The Future of Labour: Blended Workforces

Read how businesses are successfully creating and managing blended workforces to save time and money, and transform their staffing.

What Is A Blended Workforce?

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1. Increasing Need for Flexibility

Driven by Millennials and Gen Z’ers, the labour force is increasingly

“casualising” (that is, demanding an employment framework that supports

flexibility and choice).

3. The Rise of Technology

The development of technology is disrupting the staffing landscape, making

it easier, faster and more accessible for people to search for and access

work, as well as providing businesses with innovative systems that

streamline processes and improve efficiencies.

2. Increasing Flux Within Business Landscape

In a commercial landscape that is changing more rapidly than ever,

businesses require solutions that resolve fluctuating staff demands, skill

gaps, scalability issues, and high staff churn rates (whilst keeping time and

costs down).

It is for these reasons that the workforce of the future will most certainly not be made up entirely

of full time employees. Rather, it will be blended, or composed of full time employees as well as

consultants, contractors, freelancers, part-time employees, and other contingent workers.

A ‘Blended Workforce’ is one that combines a variety of employees on different contracts. The

concept of a Blended Workforce is one that has emerged rapidly over the last few years, largely

due to three key trends in the labour market:

Planning For A Blended Workforce

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Multiple studies estimate that the percentage of the workforce that is ‘contingent’ is already as

much as 34%, and will only increase as more people look to engage in contingent work. Thus,

forward-looking HR leaders need to take action now to plan for a blended workforce, first

asking two critical questions:

1. Which roles should you externalise, and which should remain long-term and full time?

2. What is the perfect mix of internal and external staff?

It is for these reasons that the workforce of the future will most certainly not be made up entirely

of full time employees. For any roles where:

A. average tenure is short and staff churn rates are high, and thus the time and cost of

recruitment and employment results in a negative return on staff investment (use this

free recruitment cost calculator to figure this out for your business), or,

B. staff demands are highly fluctuating or seasonal, so you’re unable to offer employees

consistent or regular work and struggle to maintain employee engagement,

you should investigate leveraging an external workforce.

Once you’ve established processes for sourcing and hiring external labour in conjunction with

your full time workforce, HR leaders should seek to build a staffing infrastructure that answers

the following:

1. How do you effectively recruit and onboard external workers?

2. How do you build a culture where your internal and external workers will work effectively

together?

3. How do you effectively train external workers (who, what, and how should it be delivered)?

Setting Up Your Blended Workforce For Business Success

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Although all blended workforces will be unique, HR leaders should look to innovative companies, such

as Spark Arena, who have successfully implemented a blended workforce and are seeing unparalleled

successes in all areas of their staffing, from increased productivity and employee engagement to

customer satisfaction and overall business efficacy.

High churn: Due to the

inconsistent work, casual

employees were

becoming disengaged,

and churning quickly

seeking more regular

hours.

Loss of productivity: It takes an

average of 3 months for

employees to reach full

productivity, thus Spark’s

workforce was functioning

almost constantly

under-capacity given the high

turnover rates (averaged

30-40% new staff per shift).

Poorly allocated time and cost:

Traditional recruitment was

expensive and time

consuming, and the return on

staff investment was

insufficient given the short

tenure of employees.

Spark Arena: A Case Study In Creating An Effective Blended Workforce

The SituationSpark Arena, one of Auckland’s biggest multipurpose arenas, is a pioneer in the human resources

landscape, and have transformed the way they source, hire and manage their entire arena workforce.

In mid 2016, Spark had a problem that they were determined to solve. Given the sporadic nature of the

events industry, they were churning through casual workers quickly and frequently, negatively impacting

their business in the following ways:

Attracted to the transparent nature and ease-of-use of Sidekicker, as well as the fact only 15%

of applicants make it through the screening process, Spark Arena started tapping into

Sidekicker’s marketplace of skilled hospitality workers.

“Sidekicker makes staffing easier and faster than anything we’ve ever used before, and

significantly reduces time spent on recruitment.

I can post a request for staff–whether I need 5 or 200–at the click of a button, and select my

Sidekicks based on experience and ratings, or if they’ve worked with us in the past, making

hiring the right people simple,” says Ben George, Spark Arena’s Staffing Coordinator.

