Goodwill Houston Creates $2.3M In New Revenue, Bolsters Productivity by 14% With On-Demand Labor

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“Veryable has been an incredible partner for flexible labor to help make sure our locations consistently have the manpower they need to help drive our revenue”

-Jim F. (VP Retail)

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Background

Goodwill Industries of Houston was established in 1945, and, today, has over 50 locations around Greater Houston that receive and sell donated clothing, accessories, home furnishings and more. In fact, Goodwill's retail operations are the economic engine that funds their workforce mission and programs. In fact, Goodwill Houston channels 95 cents of every dollar spent into programs that provide job training and placement programs.

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Operational Challenges

Goodwill Houston was experiencing higher than normal - and more unpredictable than ever - donation volume. Combined with the effects of the COVID pandemic and a volatile labor market, this created critical operational bottlenecks and debilitating labor shortages.

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These bottlenecks led to piles of donated goods not ready for processing, which meant missed revenue. Furthermore, recruitment challenges led to excessive overtime, FTE burnout, and high turnover. This quickly become a crisis situation, resulting in decreased revenue, suboptimal productivity levels, and excessive resources spent on recruiting, screening, hiring, and training.

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For Goodwill to reduce the effects of labor shortages, speed up donation processing, and eliminate operational bottlenecks, they didn't just need more capacity, they needed capacity they could use on an as-needed basis. Enter Veryable.

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The Veryable Solution

Veryable’s digital marketplace for on-demand labor provides Goodwill with greater access, speed, and control over worker selection than other "solutions". The marketplace delivers a flexible labor solution that instantly connects Goodwill with thousands of local “on-demand” workers that they can utilize to flex up and down at zero cost to scale.

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Goodwill’s “on-demand” labor is designed to be short cycle (daily or weekly increments) and plugged in and out of operations the moment donation demand shifts, enabling a real-time approach to output. As soon as Goodwill posts work, it is pushed out to the 58k operators in Houston who can then bid on the work right from their mobile app. From that point, the Goodwill team can select the exact workers they want, using the platform's live resume feature and rating & review system to select the best fit. With an average of nearly 8 bids per op, the Goodwill Houston team is always able to find workers with the exact skills and experience needed to hit the ground running.

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Application

Goodwill realized that their retail operations will always have fluctuating donation demand, oftentimes unpredictable, so deploying only a fixed workforce to respond to their variable needs no longer made sense... ...nor did more OT or over staffing.

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By blending Veryable's on-demand labor model into their existing workforce strategy as a complementary, flexible extension designed to peacefully co-exist with their full-time workforce, Goodwill gained the ability to flex labor capacity daily to match demand at zero cost to scale.

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The main work areas and type of work include:

• Retail: backroom associates, material handling, loading/unloading

• Outlets: material handling, bailing, loading/unloading

• Project Based: after hours work (ex. trailer unload, clear out backroom)

• Transportation: "driver helpers", loading/unloading

• Production: hanging clothes, tagging retail items, pricing merchandise

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Results