The old way of doing shiftwork didn’t work for everybody or, in fact, anybody.

And that included our client. GetTheShifts (ask an Irish person what it means) were spending a lot of time working with frazzled workers and frustrated employers, trying to get the right shifts for the right people, and the right people for the right shifts.

So when we looked under the bonnet it was clear they needed a digital transformation, a whole new way of doing business, and a brand that worked worldwide.

We dug in, we interviewed shiftworkers and business owners, we shared our own shiftwork horror stories, and dreamt about a future where it could be a tool that lets you live your life on your terms.

We realised that shiftwork works for everyone when it’s built on mutual respect, and that happy people work better. So we co-created an app with those insights at it’s heart. We designed it from the ground up, picked features, crafted the UX, and generally got our hands dirty.

And WrkWrk was born.

Our research had showed that workers wanted fast pay, flexible scheduling, commitment-free shifts. So we gave them all that. Then we replaced handing out CVs with a 3 minute video interview, we gave people a map based system so they weren’t stuck cycling for an hour in the rain, and we even helped solve the problem of awkward introductions when you arrive for a shift.

All that meant employers got the one thing that really mattered to them – workers who weren’t counting the seconds until they could leave.

Doing shiftwork different meant looking different, sounding different, and feeling different. So instead of talking about “numbers” or “bodies”, we spoke to people like human beings, about the things they cared about – like working on their own terms.

Of course that made us think about the plight of sniffer dogs, and how we’d rather be like cats; cool, calm, and commitment-free. So that’s what our targeted Spotify ads were about, sniffer cats (or the lack thereof).

And it worked. WrkWrk first launched in colleges across Ireland, and now has over 4000 active shiftworkers and 400 employers.

So if you want shiftwork, you gotta go WrkWrk.