“The calibre of staff on Sidekicker is unreal.” - Michael Swan, Catering & Hospitality Manager.

The Solution: Phase 1

We realised that we were spending a hell of a lot of time recruiting, yet recruitment wasn’t our core

business. We wanted something that could free up our team to focus on workforce optimisation,

rather than being constantly buried in admin & busywork.

- MICHAEL SWAN, SPARK’S CATERING & HOSPITALITY MANAGER

“

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Having increasingly turned to Sidekicker for sourcing and hiring their casual staff (going from 163

shifts in Q4 2016 to 330 in Q2 2017), Spark Arena saw an opportunity to transform the way they

managed their entire casual workforce–turning their blended workforce into their only workforce.

Spark Arena made the transition to Sidekicker’s ‘Workforce Management’ platform in October

2017, moving their entire casual workforce onto the platform at no cost, and has since used

Sidekicker to:

The Solution: Phase 2

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Centrally manage all aspects of their staffing in one place online–hiring, rostering,

communications, payment, etc.

Move from only 60-70% repeat staff per shift (i.e. people who had worked at

Spark Arena before) to current average of 95% repeat staff.

Give their casual staff access to a fully mobile tech platform that provides them a

fast and easy way to accept work, submit timesheets and manage their schedule-

via the Sidekicker employee app.

Promote and upskill Sidekicks into supervisory and management positions, using

Sidekicker’s Talent Pools feature to efficiently organise their workforce and ensure

they have the right people at all shifts.

Create a culture of high performance–Sidekicker’s transparent platform with 2-way

ratings and reviews means that Sidekicks are motivated to work hard (Sidekicks

who don’t show up or have a less than 3 star rating are removed), and ensure

management staff are providing an exceptional employee experience.

We recognised that given the sporadic nature of the work we could offer casual employees, it was going to be tough to keep them engaged and give them the best opportunities and experience solely with us.

We also saw that workers, particularly young people, were increasingly seeking flexible working environments, providing them with choice and experience across as many fields as possible.

So, by bringing them all onto Sidekicker, we actively encourage them to take advantage of all the great work that’s available on the platform.”

“

Recognising emerging trends, Spark Arena has been a leader in adapting their HR strategies

to stay ahead, leveraging technology to better manage and engage their casual workforce.

In migrating their casual workforce onto Sidekicker, Spark Arena as effectively created a true

‘blended workforce’–whether originally employed by Spark or Sidekicker, Spark’s casual

workers are all purposefully considered ‘part of the same team’–given access to the same

training, paid the same rates, and invited to the same team events–breaking down barriers

and fostering a culture of inclusivity, collaboration and teamwork.

“Sidekicker is by far the simplest, fastest and most cost effective way to not only source and

hire casuals, but to manage all aspects of our casual staffing–from rostering and comms to

payroll–as it eliminates much of the paperwork and streamlines everything into one easy to

use online platform.” – Ben George, Staffing Coordinator, Spark Arena.

The Solution: Phase 2

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Sidekicker is nothing short of miraculous.“- MICHAEL SWAN, SPARK’S CATERING &

HOSPITALITY MANAGER

Sidekicker was founded with a

challenger spirit and an unyielding belief:

that through technology,

businesses–small or large–should be

able to quickly and easily hire staff when

and where they need them.

Today, Sidekicker is Australia and NZ’s

largest on-demand staffing platform,

enabling businesses to hire staff at the

click of a button by connecting them

directly with an engaged pool of over

10,000 skilled workers (Sidekicks)

seeking flexible working opportunities.

Businesses like Uber, NewsCorp &

Rydges use Sidekicker to simply make a

request, and within the hour are matched

to available Sidekicks, all who have been

interviewed, skill tested and have

detailed profiles including ratings and

reviews–making hiring the right people

simple.

The Sidekicker platform also handles all

the time capture and billing, eliminating

paperwork, and making the entire

process of hiring staff on-demand more

transparent, faster and cost effective.

About Sidekicker

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Click here to start optimising your workforce with on-demand.