What are job profiles?

What are job profiles?

by | Jan 18, 2021 | Worker resources

A job profile is a role and experience level (eg. Expert office assistant) and they determine the types of job requests you will receive when working with Coople. It’s essential that you add at least one job profile, which you can do via the profile tab. Without job profiles, you will not be able to receive tailored job requests.

You can add multiple job profiles to your profile, although evidence of your experience may be required. Having multiple job profiles means that you will receive more relevant job requests sent straight to your mobile, making it even easier to find rewarding work for you.

What job profiles can I add?

The job profiles are as varied as the jobs we have on Coople. From warehouse assistants and forklift drivers to office assistants and promoters, there are plenty of different profiles available.
Once you’ve selected a profile, you may be asked to add your experience level. Our experience levels are divided into three different levels: Novice, Intermediate or Expert.

After you select an experience level, the job profile will be added to your account under the profile tab. Your job profile will then be approved by our team. We take special care to check that your job profiles match your experience to ensure that you receive a salary that reflects your skill level. This process is not automatic, but you don’t have to wait for approval. You can start applying to jobs right away, which speeds up the approval process!

Once you’ve added your job profiles, you will receive relevant job requests to your mobile. However, that’s not the only way you can find work with Coople. You can also apply to a diverse range of opportunities in our jobs marketplace, anytime, anywhere.

And that’s it! We wish you the best of luck on your flexible working journey. If you would like more information on how to set up your profile and maximise your chances of getting hired, browse our helpful guides below:

Temporary workers make the difference to COVID-19 workforce planning

Temporary workers make the difference to COVID-19 workforce planning

by | Dec 2, 2020 | Information for companies

A recent market study run by Coople, in cooperation with the independent market research institute GIM Suisse, indicates that more than half of Swiss businesses are planning to hire temporary workers in the near future. With many businesses struggling to effectively plan in this situation of extreme uncertainty, digital staffing platform and EHL Alliance founding member Coople, advises on how to make the most of flexible workers to reduce risk and maximize profits.

While using agency workers on a short-term basis has supported many businesses during the pandemic, it is now becoming clearer that the ability to effectively plan long-term will not return any time soon. Market conditions change on an almost daily basis and we are all struggling to keep up. Many business owners and HR managers are taking the opportunities of enforced closure to take a closer look at their human resource strategies and come up with solutions which will not only withstand the gradual return to business as usual, but also stand the test of time.

When demand uncertainty is high, the right staffing strategy can make or break a business. If you staff for low demand, you might miss out on much needed revenue. If you do the opposite and demand is low, costs can quickly become prohibitive.

Now is therefore the time for businesses to think about short-term workers for the long-term. There are three important things a business needs to get right to make this work:

1. Think about flexible staffing as a core strategy, not just for emergencies

Most businesses prefer to have regular workers to rely on – workers who understand their brand, products and processes. This can be achieved with flexible workers. It just requires consistency.

Flexible workers are not B-employees. They are ambitious and talented people with personal and career goals that can be achieved more easily with flexible schedules. All you need to do is set up adequate processes to onboard and manage them in a way where they can perform at their best.

By building up a larger pool of preferred workers who work in your business part-time but regularly, you can keep up the quality and retain knowledge while increasing your flexibility significantly. Such a pool can easily be built on digital staffing platforms, where businesses can hire workers and make them favorites if they are a particularly good fit for their team. Building a relationship with these workers over the years also increases the chances of them being available during peak times that occur during certain seasonal periods such as Christmas.

2. Don’t compromise on quality when hiring, set your workers up for success

Hospitality and retail businesses, for example, rely heavily on the interpersonal skills and attitude of their workers. Other sectors have different criteria. By building a pool of qualified candidates who you have personally tested, you will be ready for all eventualities. Using a digital platform can save you additional time during the recruitment process because you are able to not only see workers’ CVs, but also previous experiences and the ratings of other employers on a simple interface.

