The first obvious use for an on-demand staffing platform is to fill an immediate gap, such as a receptionist calling in sick. Engaging a pre-vetted, qualified professional to fill in eases the strain on the whole team, both by their capability but also in stopping other productivity and employee satisfaction gaps from opening by not having to cover for the sick staff member.
Understanding workforce agility and why it's no longer just a 'Nice-to-have'
Technological disruption and the global nature of the business world is changing the way we work. One key trend that today’s Customer Service leaders are embracing is the idea of responsive workplaces, and in the process, setting themselves up to thrive rather than simply survive.
What is agility?
Simply put, agility is the willingness to change, the ability to change, and how quickly you can change. But is not incompatible with reliability and resilience – as the saying goes, you can’t have agility without stability.
Speed + stability = agility
Organisational health in today’s market depends on combining speed with stability. One study of companies over a decade shows that agile companies, those who possess both speed and agility, vastly outperform companies with only one of those attributes, or neither.
Role clarity
Top-down innovation
Capturing external ideas
Process-based capabilities
Operationally disciplined
Internally competitive
Meaningful values
Knowledge sharing
Inspirational leaders
People-performance review
Reactive
Operational
The most common use for Weploy staffing solutions is when workplaces need to ramp up their team for specific projects. Scenarios include adding customer service or administrative headcount during out of cycle increases, so that the best people can be deployed to deliver changes effectively and on time.
Strategic
Outsourcing administrative work to ease the burden on specialists is an emerging trend in agile workplaces. We call this atomising which can have a huge impact on productivity and employee satisfaction, particularly when the changing nature of the working day means that allocating time and resources to dull and repetitive tasks is a challenge for customer facing staff.
Remaining competitive
A phrase commonly used in the tech world is ‘disrupt your business before someone else does’.
In the current business environment, agility becomes important because of the level of disruption being experienced.
It is a warning that needs to be heeded by even the most successful companies – it is said that businesses are more likely to grow if they make a transformational change at their peak.
1. Technology creates disruption
Amazon’s online dominance disrupts the retail market
2. Disruption leads to uncertainty
Brick-and-mortar businesses scramble to keep up as revenues decline
3. Workforce agility helps businesses navigate the uncertainty
Retailers offer
- extended trading hours
- greater workforce specialisation
- personalisation of products
- enhanced offerings to bring back customers
Shaping your business
As workplace structures undergo a period of transformation, employee expectations around flexibility are changing.
In exchange for being on call outside of traditional work hours, today’s customer service staff want solutions to align work across technology, people and barriers.
Luxury automotive company Volkswagen Australia used Weploy reactively initially, to help them respond effectively to out of cycle increases and surges in demand. When the Australian Government announced an airbag recall, several manufacturers across the industry were affected and that naturally caused a significant spike in enquiries, Customer Experience Manager Tristan Fardy needed to scale up his team with speed and agility.
Changing face of agility
A report on megatrends in workforce disruption by consulting firm EY says that:
“It was only a matter of time before technology fundamentally altered the nature and perception of how we work. A clear example of this is the emergence of the gig economy, which is the concept that in the future, people will increasingly have temporary jobs, or do separate pieces of work rather than working for one employer. This trend is transforming the talent landscape and is a simple reminder that organisations must continuously look at how they can attract talent and adapt their offering not only to consumers and clients, but also their employees.”
Agility in practice
The ongoing need to quickly fill admin, and front-desk roles had placed significant strain on VicSuper’s human resources team, which did most of its recruitment directly, sometimes using agencies to help fill specialised positions. This was a time-consuming process, especially when it came to screening candidates for their suitability.
Change in action
How does a new player use agility to radically disrupt the existing way of doing things? Take Weploy for example. Seeing a gap in the recruiting market for temp work, Weploy designed a way of connecting supply and demand that favours proven skills overtime-intensive job interviews – and all via an Uber-style app.
Strategic flexibility
Building workforce agility can be a difficult task for both established businesses and startups trying to discard old ways of working.
Hire with confidence
By now, you will understand the need for agility, and some ways in which you can inject the agile mindset into your customer service team.
You have also been able to see how Weploy is positioned to set you up for success in today’s globalised, tech-driven business environment.
At Weploy, we take the headache out of hiring.
Our easy-to-use platform is designed to make the hiring process simple and efficient so that you can be more agile and respond to timely needs.
Hire with confidence, find staff fast and improve your productivity. Contact us to find out how
