Keeping their core team lean and eliminating unnecessary recruitment costs 

“Being able to select staff and utilise them for the short time that we need them and not have to bring them on to our payroll is hugely beneficial.”

 

Georgie Vile
Owner & Director

The client

Urban Foodies in Melbourne includes a catering company, Bay Leaf, a private and corporate events space, The Woolstore + Co., and corporate cooking classes, Urban Kitchen.

The challenge

Due to their diverse offerings, Urban Foodies needs access to a great team that have a diverse range of skills including bartending, chefs, event assistants and promo staff.

During the events peak season Urban Foodies often face the following challenges:

 

    • As the frequency of events increases, the number of staff available and required means Urban Foodies are often left short staffed
    • The costs of hiring new staff are not feasible (recruitment, admin, onboarding) for staff they only need for a short period of time
    • Finding staff through agencies, uni boards or referrals from family and friends the quality of talent was below their standards and/or outside of their control

“Prior to finding Sidekicker, the way we would boost our seasonal staffing pool would be using staffing agencies, university students, and referrals from family and friends.” – Victoria Black, Events Manager. 

Sidekicker’s solution

Urban Foodies starting using Sidekicker to fill last minute gaps in their roster.

“My favourite thing about Sidekicker is being able to hand-select staff for each event. Every event we have is so different, so to have the ability to select the staff to the brief is fantastic. Once a Sidekick applies to our job, I get to go in and hand-pick the chosen staff for our event.

 

Talent Pools also mean if we’re out on a job and we find staff who we absolutely love, we have the ability to easily add them to a Talent Pool and repost the shift to them which is fantastic,” says Victoria.

The Results

Using Sidekicker, Urban Foodies is able to:

 

    • Avoid unnecessary costs of recruitment such as resume screening, interviewing, admin and payroll for short-term roles
    • Fill gaps in their event rosters at the click of a button
    • Hand-select the staff with the best experience to suit their multiple businesses
    • Create talent pools so they can rehire the staff they love over and over