Next Steps for CBO's
To be part of WorkLB a CBO must be approved by City Hall. They must be ready to act as a conduit for community members seeking work, we hope to provide help with the capacity building for this. Training on the platform will be provided and there is a support team based at Pacific Gateway.
The steps are:
1) Agreement
A memorandum of understanding between the CBO and Pacific Gateway Workforce Partnership (the non-profit arm of Pacific Gateway) will need to be formalized.
2) Platform set up
The WorkLB platform is ready. We will talk through how it can be configured for you then set up a version in your branding that follows your rules. We can make it appear seamlessly for users of your website by giving you code for log-in boxes that sit on your existing pages. The app for work-seekers will also appear with your colors and wording.
You will be given a first superuser account for your part of the system. From that point on you can:
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Register your CBO staff who supervise approvals and activity. You can set differing levels of authority and system access.
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Register an infinite number of work-seekers and clients. (There are tools for uploading your existing records.)
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Make bookings on behalf of your clients or enable them to do it for themselves.
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View detailed reports on activity by your users.
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Partner with other CBO’s to widen opportunities.
3) Monitoring activity and establishing processes
You will need routines for:
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Approving work-seekers: A work-seeker can register themselves through your website (or your staff can do it for them). But they won’t be offered any work until you have approved them to work under your brand. For that, their claimed credentials will need to be vetted by staff.
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Payroll/Invoicing: A cycle for billing City Hall and other clients will need to be established. Most staffing operations run payroll for last week each Tuesday, it involves exporting the data from WorkLB and transferring it to a payroll provider.
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Overseeing early operations: In the early days, users will be unfamiliar with the system. Work-seekers might not yet appreciate how the system rewards them for reliability and simply fail to show up for their assignments. Your staff should monitor their market and intervene where necessary.
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Reporting: Management of the CBO will likely want to know how things are going. How many work-seekers did we have active last week? How many hours did they work? What was our mark-up on their earnings? How did that compare to last month? And so on. The data is all in your system. You may want to extract it at regular times for circulation to wider stakeholders.
4) Developing strategy
As you become used to the platform, you may want to start thinking abcout how to further harness its potential. Some examples that an ambitious CBO could explore:
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New clients: What skills in your labor pool are underused? We can show you. Are their buyers of that labor you could approach as potential clients? For example, if you have a lot of van drivers in the pool, might it be worth approaching local distribution businesses who use top-up labor at busy periods?
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Worker sourcing: Are there channels to work-seekers that you could engage by offering the platform’s tools? For example, a local college may be willing for their students to work around their studies but only up to a maximum 14 hours a week in term time. You can set up that control and the system will enforce it on the students.
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Client-specific roles: You can set up a role (type of work) that is exclusive to one client. For example, you may have a local business that needs workers who will agree to wear a costume at events. You can detail the requirements of the work and any fixed payrate then the system will allow you to offer it immediately to eligible localized workers.
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EVV (Electronic Visit Verification): The platform generates a timesheet for each week of a booking. It has to be approved by the worker and the client before progressing into invoicing/payroll. That approval can be replaced by a record created by the worker tapping the app on their phone as they start the booking and tapping again as they finish. This creates a verifiable record of their attendance and location. It’s invaluable for sensitive bookings in sectors like at-home care. (Use of EVV may involve a licencing payment.)
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Automatic Re-assignment: This is further functionality that solidifies the service you offer clients. If a worker picked for a booking doesn’t confirm in time, the system will automatically book a replacement according to the client’s preferences. It will keep doing this until a worker approved for the relevant kind of work is confirmed. (This functionality also may require a licencing payment.)
