LARK GOULD — Business Traveler, April 24, 2020 |
A recent article from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce highlighted how GIG economy companies are solving staffing problems for restaurants both for inside staffing and for now necessary delivery services… to keep revenues coming during the crisis. With the resulting stay-at-home orders and national economic downturn, the nation’s gig economy companies have become a fundamentally essential part of many Americans’ daily lives – and an economic lifeline for many others.
Not only are companies like Instacart, Postmates, and Uber delivering food and groceries to those in isolation, but GIG employees can also help restaurants solve their non-delivery staffing as well. Perhaps most importantly, these companies are also providing vital earnings opportunities to Americans who have lost hours or jobs amid the economic slowdown. Active companies in the markets this week include ShiftPixy, Inc., Grubhub Inc., Slack Technologies, Inc., Uber Technologies, Inc., and Lyft, Inc.
“One of the reasons that gig economy has been so successful is that it satisfies consumer preference for products that are on-demand, convenient, and easy to use,” said Toast CEO Chris Comparato in an article he wrote about how the gig-economy could offer restaurants struggling with staffing an innovative solution to their struggle.
With difficulties in restaurant staffing at an all-time high, a new labor market is redefining the way we find quality candidates: The gig economy. A shrinking labor pool makes it extremely difficult to source talent, and, even if you do find quality staff, there is still an unusually high employee turnover rate plaguing the industry. Employee recruitment and retention are frequently listed by restaurateurs as their top operational challenge, as cited in Toast’s 2019 Restaurant Success Report. “The gig economy provides an easy way to access a flexible (and available) worker pool who can help restaurants quickly grow or shrink their workforces at low risk based on current demand,” says Jenay Sellers, Director of Marketing at GigSmart.
ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PIXY): ShiftPixy, a California-based gig engagement platform provider, launched “Shifter Waitlist,” allowing restaurant employees displaced by the coronavirus pandemic to sign up now for available work at restaurants when business restarts. ShiftPixy currently serves thousands of restaurant workers in markets across the country, and is rolling out its Shifter Waitlist to facilitate recovery plans for both employees and operators nationwide.
“We have heard from many multi-unit restaurant operators expressing the fear, ‘What if they don’t come back?’ when thinking about the employees they had to furlough,” said Scott Absher, CEO and co-founder of ShiftPixy. “We moved ahead of schedule to open up the ShiftPixy platform for workers who are not currently connected with our clients, so that when the economy re-opens, our clients will have a ready pool of locally available workers to quickly rebuild their staff.”
ShiftPixy’s platform leverages AI-driven technology and the concept of gig work to elevate worker engagement in the restaurant space, offering greater flexibility between shift workers and operators with open shifts. “Previously, our platform was only open to active ShiftPixy clients to help run their operations, but now we have opened our waitlist feature so shift seekers can immediately start the process of boarding and qualifying for shift opportunities,” he said.
To join the ShiftPixy Shifter Waitlist, a furloughed worker need only:
1. Download the ShiftPixy App from the Google Play or Apple App Store
2. When prompted for your Worksite Code, click on “Don’t know your code?”
3. Click the “I’m just looking for gigs” button
4. Enter information and submit by clicking “Get early access”
Despite today’s heightened levels of anxiety, the Shifter Waitlist takes aim at the certainty of emergence from this crisis. ShiftPixy is not only designed as a human capital management solution; it is also a means for restaurants to prepare their business to emerge even better once this crisis ends.
Read full article: https://www.businesstravelerusa.com/business-traveler-usa-story/gig-economy-steps-up-to-help-americans-in-time-of-need
Disclosure: https://shiftpixy.com/our-conditions/