Once you have made your hires, ensure flexible workers receive the same essential training that you would provide to new full-time hires. Providing a high-quality on-boarding process will set your workers up for success, so assume that you will re-hire these workers and that your investment will pay off. To give you maximum flexibility in the short-term, flexible work strategies rely on longer-term commitments.

3. Don’t overload your own team with admin and payroll

From day one, flexible workers automatically have a legal right to minimum wages and social security. The minimum wages can be especially very complicated because you need to consider the location and age of the worker, as well as their working times (minimum wages, for instance, differ for weekends and nights). Before hiring, you also need to make sure you do all the relevant right-to-work checks.

If you pursue a flexible work strategy, it is worth spending some time on deciding whether to hire directly or work with a staffing agency. One benefit of using an agency is that you outsource the HR risk. You pay the agency like any other vendor and you are not responsible for any of the above. The agency will track working hours in detail and you avoid the admin cost of running a potentially complicated payroll. Another benefit is that agencies can give you guidance on competitive wage levels, which is especially relevant during peak season.

The downside? You need to pay an agency fee. However, you can avoid retainers and flat fees by choosing one that charges via a multiplier on each hired hour. It is worth doing the math because an agency fee can still work out cheaper than doing payroll in-house.

Conclusion

Flexible staffing is a powerful tool, provided it is used correctly and organizations behave ethically towards those they hire. More than half of the businesses that Coople recently interviewed have implemented a strategy for hiring agency workers. Can you afford not to?

Photo competition for Cooplers: A recap

Photo competition for Cooplers: A recap

by | Nov 24, 2020 | Stories

A few weeks ago, we launched a photo competition for Cooplers to spotlight the versatility, talent and commitment of our workforce. From the 8th October to the 1st November, we invited our community to send in photos of themselves in action at work. This competition has since come to an end, but we’re still reeling from the amount of extraordinary entries we received!

As a thank you from the Coople team, we wanted to spotlight the incredible efforts of the community by highlighting some of our favourite entries from the competition. Each of the following pictures perfectly showcased the ambition and dedication we were looking for.

The winners

The winning photos, as chosen by the community! Congratulations once again Laure, Gabriele and Tamara a on your hard earned win.

Some hand-picked staff favourites

We loved seeing the creative entries you all submitted. Though these photos may not have won, we were particularly impressed by their quality and skill.

Thank you again to all that took part! Best of luck with your future shifts, and we hope you continue to showcase your incredible skills and professionalism as a Coopler for a very long time.
Coople’s New Look

Coople’s New Look

by | Oct 12, 2020 | Stories

Flexible work in 2020

Coople was founded 10 years ago (then called StaffFinder) to create the future of work. A future, where anyone can work flexibly and fit their work around their life, instead of the other way around.

If that doesn’t sound very futuristic, you are right. Because that future is now. Today, you can work by the hour, find jobs that allow you to fund your start-up or take care of family. Flexible work can help you save for buying a home or traveling the world. It enables you to bridge a gap between jobs or resign from a position you don’t like, knowing that you can keep paying your bills.

If you run a business, freelancers and flexible workers can bring in much-needed skills, help during crunch times, and allow you to maximise your income. Many shops, warehouses and restaurants cannot operate during peak hours without flexible staff. In larger businesses, flexible workforce management has become a core component of business strategy.

In 2020, all of this assumed a new meaning. During a crisis, flexible work is no longer just a way for businesses to do better than their competition. For many, it’s the only way to survive. For workers, it is one of the best, if not only, options to pay their bills, change career paths, or find permanent positions after trying a few temporary jobs first.

Flexible work provides great opportunities in good times. It can become essential when things get difficult.

Coople’s Beliefs: Rewarding Ambition

Despite the importance of flexible work, something still seems to be missing. When you think of flexible work, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

Are you thinking about unmotivated staff, low salaries or poor work experiences? Then you are not alone. Flexible work still has a bad reputation. Many people think of it as an option for people who have no other options.

