As any event professional knows, it’s essential to plan for the unexpected. Think of those days when you have more shifts than staff—you need 15 servers for an event, but you had five pull out citing personal reasons, and it’s two days before the event. Or maybe your client decides to add an additional 100 guests at the last minute, and you don’t have enough staff to accommodate the increase. Caterers can find themselves in any variation of these scenarios, and now they have another option to address it.
Instawork, a leading staffing app for the hospitality business, and StaffMate Online, the first web-based staff scheduling software for events-based businesses, has announced a new strategic partnership to help facilitate the scheduling and filling of shifts. Through this integration, StaffMate customers can now easily fill empty shifts directly from the StaffMate scheduling tool with on-demand hospitality professionals who are part of Instawork.
“We want to be able to make staffing as simple as possible,” said Frances Liu, Director of Marketing for Instawork, “and with this partnership we’re going to be able to solve both sides of the equation when it comes to staffing.”
Two compatible visions
The partnership between Instawork and StaffMate began about two years ago when the two companies connected at Catersource’s annual conference and tradeshow.
“We were chatting a bit about the future of the industry,” said Joseph Veneman, Owner and Founder of StaffMate, “and as we were talking, we realized how congruent are visions were and started thinking about ways to be collaborative.”
Pull quote: Stop by and visit Instawork (Booth #617) and StaffMate (Booth #217) during the Catersource Tradeshow! Access the Tradeshow Floorplan here.
StaffMate’s web-based scheduling software allows hospitality companies to manage their event staffs from all perspectives, including shift assignments, uniform requirements, and event details. However, the one detail that StaffMate couldn’t perform was finding and scheduling on-demand staff for the shifts that needed to be filled.
“You have your onsite staff, and then you go to an outside platform to get the extra staff, so the two never really met,” Veneman said. “I always thought this could probably be a lot better.”
Enter Instawork.
Instawork helps local businesses quickly fill permanent and temporary openings through its easy-to-use app. Users can easily post their open shifts, which are then filled with qualified professionals within 24 hours. Currently, Instawork has a pool of over 550,000 professionals available for shifts in its various markets.
Filling your missing shifts
With this new partnership, StaffMate users will be able to log into their accounts to schedule an upcoming event, complete with uniforms and staffing needs. As they are filling in the open shifts, they may notice a shortage of staff. In that instance, they are able to select the Instawork button, which will offer a popup window where they can determine the number and types of staff needed. Instawork then receives the request and will work to fill the open shifts.
“Providing that all in one solution, makes it super simple for these businesses that are super super busy,” Liu said. “By connecting them with these amazing professionals they will have the peace of mind knowing that they have quality staff.”
A new integration with StaffMate and Instawork allows hsopitality professionals to easily schedule on-demand professionals for their unfilled shifts. Phot courtesy of StaffMate.
Veneman agrees.
“The huge benefit is the time savings involved,” he said. “This collaboration makes it easier than having to go in download a whole bunch of applications.”
The StaffMate and Instawork integration is currently functional, live and ready for use, however another layer of integration will be coming this spring when Instawork will provide names, bios, and headshots of all of their staff to the event managers.
A strong future for staffing
Veneman said he truly believes that the use of Instawork and on-demand event staff is the future of the hospitality business since more and more people are looking for the flexibility to select the shifts they wish to work.
“We know there is staff that loves to work with our caterers,” Veneman said, “specifically part-time workers who like the flexibility of being on call. The future of the industry will be combination of your base staff who have the institutional memory, and on-demand staff who are there to help you bump your team up so that you can take that larger contract.”
Hospitality businesses looking to leverage the platforms for their staffing and scheduling needs should visit www.instawork.com to download the free app and www.staffmate.com to schedule a live demo or enroll in a free trial.
“This new partnership is about intertwining the entire industry in order to help them be more efficient with much more ease,” Veneman said. “This is going to provide a ‘best-of-both worlds’ solution.”
“This is just the beginning,” Liu agreed.
