Case studies:

The client

Retail Tasker is a rapidly growing company that provides retail businesses with an innovative technology-led solution for in-store and field activations.

Retail Tasker provides businesses with a unique resource model that allows them to deploy teams quickly as and when required, using real-time data to invest in campaigns and locations that deliver the best returns.

Sidekicker now provides Retail Tasker with casual Merchandisers in the main cities in Australia, including Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.  Ryan Vincent, the Operations Director at Retail Tasker, connected with Sidekicker to talk about the challenges with casual labour hire before adopting Sidekicker as their recruitment agency.

The challenges

Expensive and inefficient casual recruitment

Retail Tasker business model requires them to:

• Schedule and deploy skilled merchandising staff quickly on behalf of their clients across locations Australia-wide
• Customise task loads depending on clients’ needs, which change from week to week
• Maintain a high quality and reliable workforce that is able to work remotely and autonomously to ensure excellent outcomes for their clients

Looking at their resourcing requirements, Retail Tasker found traditional casual staffing methods unfeasible.

A standard practice would be to post an ad on traditional job boards, wait for applications to come through, sift through resumes, then shortlist and interview candidates.

“Either we would need to invest in resources to manage all of this, adding an expensive fixed cost to the business, or turn to incumbent recruitment agencies."

The approach was highly reactive and there were several drawbacks.

It was not cost effective or efficient. Vincent estimates that the company would have to pay well in excess of $100,000 per year in either recruitment agency fees or internal resources, and the recruitment cycle was lengthy.

Inconsistent, poor quality candidates

The quality of people responding to job ads was often poor and highly inconsistent, as active candidates seeking employment did not necessarily have the expertise or experience that Retail Tasker required. This meant excessive time wasted sifting through irrelevant applications.

“It can take several weeks just to get a decent pool of applicants, and then we have to handle compliance, onboarding, and payroll–it would take us 4-6 weeks just to get someone started.”

The solution

Proactive & innovative approach to staffing

Partnering with Sidekicker addresses these issues faced with temporary staffing, and has allowed Retail Tasker to effectively resource their business and provide exceptional services to clients.

“Sidekicker provides an innovative approach to casual staffing, so it was logical for us to partner with them.”

By providing an all-in-one recruitment solution and workforce management platform, Sidekicker significantly increases the speed to recruit and schedule casual staff, provides greater consistency in the quality of staff, and eliminates virtually all HR administration–allowing Retail Tasker to focus on their core business.

Building a high quality workforce with flexibility & speed

When implementing Sidekicker, Retail Tasker was able to easily invite existing casual staff to join their Sidekicker workforce, giving them access to all the benefits of Sidekicker’s worker app.

In cities where Sidekicker already had a large pre-vetted workforce, Retail Tasker was able to post jobs and hire pre-vetted casual staff for ongoing roles in minutes.

“As Sidekicker uses technology to provide a better experience for their staff, they attract high quality candidates that align with brands like ours. So when we post on Sidekicker to grow our team, we get dozens of applicants that are a close match straight away.”

Retail Tasker then puts all Sidekicker workers through an intensive training program to give them the tools they need to succeed.

“The beauty of Sidekicker is that we can tailor everything to suit us. We communicate directly with the staff, and treat them as our own employees. The staff get all the upsides and tangible benefits as if they were employed directly.”

Recruitment & workforce management for regional locations

Another aspect of Sidekicker that has helped Retail Tasker greatly in its recruitment efforts is the ability to build workforces in regional locations.

Sidekicker’s recruitment team conducts all top of funnel activity, provides Retail Tasker with a vetted Talent Pool of desirable candidates including video application statements, and Retail Tasker then conducts video interviews before deciding who to hire.

Sidekicker’s rating and review system then means Retail Tasker is able to hold remote staff accountable to high performance and reliability every job.

The results

• Reduced time to onboard a worker from 6 weeks to 1 week
• Eliminates the requirement for an internal HR management team–saving a $100k per year fixed cost
• Time saved allows maximised focus on training and work quality
• Online timesheets and instant invoices mean Retail Tasker are able to effectively budget and forecast costs
• Real-time dashboard reporting on performance, cost and activity metrics allow for data-driven decision making

“Sidekicker is a partnership made in heaven–it’s really how casual staffing should be done. Sidekicker is an integral part of our business, and lets us focus on our clients’ needs and getting them the best possible outcomes, knowing we have the best team taking care of our workforce–from recruitment to HR and payroll.”