Firefly Team Events was able to evolve their business during Covid-19 and adapt to new workforce methods, which resulted in a shocking nationwide growth for the events company.
With the growing list of staffing companies and events that have closed down due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, even temporarily, it may come to some as a surprise to hear that companies like Firefly Team Events were actually able to leverage aspects of what seemed to be an inevitable situation. This events business was able to do more than survive the influence of the pandemic on the events industry - Firefly was able to scale their company despite Covid-19.
“We’re gaining more clients, a greater interest in events, and a greater demand for staff.”
Kelsey Connors, lead Emcee at Firefly Team Events
Firefly Team Events create team building activities for offsite corporate events. Before Covid-19, Firefly were operating only in California and hosting in-person events ranging from scavenger hunts to beach Olympics, skateboarding, and charity-building events. Today, Firefly are hosting events nationwide by evolving to new methods and growing their business even faster than before.
The basis of Firefly’s company is gig work, so before Covid-19 there was no centralized location for the events they were hosting. The company staffed employees around twice a week for these events. With the amount of staffing that they were doing, there was a need for an employee management solution like Ubeya that could help the Firefly team stay in constant contact with their employees in order to update about any details that changed last minute.
"Communication is key."
However, the situation didn’t seem to be so promising at the start of the pandemic. On March 10th, the calendar went completely blank.
Firefly lost every single event booking due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Covid-19 affected events and staffing businesses everywhere. Nationwide, events were crashing due to health, safety and social-distancing restrictions. Events were postponed, then cancelled - businesses began to close their doors and employees were taking pay cuts, working less hours or were entirely unemployed.
Firefly Team Events realized that a significant transformation was needed in order to stay afloat during these difficult times. Firefly decided to pivot quickly in light of the new circumstances and, with the entire team on board, they moved their events to virtual platforms. They began to produce entertainment, professional conferences, educational courses and more via online platforms.
After only a few months of operating in this new way, Firefly Team Events have now found themselves back on track, hosting events in various, creative and online ways. More than that, they have expanded their events nationwide. Before Covid-19, they were operating only in California. Today they are able to reach a wider, broader audience due to the greater opportunities that virtual platforms allow, and have staff and managers located all across the country.
“We’re creating unique events that are one-of-a-kind, creative and flexible in the current market.”
Kelsey Connors, the lead Emcee at Firefly Team Events, is deeply involved in the hiring, staffing and training of the Firefly Events team. She says that a big part of Firefly’s success is due to the fact that Ubeya provides their company with a solution to manage their events, locations and staff from a remote and mobile platform.
“Having grown during the pandemic has been a huge shock,” says Kelsey. The entire team worked tirelessly to adapt to the new way of hosting events, staffing events online and facilitating online details. Ubeya’s employee management software was a significant part of the transformation and the resulting success.
“Communication is key,” Kelsey emphasizes. Before Ubeya, Firefly Events was performing all of their communication with staff through email. Staff would email their availability requests, the Firefly team would email a booking confirmation, then email a trip sheet with all the event details.
It was challenging keeping track of all of the emails, all of the staff on a separate spreadsheet iterating who had requested to work, who had confirmed, and who had been booked. There were some instances where there were multiple events on the same day and staff were double-booked - and no one noticed!
"Ubeya gives us a major competitive edge against our competition.”
Using Ubeya's mobile chat channels, Kelsey and her team were able to stay connected to each other and to their teams with increased efficiency and productivity. This was before Covid-19. Now in the aftermath of the changes Firefly Events has put into play, the events company is managing team members and employees remotely across different locations - and using Ubeya's management and chat channels promotes immediate responses, real-time tracking and clear communication. (Here are 5 points about employee communication apps to keep your eye on.)
With the hard work and effort the Firefly Events team put into adapting to new and external events, it “opened a whole new revenue stream for us. It’s incredibly exciting!” says Kelsey.
The implementation of a software like Ubeya gave Kelsey and her team at Firefly Events the opportunity to focus on the creative side of their event production and team building.
“Our time is freed up so that we can now concentrate on the creative side."
Before using Ubeya, and before Covid-19, the staffing processes at Firefly Events were completely manual. The amount of time that was spent on finding the right staff, staffing the events, keeping clients up to date and tracking communication didn’t enable the team to focus on the creative side.
“With Ubeya, our time is freed up so that we can now concentrate on the creative side,” says Kelsey. The COO at Firefly Events, who is using Ubeya to automate staff payroll, is saving tens of hours every day that were once spent on calculating hours. “We’re creating unique events that are one-of-a-kind, creative and flexible in the current market. Ubeya gives us a major competitive edge against our competition.”
The amount of time that Firefly Events was able to free up for themselves allowed gave the team the ability to brainstorm and implement new and exciting ideas that they hadn't done before. The team has seen a major rise of positive reactions from their clients in response to Firefly's new way of organizing and hosting their events.
Moving events to virtual platforms, working in more efficient ways with Ubeya and cultivating the creativity behind event planning has been the secret to Firefly’s success during this time.
“Ubeya gives us the opportunity to scale our company,” says Kelsey. “We’re gaining more clients, a greater interest in events, and a greater demand for staff.”
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