, you get paid right away. So you talk about the stickiness of these workers, these gig workers. You know, I think this is a trend that will be table stakes in the next few years for for just employees across the board. But you know, with Hyer, we pay the taskers right away. So as soon as they're done with that task, we pay them and our partners just pay us later. And so they love that literally decide to wake the same day and access to their, to their funds, same day, and they get to build a resume and build connections as well.

Post Gigs on Hyer

Now, for the business, Nick will walk us through a little bit more detail here. It's also very simple. So we work with businesses all the time. And we'll get you set up in advance and the different gigs or task types that you have, you're in full control of your pay, right we our model is very simple. We apply a transactional fee, on top of the rate that you that you set and that is if there's no minimums, there's no subscriptions, nothing like that. And then you're in full control. I think that's the big kind of the I would say that the consistency here is that you're in full control of how much you're paying, when you're using it and who is coming in. Right.

Optimize On-Demand Workforce with Hyer

So I said earlier, or like Uber for labor, but it's much better than that, because you're actually choosing who you want. Right? You may choose Dre in this example, based on his experience, and you also get to do ratings and reviews. So again, very seamless approach and we kind of do all the work with you up front, so that your your managers etc have access when they need it. And that's kind of a high level, right?

You'll see where we've serviced over 10,000 locations across the country, from retailers to hotels to restaurants, and we're founded In about let's see, 2018 about five years ago and upscaled pretty quickly. And yeah, we're growing every day like where I've mentioned. So with that, I will pause on the presentation component. And I'll pass it over to Nick who can walk us through a little bit more.

Demo: Hyer's On-Demand Labor Solution: Posting Tasks with Ease

So for today's demo, what I want to walk us through is the Hyer up really broken down to two parts, one of which what it looks like to post a task from a business point of view. And then secondly, on the task management side, what it looks like to select an applicant or pay them out. Dan had touched upon we our mobile application, but we also have a desktop portal. So if you prefer to work off your computer, that's also something where all the same functionality exists. Related to get started on posting, what I'm going to do is hit this big post task button at the bottom, we're going to click on our business. And then we're going to select from a range of task types that we that already preset for us.

Customizing Your On-Demand Workforce Needs

In this case, I'm gonna assume I'm a retailer, and I'm posting for a stocking associate to come in tomorrow. So we'll click on that and hit let's get started. So for step one, it's going to ask for your task location, here, you're gonna see your pre populated location addresses, it's as easy as selecting on the one that you want to post for. But what's cool is you can also based on your organizational structure, assign a single location manager to only one store, or we could actually assign multiple locations to a market or regional manager. So we can totally match what you guys currently have in place. The second step is going to be date and time. So like I mentioned, we're posting for this tomorrow, I'm going to select on the sixth. And then we want this person to start at 9:30am. Best tip for success and really, our bread and butter is going to be same day next day, that could be anywhere from four hours in advance to 24 hours in advance.

That being said, it's no extra cost to post a task out there to start an hour, it just makes it a little bit more difficult for us to fill it. The third step is going to be the cost calculator on the top left is a preset hourly rate. What's cool is you have full control of what you're paying the worker. And on the top right, you'll see your rate with Hyer's markup, both of those will be prefilled. The only thing left is to set the duration. So if we wanted somebody to come in for, let's say, eight hours, we'd go ahead and scale this up to eight, you'll then see a total cost pop up, which is what you pay as a business now with the worker actually sees. Our first step is going to be a pre populated description. And like a job description before somebody applies or after they're scheduled, they can see what's going to be required of them, dress code, check in checkout instructions, etc. Also cools we could add in videos or PDFs here. So for anybody who's looking for a position that you want somebody to come in with a little bit more knowledge than off the street, we can make sure that they review those details. Lastly, we can also filter down taskers by experience or certifications. So as you think about a restaurant, maybe you want to bartender, we want to make sure that you're going to get a license bartender in the state. And that's something we can filter down to.

