As a business owner in the restaurant industry, my biggest challenge is not finding workers, but getting urgent reliefs for staff shortages caused by employee callouts, no-shows or unanticipated terminations. Our restaurant industry is already experiencing annual turnover rates exceeding 100% according to Michael Bufano (CFO of Panera Bread) in his recent interview with CNBC. This means we can lose an entire workforce every year. To make things even worse, callouts and no-shows happening at the peak of high turnover can send our stress level through the roof.
My husband used to tell me that I should always schedule more staff than usual assuming someone may not show up to work. His suggestion may sound like a solution, but it is not an affordable, optimal or sustainable business practice.
One day, when I was frantically dealing with an staff shortage crisis, an idea suddenly came to me: ‘Why don’t I send out a blast SOS text message to my former employees who may not mind making some extra money if they are available for the shift?.’ Luckily, our restaurant was using a scheduling software platform called JOLT, which had a blast messaging capability to all our employees (present and former) via phone, text message and email. Thus, I sent out a blast SOS message to all my existing and former employees. To my surprise, a handful of them raised their hand for extra hours. Since then, I encourage all my exiting employees (other than those who were terminated with cause) to stay in touch with us in case we both can benefit when our needs are matched.
When my partner and I sat down with our development team for the first time to discuss different features of ExtraHourz platform, we specifically addressed our in dire need of having a simple, one-click communication channel that will automatically feed available shifts to available workers, so if these workers want to grab extra shifts, they may do so by simply touching ‘Accept the Job’ button on our ExtraHourz mobile app.
Our restaurant business experience is the genesis of ExtraHourz. We are empowering our users to dictate their own needs and create economic opportunities for all members of our community.
ExtraHourz is an on-demand location-based (users’ location) software platform which connects users (job seekers and job providers) based on their staffing needs and availability. Business owners can hire staff based on actual business requirements, such as increased event-based demand or delivery days, extended or unanticipated staffing shortages. Job Seekers can control their own work schedule by making themselves only available when they can and want to work. Fully staffed businesses with satisfied workers will return great services to their customers.
We are committed to provide business owners with ultimate staffing solutions (urgent, temporary or as-needed basis) from an organically vetted community of hourly entrepreneurs.
Encourage all your employees to download ExtraHourz app today onto their smart phones and ask them to simply turn the app on when they are looking for extra shifts or hours. Even when they leave your company, you can still push available shifts and hours to them, and they will come to help if your requirements match with their availability.
Stop Worrying and Start Living!
Truly yours,
Kaylynn Kim, Esq.
CEO