Case Study
Tend Serves Up Faster, Better Experiences for Clients and Workers with Yardstik
Tend is a premier marketplace for hospitality staffing. Founded in 2018, Tend connects hospitality establishments and event organizers to a pool of vetted staff, known as Tenders. Understanding the importance of being able to find and place qualified, pre-vetted workers quickly, Tend looked for a partner to smoothly integrate and improve background screening in their onboarding process.
Highlights
- Tend can now screen and onboard their hospitality workers faster than before.
- Tend valued Yardstik’s A++ support, ability to create a custom solution, and ease of integration.
- The partnership made growth and market expansion possible for Tend.
CHALLENGE
As a growing startup providing qualified hospitality workers to clients in 25 states, Tend needed a screening partner who could move quickly, create a custom solution, and provide the smoothest candidate experience possible.
“Speed was key in our search for the right partner,” said Caitlin Hall, HR Compliance Operations Manager at Tend. “We place people on very short-term, temporary assignments. Some days we have an order come in, and we need to place them to work tomorrow. So we were really looking for a background check vendor that could get the quickest turnaround, while being in compliance, and get everyone clear so they can work on our platform as quickly as possible.”
In addition to speed, Tend sought a partner who understood the needs of a startup and the pace at which features needed to be built and deployed within their platform.
And finally, creating an easy onboarding experience for candidates was at the top of their priority list. The Tend team wanted to simplify all efforts into one system and make sure prospective Tenders didn’t have to re-submit information multiple times across platforms during onboarding. This would ensure they got to work assignments faster.
Solution
From day one, Yardstik worked closely with Tend to address their biggest priority: speed.
Part of solving the speed issue also required the two teams to build the simplest onboarding experience possible for workers. “We didn’t want our workers to have multiple platforms they would have to use to onboard with us,” said Hall.
Yardstik helped Tend build an integration that would simplify the onboarding experience and ensure their clients’ demands for qualified workers could be quickly met.
“We pull all the information from Everee, our payroll partner, which houses PII like addresses, social security numbers, and anything else we need from our workers to vet them,” said Hall. “Yardstik then runs the checks and alerts us when workers have passed the screening process,” she added.
Outcomes
An accessible team made it easy to move quickly
Tend had specific needs around the dispute process and how information was requested of candidates. This required a custom solution, so the Yardstik team set up weekly sync meetings with Tend to make sure there was time for in-depth discussion and to track progress of the integration.
“From the beginning, Yardstik was super attentive and took the time to hear and understand our needs and the operational flow that we wanted on our side,” said Hall.
“The quality of customer support we’ve received from Yardstik has always been exceptional. Their attentiveness and responsiveness have been instrumental in our success,” she added.
Better data helped manage client expectations
To help Tend better manage client expectations around worker availability, Yardstik provided insight into how long screenings take based on geographic location.
“We have clients in some counties and cities where background checks take a lot longer to come back,” explained Hall. “With Yardstik, I have the data I need to have conversations with clients that help manage their expectations on timing. Now I can say, ‘Hey, this is going to take a little bit longer.’ We want to be able to provide that level of transparency to our clients,” she added.
Shared identity allowed for speed and growth
In the end, Yardstik was able to meet Tend where they were in their growth journey and help them carve a path to where they wanted to go next. That meant addressing their speed concerns, creating a better experience for workers, and supporting expansion into new markets.
“A big deciding factor for us was knowing Yardstik was a startup like us,” said Hall. “Because of that shared identity, they understood us on a deeper level. We’ve been able to grow and build both of our platforms together, which has been awesome,” she said.
Thinking back on the partnership, Hall stressed the importance of Yardstik’s reputation as a company willing to innovate if it means providing a better experience for their customers.
“I think of the Yardstik team as innovators,” said Hall. “I know there are a lot of big players, but I don’t think anyone else in the space gives the same level of attention to their customers as Yardstik has for us,” she added.
