Poached Jobs, a Portland-based online service that connects employers in restaurant and hospitality, has had a year that mirrored the industry it serves.
“We lost so much so fast,” said CEO Kirk Thornby, looking back on March 2020.
Today, the company has rebounded in a big way as the economy opens back up and people start to venture back to bars and restaurants.
The company is back to profitability and its business is up 100% compared to where it was in 2019, Thornby said. He has been focused on profitably growing the business. Its only round investment was $2.8 million in 2016.
Now, however, Thornby sees opportunity to grow the business faster and help its customers and their communities recover. He does expect to raise another round.
What’s happening now with the hospitality industry and a labor shortage is not a new challenge and Poached has been working on ways to deal with it for years. The software streamlines the hiring process and helps job seekers and employers communicate to ensure people show up for shifts and everyone is on the same page.
“The labor shortage was here before Covid,” Thornby said. “People were struggling and business models struggled and wages were at the heart of it.”
Prior to March 2020, Poached was growing at a 40% clip, and 2020 was shaping up to be its first fully profitable year. But, everything changed March 15. As restaurants shut down and stay-at-home orders went into effect business plummeted for Poached. On March 18, Thornby furloughed his staff of 14. He was able to start bringing people back that summer.
Thornby was able to get a Paycheck Protection Program loan and an Economic Injury Disaster Loan. Those two elements, plus a trickle of business from Southern states that did not implement Covid restrictions got the company through on about a quarter of its normal revenue.
“We kept the wheels on and kept the development staff moving. We wanted to make sure we would be ready when everyone was ready to come back,” he said.
The 9-year-old company is now 15 people and has a few open positions in finance and software development.
One of the tools the dev team continued to build is something called Poached On Demand. It’s a way for employers to work with a potential hire to test the waters, find staff for events or it’s a way for workers to pick up extra shifts if they want.
“You are able to get a 1099 or W2 contractor to come and fill a shift,” he said, adding that it is being piloted in Austin and Portland. “As a worker you get paid in the week. It’s another opportunity to give people more flexibility in hiring as they bring staff back.”
Poached surveyed workers in the spring and found there is still hesitancy about returning to work but that it’s tied to things such as children not in day care or school or fear of virus exposure, not unemployment benefits.
According to the survey: 40% of those not employed were ineligible or unable to collect unemployment; 24% said they are uncertain about future restrictions and shutdowns; 26% were worried about getting sick, whether vaccinated or not.
Adding to the hiring challenges are people who have simply moved on from the industry during the pandemic.
“People moved on to Amazon with $18 an hour and benefits,” said Thornby.
Poached has a national database of 800,000 workers who have registered. He noted that surveys of workers show 70% would like full-time work but in restaurants full-time means 28 hours.
“That’s not a living wage for most workers,” he said. “This is a way for workers to fill their schedule easier. … You need to be creative on what a full-time job is.”
Response to Poached On Demand has been strong. The company has seen 32,000 people opt into gigs using the tool.
Overall, Poached receives half a million visits a month. Poached has 60,000 users that are registered to post jobs.
Currently, there are 6,500 jobs posted nationwide.
A look through the Portland job board shows all the big-name locations looking for staff. There are also several that are offering signing bonuses or bonuses for sticking with a job for a certain amount of time.
Thornby said that bonuses in job listings were rare prior to Covid but are more common now.
