In the restaurant business, there are times when the dining room is completely dead, but others when you’re suddenly slammed. That makes scheduling employees tricky.
Throughout a shift, the resources - as in the number and types of workers - you need can change and with little warning. Not to mention, employers are always dealing with no-shows for shifts. And for workers, an unanticipated lull usually means they’re being sent home. While if there aren’t enough of their coworkers on, it’s chaos.
Making this guessing game obsolete is Jobletics, an upcoming platform that will give both players in the hospitality industry flexibility in their scheduling. With Jobletics, restaurant owners and managers can find vetted and qualified workers within an hour. At the same time, workers looking for work can easily do so through the application. As the startup puts it, they "get shift done."
Trying to help high-turnover
Rahul Sharma, Jobletics founder and a graduate student at Northeastern, noticed how employment in this industry tended to see-saw, and he wanted to fix that. After creating a prior job board site in the Bay Area, Sharma decided to pivot and tackle the staffing issues impacting restaurants.
“The restaurant and hospitality sector is an extremely volatile and transient industry,” Sharma told me.
According to him, employment regulations on hours - part-time versus full-time workers - is to blame for the current state of staffing in this field of work. Sharma maintains that employers feel compelled to structure their staff in a certain way that causes regular turnover in part-time workers.
“If you have skills, then there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to work at any time.”
“There’s a 30% turnover rate in the restaurant and hospitality industry,” Sharma began.“But that’s not even a true metric.”
“It only refers to people who are working full-time, and everyone knows that barely anyone in the business is full-time,” he continued. “Only 15% of people in the industry are full-time. And they’re the ones making the decisions for everyone else.”
Full-time employees are usually in management roles, and they call the shots when it comes to scheduling. On the other hand, part-time employees have little say as to when they work, creating a disconnect - and maybe even a sense of resentment - among these staff members.
“What does that do for engagement and loyalty for employees?” Sharma pointed out. “They’re only working 15 or 20 hours a week and they’re at the mercy of management’s scheduling - which changes drastically every week. It makes them incredibly removed.”
Benefits for both sides
Jobletics is revamping restaurant staffing on both ends. Employers have more flexibility for their scheduling, as well as a safety net of qualified, well vetted workers at their dispense. At the same time, workers can take back power, finally having a say as to when they want to work and where.
And the process is pretty seamless. I normally hate using this comparison, but Jobletics is very much an Uber for temporary restaurant staffing.
“All employers have to do is create a job notification within the app and - just like it would if they were using Uber - that’s pushed out to a network of workers within the area,” Sharma explained. “Workers can choose to accept it.”
“The workers go to the place of work, get a knowledge dunk, do a shift and complete the job outlined in the app, sign out, get paid and rate the employer once they’re finished,” he added. “And vice versa: Employers are asked to rate the workers, as well.”
Rating is a key component to Jobletics. It’s a norm in the restaurant business for workers to put up with a lot of crap - not only from picky patrons, but also from management. Sharma is trying to eliminate the latter, while also ensuring that workers are doing a standup job. Jobletics is shooting for double-sided assurance.
When is it coming?
The app has gone through what Sharma is calling “pre-beta testing” with restaurants around the Brighton and Newton areas. Next month, Jobletics will start its closed beta testing with 20 or 30 restaurants around Greater Boston. And once the startup picks up momentum, Sharma is hoping everyone in the industry will be able to rest easy.
“We want our clients to stop having worries in the back of their minds that their employees are disengaged, that they’re not going to show up or be trustworthy,” Sharma started.
“At the end of the day, what I also really want to see is people not worrying about not having work,” he said. “If you have skills, then there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to work at any time.”
Image via Rahul Sharma.
