When Gift Six the Wrappery received an order from an exclusive, luxury retail brand, they knew it couldn’t be passed up. The catch? Their team had to produce 11,000 wrapped and ribboned gift boxes, all in four weeks.
With orders typically consisting of less than 1,000 units, husband and wife duo Andrea and Chris Loth knew they had to find temp labor to scale their production to 11x typical volume. But this Minneapolis-based team didn't yet know that this opportunity would transform the growth of their small business.
To fulfill their order, Gift Six had to redefine their typical procedures nearly overnight.
“This project [doesn’t only] involve gift wrapping. There are 11,000 boxes that need to be made, 11,000 ribbons that need to be cut. We really had to make miracles happen,” said Andrea.
Knowing they couldn’t meet the order with their current team, Gift Six needed to source 10+ workers fast. With such short notice, Gift Six knew they wouldn’t be able to hire through their established network in time — so they turned to Instawork to find Professionals who could work in their warehouse.
Prior to using Instawork, Andrea had never relied on temp labor, but she knew she needed a modern solution. When scoping out options, she didn’t feel confident that traditional staffing agencies could deliver the quantity (and quality) of workers they needed. Instawork’s modern, app-based solution, however, stuck out to Andrea. She appreciated that it was easily accessible from anywhere, allowing her to manage her staffing strategy in the palm of her hand.
Within ten days of their initial call, Andrea and Chris were able to consistently source 12-15 warehouse workers per day for either specialized work (wrapping/ribboning) or non-specialized work (folding and cutting boxes). It wasn’t long before Gift Six was impressed by the quality of Instawork Pros. They even came up with an innovative new way to realize the full potential of each worker.
As Andrea knows better than anyone, “not everyone can [wrap gift boxes], but we give them other jobs.”
To quickly differentiate between those who can and those who can’t, the Gift Six team created a rapid test to vet all temporary labor that walks into their warehouse. Each Pro’s first assignment is to wrap a gift based on how they think it should be done. Those who showed basic knowledge and attention to detail went on to be designated gift wrappers; those who didn’t were assigned tasks like cutting and folding boxes instead.
With skilled workers to wrap and package the items, and non-skilled workers to keep their materials supplied, Gift Six was able to scale their operations rapidly.
By making worker retention a priority — especially for those who demonstrated wrapping abilities — 50% of the Pros that Gift Six booked signed up for more than one shift, allowing them to continually build their A-list roster. This enabled their core team to limit onboarding time and maximize productivity with the staff who displayed the most potential.
And in four short weeks, Gift Six the Wrappery went above and beyond what they had believed possible: 11,000 pristinely-wrapped gift boxes, ready in time for their customer. Not only was their customer thrilled with the quality of their product, but so were Chris and Andrea.
“We had to make miracles happen. We would not have been able to do it without Instawork.” - Andrea Loth, co-owner of Gift Six the Wrappery
