Kolibrie Next

Sping has created a temporary employment platform for employers and employees with which Kolibrie Next can distinguish itself in the market through the simplicity, speed, and convenience of the service.

Kolibrie the specialist and market leader in the field of payroll for the hospitality industry. To expand their range of services for their clients, they started their own employment agency: Kolibrie Next .

After all, all ingredients were available: an experienced team, good connections in the market, and an increasing demand for flex workers.

Kolibrie Next approached Sping to realize this vision and to create an online employment platform where students and hospitality entrepreneurs can find each other. Job seekers can register quickly and are offered the most suitable ‘jobs’ via a mobile app.

Even the identification and signing of the contract are arranged with a few steps on the smartphone; as well as time registration and payment. The student can actually get started within a few hours of registering in the app.

Hospitality employers are also offered convenience and speed because they can independently post vacancies and are offered the most suitable profiles via a smart algorithm. The Kolibrie Next team can monitor all these processes and intervene where necessary via a web application.

A true multi-sided platform.

INSIGHT

The right person in the right place at the right time

Kolibrie Next helps young people find a flexible job in hospitality that best suits their wishes and qualities. Employees themselves determine how often they work. That way it can be combined very well with school or study. In addition, Kolibrie Next offers its employees various workshops and training courses so that they can continue to develop.

Employers, on the other hand, struggle to find skilled and experienced employees. Kolibrie Next discovered that, despite the current status of supply and demand, it is a challenge to find a good match for both parties.

CHALLENGE

Four months for the first version

Create a broadcast platform for employers and employees with which Kolibrie Next can distinguish itself in the market through the simplicity, speed, and convenience of the service.

Realize the first version of the platform within 4 months.

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

SOLUTION

A multi-platform solution

First of all, we started with a design sprint. Here, we came up with a concept. We also conducted a competitor analysis, created personas, and defined customer journeys. We then quickly started with a prototype to test with the different target groups. The concept was then further developed in an iterative manner together with the customer with an agile team of designers and developers.

React Native was used to realize the mobile app. This is a JavaScript framework with which native Android and iOS apps can be created. Since almost all 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 through the GraphQL language. GraphQL is a language developed by Facebook and makes it easy and efficient to load data from the server to the app and vice versa. Part of the data that the app sends to the backend is not stored on the server but is forwarded via a proxy to AFAS Profit. This is a software solution that manages project administration for Kolibrie. In the backend, several background workers are running who automatically perform tasks, such as checking a contract status from Profit, to updating an employee’s salary on his or her birthday. The admin environment itself is created with Ruby on Rails and uses VueJS to make the application interactive.

We integrate with a third party for the automatic processing of identification. Also digitally signing the automatically generated con

tract is handled using an integration with a third party. The platform is hosted completely redundantly on AWS.

The app is available in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. People looking for a job with flexible hours can find the job that suits them with the free app. Read more at Kolibrie-next.nl .