Hays, Case | Etribes

A future-oriented, digital business model

Industry Services and platforms

Topic Commerce

Focus Venture Building

Services Business, Experience, Tech Backbone

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Starting point

The freelancer economy in Germany has grown strongly in recent years. More than 1.4 million people already work as freelancers, and they contribute significantly to the flexibility and innovative strength of the economy. Together with Etribes, Hays launched Tribeworks, an innovative freelancer matching platform. Hays benefited from the broad expertise of Etribes, from developing the business model and the brand strategy through to final product validation. Together they created a digital platform that connects freelancers and projects efficiently by precisely matching meaningful project descriptions with freelancer profiles. A user-friendly user experience makes the process better, cheaper and faster for both sides.

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Approach

The approach

Vision and Strategy.

Hays aims to develop a pioneering freelancer matching platform that not only meets current market requirements but also offers a clear competitive advantage. Through an in-depth competitive analysis and identification of Hays' unique strengths in the digital business model, a comprehensive product vision was formulated. This vision focuses on the needs of users and defines how Hays can position itself in a dynamic market environment through innovative approaches and a strong brand identity.
Planning and architecture.

A hollistic brand concept was created for the development of the new digital business model. It included the definition of a clear brand vision and the development of a new brand name and a matching brand logo. The tonality and language were carefully defined to ensure consistent and targeted brand communication. This concept now forms the basis for all future customer interactions and ensures that the brand is clearly and convincingly positioned right from the start.

As part of a first pilot, a fake brand was first founded to test market-oriented and product-driven hypotheses under real conditions. The entire process, from the acquisition of talent and companies to matching, was tested live, but deliberately without connection to existing systems. The aim was to validate both sides of the platform at an early stage and to gain important insights for subsequent product development.

Architecture was a central element in the technical implementation. One of Hays's biggest competitive advantages is its extensive pool of freelancers. Hays is as large as the next ten largest agents combined. However, this valuable data is in the company's core systems. In order to continue to guarantee the necessary flexibility for Tribeworks and at the same time ensure access to this data, a technical solution was developed that enables access without restricting the platform through existing corporate processes. This enabled the creation of an architecture that ensures both the scalability and independence of Tribeworks on the market.
Implementation and experience

During implementation, the focus was on the precise development of matching logic in order to identify relevant data for an effective connection between freelancers and projects. The information required for matching was carefully defined and suitable approaches were developed to efficiently bring talent and customers together. In addition, a comprehensive concept for the user experience was created and implemented, which optimizes the visual flow and ensures an intuitive and appealing user experience for freelancers and customers.
Outlook.

The result of this project is an advanced, cloud-based recruiting platform that digitizes the entire talent placement process. This platform makes it possible to optimally connect IT freelancers and customers by offering efficient and precise matches. By integrating the latest technologies and a user-friendly interface, the recruitment process is significantly simplified and accelerated. The platform is designed to meet both the specific requirements of freelancers and customers and will thus offer a tailor-made solution for the needs of the market in the future.

“Etribes helped us drive our digital vision forward with tribeworks — quickly, precisely and always with a focus on the needs of users.”

Melanie Dietrich Bereichsleiterin, Future Business Hays

tribeworks website showing the homepage “Make freelancing easy today!” and freelancer onboarding steps, built by Etribes

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Result

One of the central challenges in the entire process was to match very technical job descriptions, with their requirements for skills, personality and corporate culture, to freelancer profiles based on real work experience, and at the same time to make job descriptions so meaningful that freelancers could get a clear picture of the project. This matching is Hays's central added value. Accordingly, Etribes placed a strong focus on ensuring that this process works smoothly for all parties involved, freelancers, companies and Hays itself. Technically, the core mechanism was consistently implemented and integrated into the platform.

Hays has dared to rebuild its own digital future from scratch. This is not only bold, but also extremely impressive, because only a few companies dare to take such a radical and at the same time pioneering step.

Takeaways

Testing with a fake brand. A first pilot ran under a separate fake brand, without links to existing systems. That let the team test matching early under real conditions.
Use the data, decouple the processes. Hays' freelancer pool sits in the group's core systems. A dedicated architecture gives Tribeworks access to it without tying the platform to corporate processes.
Matching is where the value is. Technical job descriptions have to fit freelancers' skills, personality and culture. The focus was therefore on the matching logic and on clear project descriptions.