These 4 Staffing Leaders Are Winning With Innovation

With 2020’s volatility, staffing leaders are finding that it’s more important than ever to stay on top of the latest trends. So which bets are they making on technology and innovation?

The following four staffing innovators shared with Checkr which technology trends they’ve led, the results they’ve seen, and the best practices you can adapt for your agency: 

Patrick Beharelle

CEO at TrueBlue

Digital staffing platforms aren’t just a win for candidates—they also delight clients and field personnel

Platforms like JobStack win by giving candidates the experience they’re looking for. When you launch a winning platform, you know they’re successful because of mass adoption. 

“Approximately 50% of PeopleReady’s orders are being filled by our JobStack tool, all without human intervention,” says Patrick Beharelle, CEO at TrueBlue. “This means by using an app based tool, workers are able to match themselves to the right opportunities with less branch involvement.” Why is JobStack winning? It embraces signup culture and gives power to the candidate who can choose for themselves what work is right for them.

Self-service products like JobStack don’t just grow revenue and improve your brand, it also leads to longer-tenured workers. JobStack increased retention rates to 53% in the second quarter of 2020, according to SIA’s research study.

What might seem like a candidate-driven product also delivers a delightful experience for your buyers. “Clients can place orders 24/7 and see jobs fill in real time, creating more transparency and confidence that orders are being filled,” says Beharelle. This is for staffing buyers what we all experience when we check on the status of our package in transit or a rideshare on the way.

What’s better for your clients and candidates is also better for your agency. In JobStack’s case, it also improves productivity by automating manual tasks. “This creates the opportunity to have field personnel work on higher value added activities such as upselling existing clients or acquiring new clients,” says Beharelle.

Michael Whitmer

Global CIO at RGF Staffing

Organizations haven’t transformed overnight—but this is a chance for forward thinkers to invest

The business world’s post-pandemic transformation has been overstated. “Even though everyone is working from home and utilizing video and web collaboration tools does not mean our organizations are suddenly digitally transformed,” says Michael Whitmer, Global CIO at RGF Staffing.

Ask any staffing department, and they’ll tell you they don’t have enough budget. No team feels that more than IT. But Whitmer says that the pandemic helped people see something important: they need to accelerate their technology investments.

This means forward-thinking staffing technologists can get more buy-in for digital transformation initiatives that were already in progress. For Whitmer and RGF Staffing, a key component of this continued investment in technology is an on-demand platform.

“A top priority for us is leveraging a staffing on-demand platform as a way to create value through increased efficiency, productivity, and stronger engagement with our stakeholders,” says Whitmer. Whitmer is helping to lead a larger overall digitization strategy at RGF Staffing. With technology they can enhance their relationships with not just their customers but their candidates as well. That’s why they’re calling this initiative Touch Through Tech.

Brad Talwar

Founder and CEO at TalentBurst

How quickly do your workers get paid? At this agency, workers get paid 8 minutes after a shift

Innovators like TalentBurst are taking care of their workers through daily pay. “Daily pay is embraced by anyone making less than $25-30/hour,” says Brad Talwar, Founder & CEO of Talenburst. “In fact, they really need it to make ends meet.”

Talwar describes this as often the most critical deciding factor for many candidates to accept the job or accept another one. How widespread is adoption of this new payment model? Almost 90% of TalentBurst’s lower-pay light industrial workers have chosen daily pay.

It’s not just good for the worker; it’s also good for the staffing agency. There’s a hidden value here for staffing agencies who meet their workers where they are financially. Financial stress is a powerful productivity killer. By adding new payment models and relieving that stress, staffing agencies can help their workforce feel taken care of and stay focused on the job at hand, according to Josh Bersin’s 2020 Tech Market study.

Technology is a key reason why daily pay is possible for TalentBurst. They even developed their own technology stack in partnership with a client in order to make it work. Thanks to that upfront work, a worker can now get paid eight minutes after they finish a shift.

Ericka Hyson

President at WorkN

When your technology works in sync, that’s when you experience all the benefits

It can’t be overstated that when staffing buyers want candidates, they don’t want to wait. That’s what Ericka Hyson, President at WorkN, has heard from countless staffing agencies as she’s worked with them to build on-demand staffing marketplaces. “Firms are looking to accelerate their ability to provide more autonomy and transparency to their clients through self-service on-demand platforms,” says Hyson.

That kind of autonomy and transparency only comes when your staffing agency uses tools that integrate with each other. That’s why WorkN made it a priority for their staffing platforms to natively integrate with a range of ATS solutions including Bullhorn, Avionté, Erecruit, and TempWorks. Because of these integrations, agencies can trust WorkN’s staffing platform to work out of the box with whatever ATS they use and with the full functionality they need. That’s how WorkN apps have engaged 500,000+ workers and 2+ million jobs.

Hyson has seen staffing agencies “create efficiencies, improve productivity through automation, and engage talent with touchless mobile technology” by launching online staffing marketplaces that are integrated with their technology.

While it’s been on the wish list for many staffing agencies to develop technology that allows candidates and staffing buyers to engage in real time, this became even more important in 2020. “The global pandemic has been a tremendous catalyst for staffing firms to embrace mobile and on-demand staffing technology,” says Hyson.

To learn more about the trends these innovators are leading—and to hear from other innovators too—download our free eBooks

To embrace these trends, these innovators learned about the technology, statistics, stories, and best practices.

Check out our eBooks The Rise of Signup Culture and Putting Buyer Expectations First to hear from these staffing innovators and others.

Additional staffing and hiring innovators include:

• Penny Queller (EVP at Randstad USA)
• Taryn Owen (President at PeopleReady)
• Shay Johnson (Senior Director, Talent Acquisition at Compass Group North America)
• Steve Kass (Chief Administrative Officer at Robert Half)
• Allison Robinson (CEO at The Mom Project)
• Ericka Hyson (President at WorkN)
• Lars Asbjornsen (SVP Marketing at Upwork)
• And other staffing leaders who are transforming the staffing industry