Read below a few staffing startups that may soon help boost the customer experience and save money for hotels and other players.
If your hospitality business is like most, your labor is the biggest expense on your profit and loss statement. While planning staffing can be a slippery slope for many hotel operations, it is possible to reduce core staffing levels for ancillary operations of any business; but reducing costs goes hand in hand with maintaining a marque level of excellence. With the correct balance in mind, here are a few staffing startups that may soon help boost the customer experience and save money for hotels and other players.
Koru: Developing Talent for Hiring
One of the most innovative staffing concepts in a while, Koru connects highly skilled college grads with companies in need of talent using a two-tiered approach. On the candidate end of things, the platform aids students with career-training utilities that teach valuable skills employers covet. For employers, Koru provides highly targeted candidates who match criteria set by HR departments.
What sets Koru apart is its “predictive hiring” approach based on the real drivers of performance, Koru7™ Impact Skills. This refined experiment in AI has resulted in a pioneering tool developed from years of trials run with the help of thousands of college students through immersive career training programs for college students and recent graduates. Thus, Koru’s efforts are proving highly effective in suggesting the most creative employees.
Hyre: Streamlining Events and More
Hyre is one of those simple solutions that may well blow big in the near future. Not your typical staffing solution, Hyre is tightly focused on events staffing at the local level. The platform empowers hotels or event organizers by putting qualified staff at their fingertips. Hyre’s President and CEO Eropa Stein describes her startup as the next “Uber of staffing.” Her “baby steps” business approach is likely to avoid the massive scalability issues surrounding big startups like Uber and Airbnb.
The power of Hyre is all about templating success and moving from one certifiable city market to another, according to Stein. Hyre is focused for the moment on the Ottawa events scene and plans rapid expansion to key outside markets soon. Hyre is revolutionary in a very logical and incremental way: “one event at a time, one city at a time.” This approach will lead to a rock solid talent-customer base. Event organizers, caterers, and hotels can staff their event with professionals who have likewise joined the platform. In the end, if all goes well, the community will be built organically – and events will undoubtedly lead to other staffing niches as well.
Hired: Human and Machine Learning Applied
Another innovative staffing startup, Hired solves the demand for the top-tier employee being outstripped by supply. The service inverts the hiring process, making employers “apply” for the best candidates. Hired is capitalizing on an age-old truth: the best candidates are hot commodities.
For candidates, the fact the world’s most innovative companies have signed up is a big plus. The service uses machine-learning to match and suggest the best solutions. The company’s dedicated Talent Advocate helping applicants is a stellar proposition. Unbiased coaching can lead to a win-win customer experience at both ends. Hotels and other industry niches could only benefit from such a hub.
CodeFights: Gladiatorial Quality Games
CodeFights founder and CEO Tigran Sloyan has told reporters that staffing should be more about technical skill versus academic credentials or pedigrees when hiring developers. Prestigious degrees have for decades determined best hiring practices, and not always with the desired results. CodeFights is about solving this pain point in a gamified environment where developers can compete against one another to solve challenges and show off their skills. CodeFights then uses this information in conjunction with developers’ preferences in potential jobs, to connect employers with talented candidates who may have otherwise missed.
DistantJob: Hiring from Anywhere and Everywhere
DistantJob is a remote placement agency that connects potential staff and employees globally or no matter where that talent resides. The service operates from the perspective of combatting traditional views on “in-house” staffing versus using remote workforce. DistantJob empowers both ends of the staffing situation by using advances in technology and communication to facilitate remote work arrangements. These arrangements can, in turn, be highly beneficial for employers and employees alike.
Much like CodeFights, DistantJob focuses on the developer community. This simple platform uses a very stringent vetting process to create a qualified talent pool from which employers can select candidates easily and efficiently. The company bills its worth as faster, more efficient, and cheaper than traditional hiring processes. DistanJob punctuates the growing competition matrix for distance recruitment and staffing.
Additionally, factoring in such things as overtime expense, reduced hiring risks, shifting staff managing burdens, and training costs reduction adds to the outsourcing proposition. While this selection of startups is not entirely hospitality-centric, it’s easy to foresee the next solutions that will morph from them. Streamlining, installing value through pre-training, filtering through competitive matrixes, and showing validity through proven markets will pave the way to industry adaptation. These and other innovations will result in efficiency, value, and sustainability for business. The need for travel and hospitality specific staffing platforms and apps is obvious.
A former military journalist, Mihaela is the founder and senior partner at Pamil Visions PR. She's also the former founder/editor at Everything PR, Search Engine Journal, and Argo Travel News. Her credentials speak for themselves: she is a cited authority on public relations issues, and her work and expertise are featured on BBC News, Reuters, Yahoo! Small Business Adviser, Al Jazeera, The Epoch Times, SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, and many others.