Public vs. Private Task Posting: Tailoring Your Approach

Our next screen is going to ask us do we want to post his tasks publicly and to or choose taskers this is essentially public versus private functionality. When you post a task publicly, it'll open up to anybody nearby. From there, they can apply. And then you select a person who has to work from a list of applicants.

Secondly, the private function, it's something that we see businesses use over time. Typically, maybe they have three to five people that they really like, would like to have back, they could actually send this out privately, but only those folks and the difference is what you send it out, the first person to accept isn't on that schedule. In this case, I'm gonna go ahead and post it publicly. It's going to tell us here that we posted your task and underneath it asked you want to post more identical tasks.

So really, that functionality is for duplicating your post. One shift is good for one person. So if you needed more than one person tomorrow, let's say a total of three, you could scale this up twice. Or if you had a need and more of a recurring basis, you could actually hit them multiple days, and post out to future dates, so you don't need to go back and post over and over again. Once we hit go to your tasks, we'll see it brings us straight to the task tab with our new open position.

And that's really how easy it is to post. On the management side within the Task tab.

Selecting the Perfect On-Demand Tasker

Let's go ahead and dive into what it looks like to view and select an applicant. So we see here we have an open task with four applicants. And once we click on that icon, we get to see you applied at face value. Within the applicant list. You get to see a taskers full name, their profile photo, their five star rating, how many tasks they've completed, and their distance and proximity to the location you're posting for. On the right side, you may see different badges or icons. We call them badges and they could be given to somebody in one of two ways. They could possess a relevant experience or certification that we've manually approved on the Hyer side, called a bartender's license, a food safety certification or forklift certification. Or you could see a business Slow go, meaning they're proficient, trained or experienced at that business. If you wanted to read a little more about somebody, you can click on their name, it'll open up their profile in greater detail. Here you can see the type of skills and accumulated while working on the app a little bit more about them with their biography, reviews left by their businesses, and their work experience outside of the app. But assuming Nick was the one you wanted him for the day, you'd hit confirm this task or at the bottom. And once we hit confirm one more time, we're going to see here that that four applicant icon goes away and that Tasker appears is scheduled.

Efficient Task Management and Monitoring for Your On-Demand Workforce

Now directing your eyes to the middle to the top of the screen, I'm going to jump over to the active folder, and a task will move to the active folder folder an hour before its scheduled start time. Here, you're going to start to receive status updates, so you're going to be alerted when a task was on the way or in progress. During that time, you also have the ability to track them via GPS similar to an Uber driver. We also have geofencing. So a Tasker can't actually mark complete or in progress unless they're located within 1000 feet of the location you're posting for.

Streamlined Payment and Review Process for Your On-Demand Labor Solution

Once a Tasker does come in and complete the work for you, on the business side, you'll see this review and verify payment button pop up. And once we click that, you'll see that you have full control of the payment before this task gets paid out. So for example, if somebody came in and work two additional hours under your approval, you could scale us up to eight, you would then see the pay scale. Same can be done if you let somebody go early. Outside of that, lastly, what I wanted to walk us through since we have some time is what it looks like to leave a review. And bear with me for just one second, I should have deleted some tasks. So this takes a second to load. But once you have somebody come in and complete work, you can rate them on four standards, quality courtesy dress code, and punctuality for a total FIVE STAR score, you can mark a task was preferred. This is almost like a favorite filter.

Enhancing Relationships with On-Demand Workers Through Reviews

So if somebody came in did a great job and you plan to utilize again, you would mark them as preferred. And then anytime you're actually posting a private task, this is a filter you can use. And then there's going to be two types of text feedback. One of which is for the Tasker something they can see and put it on their profile, most of the time that's positive. The second is something called internal notes. And I'll give you a good use case. If you have multiple managers from your business on the app. One of them has a bad experience. They live in internal note, anytime that Tasker applies for any managers posting, you'd be able to see that note the Tasker cannot. So it's purely for internal communication. But that is basically it for I would say the app demo. So I will turn it back over to Dan or anyone else in the HyperTrack side for any Q&A if any questions come through.

