Online staffing agency for the hospitality industry

Sping has created a staffing platform for employers and employees, allowing Kolibrie Next to distinguish itself in the market through the simplicity, speed, and convenience of its services.

Kolibrie, a specialist and market leader in payroll for the hospitality industry, decided to expand its service offerings for clients by establishing its own staffing agency: Kolibrie Next.

With an experienced team, strong connections in the market, and a growing demand for flexible workers, all the elements were in place.

Kolibrie Next approached Sping to realize this vision and create an online staffing platform where students and hospitality entrepreneurs can connect. Job seekers can quickly register and receive the most suitable job offers through a mobile app.

Even the identification and signing of contracts are easily managed with a few actions on the smartphone, as well as time registration and payment. Within a few hours of registration in the app, the student can actually start working.

The platform also provides convenience and speed to hospitality employers, allowing them to independently post vacancies and receive the most suitable profiles through a smart algorithm. The Kolibrie Next team can monitor all these processes and intervene as needed through a web application.

Truly a 'multi-sided platform'.

Kolibrie Next helps young individuals find a flexible job in the hospitality industry that best suits their preferences and abilities. Employees have the autonomy to decide how often they work, making it easily combinable with school or studies. Additionally, Kolibrie Next provides its employees with various workshops and training sessions to support ongoing development.

On the other hand, employers face challenges in finding well-trained and experienced workers. Despite the current demand and supply landscape, Kolibrie Next discovered that it remains a challenge to make a good match for both parties.

Create a staffing platform for employers and employees that allows Kolibrie Next to distinguish itself in the market through the simplicity, speed and convenience of its services.

Achieve the first version of the platform within 4 months.

Begin 2018 zijn we van start gegaan en de uitdaging was om live te gaan met een eerste MVP in juli 2018. Kolibrie’s Product Owner, DMU en technische leads hebben nauw samengewerkt met het Product Design team van Sping.

We started in early 2018, and the challenge was to go live with the first MVP in July 2018. Kolibrie's Product Owner, DMU and technical leads worked closely with Sping's Product Design team.

First, we started with a design sprint, during which we conceptualized the idea. We conducted a competitive analysis, created personas and defined customer journeys. Subsequently, we rapidly began developing a prototype for testing with different target audiences. The concept was then iteratively refined in collaboration with the client using an agile team of designers and developers.

To realize the mobile app, we utilized React Native, a JavaScript framework enabling the creation of native Android and iOS apps. Since almost all the code can be used for both platforms, it is quick and easy to develop an app for Android and iOS.

The app communicates with the backend using the GraphQL language, developed by Facebook, making it easy and efficient to load data from the server to the app and vice versa. Some of the data sent by the app to the backend is not stored on the server but forwarded via a proxy to AFAS Profit. AFAS Profit is a software solution managing project administration for Kolibrie. In the backend, various background workers run automatically performing tasks such as checking a contract status from Profit to updating an employee's salary on their birthday. The admin environment itself is created with Ruby on Rails and uses VueJS to make the application interactive.

For the automatic handling of identification, we integrate with a third party. The digital signing of the automatically generated contract is also handled through integration with a third party. The platform is fully redundantly hosted on AWS.

The app is available in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Individuals seeking a job with flexible hours can find the right job for them using the free app.