How DoorDash scales their hourly workforce in Australia

“Sidekicker has cut our speed to hire from 10 days to 24 hours. They’ve given us back so much time, allowed us to stay flexible yet so well supported, and been a huge contributor to our growth in Australia.”

Thomas Stephens ,General Manager

10x faster

Cut speed to hire from 10 days to 24 hour

67

Customer service & phone sales reps hired

4.98

Average Sidekick rating out of 5

DoorDash is North America’s largest on-demand local logistics platform. DoorDash launched in Melbourne in September 2019, making the company’s first expansion beyond North America.

After making the decision to pursue the Australian market in May, DoorDash began working towards a September launch. DoorDash had an established core team, but needed to rapidly recruit and scale teams made up largely of hourly employees such as ‘Dasher’ onboarders, phone sales reps, and customer service reps.

Business challenges

No knowledge of Australian employment law

As DoorDash, an American-founded company, started planning recruitment for hourly workers, they swiftly realised the complexities and countless nuances in Australian employment law.

“We wanted to hire a local team, but the reality was we had no idea about the local market. As we started to go deeper we realised there is so much here that we have no understanding of: temp to full time triggers, all types of Awards, penalty rates, overtime etc – it’s intense! We became hyper aware of just how much there was to think of and manage.”

Inefficient and costly allocation of fixed HR resources

DoorDash recognised that the high velocity, easily-trained roles they were recruiting for (SDR’s, call centre reps, etc) would often be short-term project roles, require flexibility, and typically had high churn.

“We’re a rapidly scaling company and we needed to be focused on business growth and value drivers. We have limited core resources to use towards training and onboarding.”

Sidekicker’s solution

DoorDash turned to Sidekicker to provide an end-to-end solution, with Sidekicker handling all aspects of sourcing, screening, employment and payroll of DoorDash’s hourly workforce.

Eliminated admin burden of hiring large volumes

Sidekicker handles sourcing, initial screening, background check and right to work verification, providing a vetted shortlist of candidates to DoorDash to select from. Sidekicker then handles onboarding, payroll, and offboarding of staff when required.

This eliminated the need for DoorDash to hire on additional fixed headcount to manage it all as they ramped.

“It just made so much sense to work with Sidekicker. They’re the right cultural fit, the level of service their team put into our business has been exceptional, and their ability to move at the pace we require is above and beyond any other labour provider we’ve worked with.

If we weren’t working with Sidekicker we would need to hire somebody full time to manage everything. And they would need to be managed by somebody. Instead we can have our core team focussing completely on core business drivers.”

Dramatically improved speed to hire

The traditional hiring process for recruiting customer service and phone sales reps (posting ads, screening, shortlisting, interviews, onboarding) typically took DoorDash 10 days when managing internally.

Sidekicker has a huge and ever growing marketplace of pre-screened, work-ready and relevant staff. They handle all the initial sourcing and screening, providing a shortlist of workers based on key performance / quality indicators provided by DoorDash.

“Time is our most important resource, and Sidekicker has given us back SO much time. They ensure we’re getting the right candidates through the door and have cut down the time it takes to hire from 10 days to 24 hours.”

Remained well supported yet flexible

Outsourcing the hourly workforce has allowed DoorDash to remain flexible as they’ve ramped across Australia.

“Sidekicker gives us total flexibility, mitigates employment risk, and allows us to get quality bodies on any problem. Sidekicker gives us flexibility to make fast decisions and ensure we’re retaining the right talent.”