Outstanding. Thanks a lot, Nick. That was a wonderful overview. Thank you, Dan. First question, this has been top of the mind burning for the audience all the way through? How do you recruit? The workers is that you that you have on the platform? What's your strategy? That seems to be finding the talent seems to be one of the main things that people are worried, worried about? So what's your what's your strategy and tactics that work for you in recruiting people? Workers that talent?

Hyer's Recruitment Strategy: Building a Network of Gig Workers by Referrals

Extending the Gig

So under recruitment strategy, I'd say a couple of things, right, the first thing would be just the trend of gig growing. So again, there are millions and millions of people who actually do want to work in gig when you think about the product that we offer, first and foremost, where you can decide to work same day, right, get paid literally moments after, and then this provisional opportunity to maybe get a full time job and like, you know, like a tinder almost like try before you kind of commit. It's amazing. So that is there.

Informal Referrals from Gig Workers

Beyond that the actual tactics, believe it or not, a lot of the same tactics that you're that you may use in traditional recruiting, social media has been incredibly effective for us. But I'd say above all, and I showed this in the slide of the five taskers I showed to them, we're actually siblings, and 50% of our Tasker is actually come to Hyer by word of mouth. So think about that. I mean, we love that from a tasker or acquisition standpoint, that's that's a beautiful part of the model. And it also goes to show how much the Taskers love and the value that they get from this app and gig in general. Right. So awesome.

Reliability in the Gig Economy

Handling No Shows and Cancellations in the Gig Economy

Nick showed a feature where there was a little heart, right, it was a favorite option. And so over time, the more partners use us you're going to wind up leveraging that heart and essentially what that is is your favorite tasker. And so a location may have 10 15 20 30 favorite passwords, and these are reliable. So that really mitigates someone actually not showing because you've built report they've worked for you before you've gotten to know them etc. There's a number of other kind of mechanisms as well, or like, you know, ways to kind of mitigate that in the app, Nick, if you want to jump in with some of the detail there, too.

Absolutely. There's a feature called Hyer assist within the app itself. And as much as we are a functionality, so I'll talk through it, we're also a relationship based company. So if anything was to happen, it's something we're working hand in hand with you on over the phone, via email, whatever you prefer. But within the Hyer’s function, you have full control of marketing, a Tasker is a no show or cancellation. And that will instantly breach their account and subject their account either suspension or permanent disable, most of the time, it's a three strikes, you're out. So it's something where somebody could be suspended for 14 days, then 30 days, and then they're permanently disabled if they were to cancel. But that being said, for newer customers, it's typically one strike and you're out. That way we help alleviate any volatility early on.

How to Improve Fill Rates

Yeah, and that just the build to the fill rates, like I referenced are 90%. Plus, again, these are people who are going out of their way to find you know, incremental income, supplemental income. So we still see the full rates pretty high. And then again, if it does happen, worst case scenario, is someone supposed to show up at 4pm? And you know, there's a no show. That's the beauty of the gig, you've got 1000s of workers maybe ready, unable to pick up that shift, right next. So they are app or manual. Yeah.

Resolving Payment Disputes with Geofencing and Data

Taskers have the ability to dispute if they felt like they were shorted any hours at that point, they have to submit a claim to us. And if we don't answer questions in detail that we can provide back to the customer, we end up closing that out. So it's typically something that it's a case by case basis. And if there was something that could be validated by the business we're working with, that's something that we'll share and work hand in hand with that month. That being said, we do have geofencing, we have all of these status updates.

We have push notifications. So we can always track where those triggers were where somebody marked in progress. And lastly, complete. But typically what we tell these customers is, it always helps if you have somebody on site to have a sign in sign out sheet because you can't argue with that. So if somebody was to leave, and they signed out, and that is when they're done with their ship.

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Please visit https://hypertrack.com/gigworksummit for information on Gig Work Summit 2023, a virtual summit hosted by HyperTrack for the community building next generation tech for gig work and on-demand delivery.