“Weather The Storm” With The Help of Veryable

In today’s rapidly changing and highly competitive environment, it’s crucial for organizations to be able to adapt to unexpected challenges and ensure business continuity.

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Natural disasters, severe weather conditions, and extended power outages can disrupt operations and cause significant delays, drain profit margins, and create a daunting recovery process.

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As a company of former operations leaders who have been in your shoes, we understand the importance of getting back on track quickly and efficiently after such disruptions. In this article, we’ll cover how leveraging an on-demand labor model empowers businesses to recover swiftly from these setbacks and bounce back stronger than ever.

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During these unexpected events, users of Veryable’s on-demand marketplace are able to instantly scale down their labor capacity to keep costs in control, and then immediately scale up their operations again in the uncertainty that follows. We’ve seen companies do this time and time again as external circumstances such as hurricanes, floods, winter storms, and tornados attack their businesses.

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Instant Capacity

Time loss events often place a heavy burden on existing staff and resources. Building an on-demand labor pool provides the means to instantly scale up capacity as needed. With a diverse pool of skilled professionals available, businesses can tap into additional resources as needed, helping them to rapidly increase output on short notice and meet customer needs without compromising service, quality, or cost.

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Depending on the nature of the event, many of your full-time employees may be dealing with personal challenges. By leveraging Veryable’s on-demand marketplace, you can give your team the flexibility they need while still ensuring business continuity. Our on-demand marketplace can connect you with 650k+ skilled and vetted operators, and with the nature of the platform in which operators bid on work, only those who are willing and able will place bids on your ops.

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Cost Optimization

Having a fully fixed workforce is extremely costly if your operation suddenly shuts down for any period of time. In this case you’re forced to choose between keeping people on payroll even if there’s no work to be done, or laying off a portion of your workforce. Neither of these options are optimal, because even if you save money in the short run by reducing your headcount, you’ll have to pay it right back when it’s time to scale back up and you have to go through the slow process of recruiting, screening, hiring, and training. On-demand labor offers a cost-effective alternative - Instead of bearing the burden of idle resources and destroying profit margins in these situations, maintain a leaner full-time headcount and then utilize flexible capacity as needed. This helps to ensure efficient resource allocation and an optimal cost per unit regardless of demand.

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If your operation might be shut down for longer periods of time, consider converting a portion of your full-time workforce to Veryable operators. This move has numerous benefits for both businesses and workers which you can read more about in our recent blog article: Protect Your Workers and Maximize Agility During Uncertain Times.

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Eliminating Backlog

If your business was forced to shut down for any period of time, you’re probably facing a huge backlog of orders. Building a labor pool can help you quickly ramp up production and meet your commitments to your customers without any delay.

• Add a temporary 2nd/3rd/overnight shift - if your output is limited by capacity, keep machines running with operators during your normal off hours. With 26% of ops on the platform posted for night and weekend shifts, you can always find the right workers to keep your operations running.
• Add assistants - Bolstering skilled labor with operators for material handling and setup tasks can greatly improve throughput of your trained, highly skilled workers.
• Eliminate lumping/loading delays - adding operators to support dock operations can help you ensure that trucks are loaded and unloaded as soon as they hit the dock. 3PL provider Customized Distribution Services achieved a 44% increase in inbound receiving speed in just 6 months by taking this approach.

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Stories From The Real World

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Hurricane Beryl

When Hurricane Beryl struck the gulf coast of Texas on July 8th, millions in the Houston Metroplex were stranded due to flooding and left without power. Veryable users RTIC and IndustrialSupplyCo (name redacted) were just a few of the thousands of businesses whose operations were impacted. Because they had fully built labor pools however, their managers didn’t have to sit around and brainstorm how to address these issues - instead they were able to take immediate action and put a plan in place to recover.

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When this industrial product distributor got power back at their facility late in the week, much of their full-time crew was missing due to power outages, property damage, and transportation struggles. Furthermore, their facility and product suffered damage due to the flooding and high winds. Thankfully with the help of Veryable, they’ve been able to bring in additional operators to help them catch up, inspect and restock products, and expedite the return to normal operations.

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In RTIC’s case, they started posting for more ops than normal, backfilling absent FTEs with several new operators that bid, showed up, and delivered throughput in-line with their FTEs and existing labor pool operators. Even with a skeleton crew of their staff, RTIC was able to maintain holiday surge output and continue delighting their customers without skipping a beat. At the end of the day, their customers around the country don’t care whether RTIC is dealing with a hurricane - they just want their coolers and tumblers. With the help of Veryable, RTIC has been able to ensure they get them on time.

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In the coming weeks, many building materials suppliers will see a spike in demand as many homes and structures will need to be repaired or rebuilt - those with on-demand labor pools will be able to instantly scale up and meet this increased demand as well as gain new market share while their competitors compete for the same resources and struggle to scale up fast enough. The same is true for many food & beverage distributors in the area, who will need to drastically increase output in the coming weeks to catch up with summer peak demand since many perishable goods were tossed by stores due to power outages.

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Winter Storm 2021 - Texas Power Outage

As shown in the graph below, when a winter storm hit a distribution company and slowed business, they scaled down their labor capacity dramatically for one week. Then as the ice thawed, they instantly went back to their previous headcount and continued to meet rising demand. Leveraging an on-demand labor pool enabled this company to eliminate the layoffs and subsequent hiring sprees it would normally have to endure, while also allowing them to cost-effectively maintain promises to customers. This saved the company thousands of dollars and its operations leaders from numerous headaches.  

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Marietta Oklahoma Tornado

In April 2024, a massive EF-4 tornado struck Marietta Oklahoma, devastating much of the city and destroying Dollar Tree’s distribution center. As a result, other nearby distribution centers have been taking on a portion of the Oklahoma DC's volume so that Dollar Tree can maintain distribution operations and keep up with demand.

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The Warrensburg, MO facility is one of the distribution centers that has taken on increased volume, and with their on-demand labor pool at the ready they’ve been able to post more picking and unloading ops to increase output on 1st and 2nd shift without having to force their FTEs to work excessive hours.

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Conclusion

By building an on-demand labor pool, businesses can proactively prepare for these events and mitigate the impact of disruptions, recover faster, and continue delivering exceptional service to their customers without skipping a beat.

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As these real-world examples demonstrate, users of our on-demand marketplace are light years ahead of the competition when their operations resume.

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To learn more, check out these resources:

How to Create Down Cycle Agility with On-Demand Labor

Unplanned Shutdowns: A Solutions-Based Approach

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To get started with on-demand labor, take 5 minutes to create your free business profile. If you need help or have any questions, please contact your local office.