We have known this for a while and have been trying subtly to change that reputation. But that is not enough. With our re-branding, we want to put our position on this front and centre.

At Coople, we believe that flexible work is not a ‘holding pen’ for B-employees or a last resort for businesses. It creates career opportunities for ambitious people, and business opportunities for ambitious employers. On a digital platform like ours, your reputation matters more than your CV. By showing focus and commitment, you can reach your goals. Your ambition gets rewarded.

We are sure of this: Meet our Cooplers and clients

What makes our team most proud are your successes on our platform.

Meet Coco, who started working as a Coopler to bridge a gap while she was unemployed. After working a couple of shifts and getting great reviews, she applied for our internal one-year trainee program in the marketing department. Two promotions later, today she is a Marketing Manager.

Amgad works flexibly to support his A-Level studies. He can fit work around his study schedule to ultimately reach his goal of getting an Economics degree at Oxford. His Coopler experience in workplace communication and teamwork will help him in his future career.

RHIAG, the auto parts wholesaler, relied on a team of flexible hires to improve productivity and take pressure off their core team during peak hours. Their entire Swiss logistics operation now relies on Coople for staff management.

Just Eat built a pool of over 100 dedicated, flexible workers for their customer service team. Not only did they hire them, but they also trained and promoted some to team leaders. The right flexible work strategy enabled them to fill complicated shift patterns reliably.

All of them reached their goals with flexible work by working hard and showing commitment to their work or workers – no matter how long the contract.

Our new look

You will have noticed that things look differently on our website. We took a bold step and made it black and white. Why? To put the spotlight on our Cooplers. We know that employers come to Coople because of our Cooplers’ focus, dedication and commitment. That’s what we want to highlight. The photo competition we launched will give Cooplers the opportunity to show off their work (and make some money). Have a look at it to participate or to see our Cooplers at their best!

We’ll also sound a little different from now on. You come to Coople to work with professionals. You want to be challenged, in a constructive and respectful way. And you know that reaching your goals is hard work, as an individual or as a business leader. We want to help you do that and we can. We understand flexible work like nobody else. And we want to share our knowledge and experience with you. Like a good work mentor who asks the tough questions, says it as it is and helps you reach your long-term goals.

Each shift is a step towards meaningful goals

Our product is changing as well. If you log in regularly, most of this probably isn’t news to you. We’ve been doing the work under the hood and even our new website has been live for a while. If you haven’t logged in for a while, come and have a look!

As part of the re-brand, we conducted specific interviews, surveys, and focus groups with many of you. What stood out is your ambition and your desire for showing commitment, whether you are a Coopler or a client. Cooplers want to contribute meaningfully, no matter how long or short the work relationship. They want to build new skills, and then use them. Businesses want to find Cooplers who have the right skills, but are also a good fit for their team, to be able to develop longer-term relationships with them.

We’ve been hard at work to make changes to the Coople platform that will make these things easier for you and support long-term relationships:

  • We overhauled the jobs marketplace for Cooplers to make it much easier for you to find jobs at the firms you’ve worked at before, and especially those where you’ve been selected as a ‘favourite’. We are using AI to notify you of the jobs you most likely want to apply for and are likely to be successful with. All of this to help you contribute meaningfully, have rewarding work experiences, and reach your personal goals.
  • On the employer side, we transformed the information you can see about Cooplers which will help you to make the most informed hiring decisions. You can now see more easily where Cooplers have worked before and which of their skills are rated highly by other employers. This focus on their platform reputation allows our most ambitious Cooplers to stand out, and it allows you to easily find them instead of having to download their CV. We have also made it easier to select Cooplers as ‘favourites’ so you can request them again whenever you need them.

At Coople, you control where you work or whom you hire. We are striving to continuously improve this experience, so that all ambitious workers and managers who join our platform can have the same experience that Guiseppe, Coco, Saomanee and Amgad had, where each shift was a step towards their own, meaningful goals.