Snow White, LLC: A Fairy Tale

There once was a kingdom in a faraway land at the foot of a mountain. The King and Queen ruled wisely and well, and their people were happy. One of the happiest was the owner of a small temp agency. Her name was Snow White, and she had worked long and hard to build up her business.

One day, her seven best employees told her that they were leaving to start their own mining company in the mountains. Snow White put on a brave face and wished them the best, but she was sorry to see them go.

“I can handle this,” she promised herself. “I outwitted my evil stepmother and started this firm all on my own. I can make it work from here, too.”

Over the next few weeks, Snow White hired new workers and placed them with clients. She was able to keep the agency running, but it was hard to do more than break even; she did not have enough time to reach out to new clients, and there was fierce competition for the clients she already had. Snow White lay awake in bed, certain that something had to change.

The next day, she went to the marketplace. At first it looked familiar: there were sheep, goats, and horses for sale; there were red and green apples, white and yellow cheeses, and loaves of fresh bread; there were wooden tables, linen cloths, and fine silverware. But then Snow White saw something that she had never seen before. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief, then hurried to get a closer look.

A council of wizards stood in a circle around a large, glowing screen. Above the screen, a purple sign read ShiftCloud. Jobs appeared on the screen. A wizard was placing bids on those jobs while another explained the system to a group of temp agency owners. Snow White grimaced when she recognized Prince Charming, her archrival. She shouldered through the crowd, determined to get in on the product.

That evening, Snow White sat down at her own computer and logged into ShiftCloud. There were several jobs already posted:

Snow White remembered from the demonstration that she would only be able to see jobs that fit her own agency’s profile. Satisfied that this was in fact the case, she clicked on the job at the top of the list.

It was a big one. Every year at midsummer, the royal family held a feast at their castle. This year they needed 50 workers for day and night shifts that would last a week. The job, although just posted, already had two bids. “Probably one of them is Prince Charming,” she scoffed.

Snow White entered her bid assuming a healthy profit margin. She clicked the Submit button and walked briskly out to her garden for some therapeutic weeding. Soon, she checked back to see whether her offer had been accepted.

The bid had been accepted! Snow White set about entering her employees’ names and pay rates into the system via magical import. Then she assigned 50 workers to day and night shifts.

The job began, and the workers checked into their shifts online. Snow White marveled at how little back-and-forth was necessary. She had checked the schedule, made the assignments, and relied on her employees. They had risen to the occasion. The very first day, the Queen commented in ShiftCloud:

That evening, Snow White submitted timesheets for the day’s work:

She smiled and leaned back in her office chair. No more cold-calling; no more wasted time conveying the same information again and again to her employees and clients. This was going to be a good year.