It's Tuesday. A group just booked the chalet for Friday, or your second chef has called in sick for the weekend. You need two people.
The hard question is not who's good. You probably know who's good. It's who's free, this week, for these hours. And that answer changes every week, because the people you'd call are picking up shifts everywhere else in the valley too.
Here is what each of the usual methods is actually good for, and where each one breaks.
The usual ways, honestly compared
Texting your list one by one
The default, and it works when the list is short and fresh. The cost is time: an hour of messages, answers coming in at different moments, and the awkward moment when two people say yes and you've already confirmed a third.
Good for: your three or four regulars. Breaks when: they're all busy, which in peak weeks they will be.
A WhatsApp group
One message instead of ten. But the first person to reply isn't necessarily the right one, half the group has it muted, and everyone in it can see everyone else's number.
Good for: a tight team that already works together. Breaks when: the group grows past the people you'd actually hire.
A shared availability sheet
In theory, everyone fills in their days for the week and you just look. In practice, it's up to date the first week and abandoned by the third.
If you want to try it anyway, keep it small: one row per person, one column per day, a reminder every Sunday for the week ahead. Treat it as a planning tool. By the time you need someone for tomorrow, it's already wrong.
Facebook groups
Huge reach, and that's the problem. You get replies from people who aren't in the valley yet, can't start until next month, or have no way of working for you legally, and you sort through all of it yourself, usually at night after service.
Good for: season contracts, where you have weeks. For those, a dedicated season jobs board is less work. Breaks when: you need someone on Friday.
A temp agency
It takes the problem off your hands, and the payroll too. You pay for that: the agency bills you the hourly wage plus its margin, usually wants notice, and chooses the person for you.
Good for: big volumes, or when you genuinely can't deal with the paperwork. Breaks when: you're a small place watching the hourly cost, or you want to pick who walks in.
Let the availability come to you
All of the methods above have the same shape: you go and ask. The alternative is to publish the need once and let the people who are free answer.
That's what Shifter does in the Chamonix valley. You post the shift with what it needs: the role, the date, the languages, whether the person must be registered as self-employed. Locals whose profile matches, and who haven't paused their availability, are notified the moment you post. The ones free that day accept, you see who they are, and you pick.
Then Shifter steps back. You agree the rate and the details directly, with no commission on the wages. Your first shift is free, and the pricing after that is on one page.
A routine that holds up through a season
- Keep a short list of five to ten people you trust, and refresh it at the start of each month. Seasonal staff move on.
- Ask on Sunday for the week, not on the morning of the shift. People plan their weeks, and they'll say yes to the first person who asks.
- Know your peak weeks. In the valley, that's Christmas to New Year, the February school holidays and Easter. Book help earlier for those, because everyone else is looking at the same time.
- Have a fallback for the gaps your list can't cover, so the Friday panic is one post rather than an evening of messages.
Don't forget the paperwork
An extra shift is still a job, and it has to be declared.
- If you employ the person, you need a written fixed-term contract (in hospitality, usually a CDD d'usage, the classic extra contract) and a DPAE filed before they start.
- If they're an auto-entrepreneur, they invoice you. Once the work with one person reaches 5,000 euros excluding tax, you're required to collect their attestation de vigilance. This guide explains it, and you can send it straight to them.
None of this is slow once you've done it twice. What's slow is finding the person, and that's the part worth fixing.
Jonas CHK
Founder of Shifter
French by origin, Jonas spent years living across the world before falling in love with Chamonix and deciding to stay for good. A tech enthusiast and entrepreneur, he builds digital products, consults for local businesses, and works with his wife on cultural projects. Shifter came out of a simple observation: local businesses and the people working in them were struggling to find each other. When he is not at the keyboard, you will find him in the mountains with his wife and dog.
