In 2020, the gig economy skyrocketed.  Earnings typically increased over 50% for delivery businesses related to fast food, grocery, and physical products.  Gig-related applications shifted to the forefront of corporate innovation and technology advancement as people sought extra duties and more consumers wanted goods delivered.  As the gig economy has been increasingly adopted, there has been a recent development: on-demand staffing.

Like the gig economy, on-demand staffing allows companies to obtain temporary help in times of high demand.  On-demand staffing lowers operating expenses and enables businesses to optimize the time and effort of a company’s workforce.  Instead of having an excess amount of people staffed at times, companies can save resources by scheduling shifts on the fly for temporary workers.  In addition, temporary workers are also allowed excess flexibility with their personal and work schedules.  If temporary workers are looking to pick up extra shifts, all that is required is they have to open an application and schedule themselves for an available shift.

Giving on-demand staffing a real-world element, one of our portfolio companies, Kwikly, combines on-demand staffing with dentistry.  As many dentist offices find themselves in tight situations when they are short-staffed, Kwikly solves this problem by allowing offices to post shifts and connect with temporary, certified dentists when offices need extra staffing.  After the shift is over, the temporary workers are sent payments directly to their account of choice, very similar to how gig-economy applications such as Uber release payments.  As seen with innovative companies such as Kwikly, on-demand staffing is shifting the paradigm for the scheduling of workers.  Nothing is off limits, as promising applications are created, and industries continuously adapt to new standards.