How Team Gear Flow Improved Operations with Remote Hiring

Their simple process:

• The client requests an online store and Team Gear Flow builds it.
• While the client promotes the store, Team Gear Flow receives and makes the orders.
• The client receives a commission for every sale made

As Team Gear Flow’s unique business model took off, so did the responsibilities of their team members. It wasn’t long before employees had to juggle multiple tasks.

Operations head David Butterfield knew they needed help, but hiring new team members wasn’t easy, either.

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The Challenge:

Adding a Skilled Team Member Without the Tedious Process

Team Gear Flow’s current team members were multitasking and they needed help fast. With bulk orders being a major revenue driver, efficiently hiring dedicated Internal Operations staff was vital.  

“We were in a spot as a business where each employee was handling 3-5 tasks. As our growth picked up, this quickly broke down and we needed help on our internal operations side of things,” shares David.

However, the reality was that managing applications can be time-consuming. David shares that hiring involved "tons of interviews to find a few good candidates". Without a dedicated team to take ownership of hiring — and no assurance of finding qualified hires — sorting and interviewing candidates took more time away from Team Gear Flow’s priority tasks. 

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On top of that, Team Gear Flow also faced the following challenges:

• Complex onboarding and training. Team Gear Flow uses a unique processing system. It was newly built, so training a new team member could be challenging. Timely processing of customized orders is crucial in their operations, so they needed a quick study for the job.

• Busy seasons need more hands on deck. In anticipation of peak seasons requiring increased bulk orders, Team Gear Flow needed a dependable new team member to assist in preparing for these busy periods.

• Employer of Record (EOR) is tedious and expensive. Team Gear Flow has hired through EOR, but this process requires more resources for benefits and for paying certain taxes associated with traditional employment. 

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The Solution:

Reliable and Efficient Hiring with Somewhere

Team Gear Flow needed to hire a qualified candidate in the most efficient way possible. So they reached out to Somewhere. 

“I wanted to experiment with the Somewhere model of us working directly with the candidates and just paying Somewhere the one-time finders fee.”
- David Butterfield, Head of Operations 

Here’s how we helped them find the best candidate:

• Dedicated sourcing team with a quick turnaround time. David was concerned about how time-consuming hiring can be. This is where Somewhere’s process was a big help. Once we knew what the company needed, we created a detailed job description to ensure that future applicants would understand the job requirements. Our team of professional talent scouts and assessors then searched for candidates who might be a good fit for the role. For Team Gear Flow, only the top three candidates were endorsed to David.

• Meticulous screening process. Before working with Somewhere, Team Gear Flow had to source, collate, sort, and interview applicants on their own. They didn’t need to do that this time. Our recruiters and talent assessors knew exactly what skills, qualifications, and experience to look for so they screened candidates effectively. 

• Hassle-free onboarding. After paying the easy one-time fee, Team Gear Flow welcomed their new team member for Internal Operations with ease. 

“I was really worried about how we could even train her to process orders on our own software system. After a few nights, she jumped right in and was working quicker in our system than I had been for the previous year.”

 Somewhere's assistance was instrumental in hiring an Internal Operations staff who not only fit the team culture but also helped solve a major bottleneck in processing custom orders.

With efficient remote hiring, Team Gear Flow was able to expand its team and serve more customers without the additional overhead.

Grow your business with remote talent

Need to hire highly skilled talent for your business, too?

Somewhere can assist you in adding valuable remote talent to your team. Our tried-and-true method and our 6-month warranty make sure you only receive the best talent out there.

Contact us to get started.

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