Shafiq Khartabil, CEO & Co-founder

Transform or Perish! This powerful maxim holds aptly true for enterprises in every sector. But the root of transformation starts from having a progressive Human Capital in a volatile global market. People are no more job-helpers but a critical competitive advantage. While businesses have realised this, staffing has emerged as a key business enabler with its value proposition of flexibility, scale and cost optimisation. While the evolution of human capital is exciting with uberisation and the gig economy, Middle East countries are upping the charts with the adoption of technology and acceptance of digital tools-based hiring. Needless to say, the startups in the space are the key drivers determining the change in staffing here. Established in 2016, Ogram is such a dynamic startup prompting great transformation in recruitment.

The digital staffing platform enables businesses and individuals to book and manage staff on demand. Its cutting-edge technology has made job matching 160 times faster and 50 percent more reliable; thus, delivering compliant, reliable, and quality staff on demand. As pioneers of ‘The New Workforce’, Ogram has been at the forefront of the global move towards flexible staffing and invested heavily in technology that allows businesses to hire at any time and workers to work from anywhere. 

Addressing the Universal Pain Points

Ogram tackles the problem that the Hospitality, Food & Beverage, Retail, Logistics and E-commerce businesses face with over-staffing during their low seasons and under-staffing during their high periods, by providing on-demand qualified staff. The solution is flexible and cost-effective as one can scale up or down the staffing requirements and only have staff on-ground when needed. “This flexible approach breaks away from the norms of traditional agencies that offer fixed-term contracts. In addition, clients are completely alleviated from the hassle of procuring visas, documents, and allowances such as travel, accommodation and of course gratuity and severance. Ogram handles it all. By doing this and given the flexible model, Ogram on average would save corporations about 30% annually when compared to fixed-term staffing or full-time employment,” adds Shafiq Khartabil, Co-founder & CEO.

Aside from the flexibility of scaling up and down, Ogram compares to traditional manpower providers, by being able to deploy staff instantly, in large numbers, and fulfill any schedule. Be it, 2 days a week, a one-off event, night shifts, or even 6 days a week for a period of a year. Over the years, the company has proven that its model can provide better quality talent as they source from local markets and leverages smart quality and vetting algorithms and tools. Its pricing is also competitive as it takes market dynamics (supply and demand) to compute the price per worker per hour or per month. 

Ogram services over 500 clients providing 10,000 shifts per month to their 10,000 active pool of workers (Ogrammers). Last year they crossed over 100,000 worker signups with a mission to enhance the lives of workers around the world, by providing them with the tools and autonomy to create their own flexible work schedules - something that is now in demand following the shifts in ways working during the pandemic. 

The Competitive Edge

Shafiq Khartabil, Co-founder & CEO remarks, “The post-pandemic world has been witnessing a surge in supply as workers look towards diversifying their income and becoming less dependent on full-time work. Meanwhile, businesses all over the world seek flexible staffing solutions. Governments of many countries are also leveraging gig workers to fast-track recovery and are easing regulations. Being pioneers in a nascent economy has enabled us to capitalize on a golden opportunity and has truly cemented our commitment and belief that this is the future of work.”

On-demand quality staffing is the core of Ogram. While approving 1000 workers per month, and having a database of 10,000 active workers, the company has the capacity to fulfill large orders of hundreds of workers with the ability to scale up whenever needed. It has been working with big players such as Majid Al Futaim, Carrefour, Ikea, Al Futtaim, Emaar, Meraas, Jumeirah Group, Dubai World Trade Center, Le Louvre, Abu Dhabi Ports, and Noon.com. And, services all the large events such as Gitex, Formula 1, Rugby 7’s, Dubai Horse Race, Sole DXB, and Art Dubai.

The co-founder shares, “We currently use customer feedback and data, to continuously improve our technology and improve efficiency. Our technology is smart enough to automatically deploy a supervisor on the ground for jobs that require supervision and can optimize fulfillment of large jobs by up to 90%. We provide clients with the flexibility to scale up and down their requirements instantly, allowing them to only pay for what they actually need. On average, we save businesses 30% on an annual basis. We will always have a superior quality pool of staff when compared to traditional agencies and strive on providing a quick 12-hour deployment from the time the order is created which helps businesses capitalize on last-minute operational demands. We have also partnered up with notable manpower agencies to fulfill their short-term business, and are also looking to deploy their idle staff with shifts.”

Big Dreams & Better Solutions

As a futuristic organization, Ogram is looking to scale up the logistics business by offering on-demand warehouse assistants to warehouse facilities, and technology integrations with other software enabling more customer acquisition and growth. The company further envisions developing relationships with manpower agencies. “We are launching in Greece early this year, further expanding our presence in Abu Dhabi and Northern Emirates, and launching in KSA in the second half of the year. Ogram will also be finalizing a round of funding to fuel its growth and expansion plans further. We will be investing in developing our technology to improve our speed and efficiency with the aim of making it easier for workers to find work and businesses to fulfil shifts,” he signs off.

Ogram is progressively changing the way people and businesses work and hire, creating a new way of life.