Ep. 163: Dave Dempsey, Founder & CEO of Hyer, Flexible Talent Platforms and the Front Line Workforce

Leaders, 

The word “freelance” often brings to mind creatives, writers, and remote laptop workers. But what about hands-on, in-person jobs.. the backbone of the global workforce?

What about assembly line workers, restaurant staff, electricians, plumbers, and countless others whose work happens beyond a computer screen?

Five years ago Flexible work solutions for these roles were nearly nonexistent. While platforms like Upwork and Fiverr were IPO’ing, and hundreds of specialized platforms like Catalant, Paro, Uncompany, Ollo, and many others were emerging, outside of Uber and Lyft, the front line workforce was relatively left behind.

That’s no longer the case. Today, businesses like retail, restaurants, event spaces, hotels, and many more have flexible workforce solutions.

Driven by talent platforms like Hyer, flexible work is finally transforming the front line workforce. 

It makes sense, the front line workforce amplifies existing talent challenges.

• High churn - the front line has the highest rate of dropping out from workforce participation, along with the highest rate of churn, attrition, and the lowest rate of retention.

• High cost - the management of front line workers is increasingly expensive, with large percentages of businesses saying they can’t operate under the existing labor cost structure. 

• Slow hiring processes.

The technology and mechanisms of talent platforms theoretically should solve for most of these challenges.

Deeper than the tech, is the impact this has on businesses. Rather than burning out their workforce, or paying excess for overtime or inefficient workers, businesses can meet the scalability and fluctuation common across front line workforces. Businesses typically plan 80 to 90% of their workforce then adapt to fluctuation. This inefficiency, leading to a lack of help, typically falls on the front line manager who has to pick up the slack. Rather than front line managers picking up the work themselves, talent platforms like Hyer enable them to scale up support in under 48 hours. 

Businesses also can meet demand from unplanned events, which can be the catalyst that drives them to at times 10x’ing their revenues. Dave will bring up an example of a business that had a spike from TikTok, and because they could meet demand, they 10x’ed their business and became a beloved household brand.  

As we all know, adapting to a flexible workforce is hard. But thanks to Dave’s prior experience as a tenured VP at PepsiCo, he deeply understood how to adapt Hyer’s customer experience with how businesses needed to engage their front line workforce. 

Dave highlighted how change is top-down, starting with VPs in Operations blessing the platform, and then front line managers adopting and embracing the platform. 

We promise that within 5 minutes of this episode, you’ll understand why talent platforms are essential for the front line workforce. By the end of the episode, you’ll be ready to email your VP of Operations or better yet, start leveraging a talent platform for your team.

Need guidance? Explore our Industry Landscape to find the perfect platform for your needs.

The Promise of Platforms and The Front Line Workforce
The Business Case: Growth, Expansion, Meeting The Moment
The Secret To Change: Operations and Front Line Managers
What Should You Do ASAP?