Will You Be A Hybrid Staffing Firm?

Do you remember when you saw the first Prius?  

Let me prime you your memory with some facts from Wikipedia:

•  The Prius was introduced worldwide in 2000.
• Global cumulative Prius sales reached the milestone 1 million vehicle mark in May 2008,] 2 million in September 2010, and passed the 3 million mark in June 2013.
• The Prius family reached global cumulative sales of 4.8 million units by September 2014, representing 67.7% of the 7 million hybrids sold worldwide by Toyota Motor Company since 1997.

Today, almost every automobile manufacturer sells hybrids:

There are even hybrid trucks and buses today!

Why has this happened?  “Value to customers.”
Customers didn't want “a gasoline combustion”  ride.
They wanted a ride that was economical and sustainable.

Staffing customers are no different. Staffing customers want value, and they expect their suppliers to deliver it. 

Staffing customers want:

·         The right labor/talent when they need it.

·         Low overhead (cost and cycle time) in getting it

·         Control (they want to step on the gas and get the performance)

Many staffing firms have been trying to meet customer expectations by putting their “pedal to the metal” and driving up RPMs to unsustainable rates.  They have not stopped to think about innovation (the way Toyota did some time back). 

Tried and true “staffing engines” can only be driven so hard, can only perform so far.  Innovation is the answer to getting to the next level… “Jumping the curve,” as Guy Kawasaki said at the 2014 SIA Executive Forum.

NextCrew is a platform that will allow a staffing firm to pursue an innovation path.  Starting with the basic development of a Talent Showcase, expanding it to a customer’s private Talent Community, or unleashing the power of an online marketplace and self-service for customers and candidates—

NextCrew is an engine that that can transform a gasoline-only-driven, commodity staffing supplier into a multi-dimensional workforce solution provider that can meet customer needs for staffing/workforce in many more ways than the traditional staffing model allows.

Hybrid cars have two engines—the gasoline one, and the electric one.  For “hybrid” staffing firms it is similar -- they have their traditional “agency temp” engine and the new electronic engine of NextCrew that can perform for customers in ways that meet new needs and do so in highly efficient ways. 

NextCrew is the second engine and the enabler of the next generation of hybrid staffing models.  And the future of staffing is hybrid:  the temp agency engine will run on, and the electric engine will run in tandem, delivering new innovative workforce solutions to customers.

As more and more hybrid staffing firms appear on the road, providing customers with the cleaner and more efficient rides they want, where will you be?

Will you be left behind?  Or will you be racing ahead?

Contact us today to learn more! 

 Guest Blogger, Andrew Karpie, is Principal Analyst at The Research Platform and a recognized expert on emerging online work intermediation platforms as well as their impact on the staffing industry.  Over the past three years, he has produced and published numerous research reports and articles on these subjects with Staffing Industry Analysts.  He has also produced research and published content for a number of major staffing firms and online staffing platform businesses, and he serves on the Advisory Board of The Rise of the Platform Economy research program, a joint initiative of Stanford University Business School and The Center for the Global Enterprise.  Andrew holds an MS in Policy Analysis from Carnegie Mellon University, and he lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.