Uber has made on-demand labor platforms mainstream. Most businesses and customers now expect to be able to press a button and summon help. On-Demand staffing platforms help connect businesses with people that want to work instantly. Before we tell you about the best ones, lets differentiate between slightly overlapping terms that people use and confuse with each other.
On-demand labor platforms- An overarching umbrella term that includes all platforms where you can hire labor for doing a task- from rideshare to freelance marketplaces
On-demand talent marketplaces- When you hear the term marketplace, it usually means the buyer and seller get to actually see each other and select each other after reading reviews or discussing the project. This service in not an instantly delivered labor like an Uber car, but a matchmaker.
Pros- You get to decide whether you want a specific worker, Ratings give you some way to decide
Cons- Ratings can be incorrect, As a worker you need to build a reputation and it can be destroyed easily
Examples-
White collar or professional tasks like logo design, mobile app development, etc. - www.upwork.com
Photography- Thumbtack
Handymen- Clipcall, Takl
On-demand instant service platform- like Uber , these are are platforms where the customer needs a specific task done- like a ride- or design a logo and doesnt really care who the specific individual is that does the task. This is more amenable to services with well defined outputs.
Pros- Press button- get service, no selection necessary, workers need to just maintain some basic satisfaction level
Cons- May get bad service and only recourse is giving bad review
Rideshare- Uber, Lyft
Delivery- Uber Eats, Doordash
Shopping - Instacart
On-Demand Staffing Platform- On-demand staffing would mean something where you press abutton and a temp staff just shows up. Unfortunately the world has not evolved to that stage yet. The closest to this would be a Vendor Managed System, in temp staffing but even that has some interviewing, Outsourcing companies offere something like this although the platform is not on-demand and not instant. There are variations like crowdsourced work outsourcing platforms like topCoder or Amazon Turk.