RICHMOND, Va. – Filling open shifts can be a nightmare for retailers and restaurants, but Snagajob has developed one solution: Husl. Short for “hustle,” Husl wants to make it easier to connect workers with temporary retail jobs, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

The online, on-demand platform sends notices to temporary job seekers about open shifts at retail and restaurant companies. “It’s like Uber for shift work,” said Kevin Liu, owner of Carytown Cupcakes, which is participating in the pilot program. “The beauty of it is we can use it whenever we want.”

Testing started in Richmond late last year, and this spring, the company expanded to more local businesses and workers. “We’re seeing some great success,” said Jason Hamilton, general manager of Husl. “What we are doing now is starting to scale up here in Richmond. We are scaling the number of workers, and we are starting to sign new businesses almost daily now.”

Husl vets potential workers to determine which temp jobs they qualify for, then matches them to participating companies. When needed to fill an open shift, managers at those businesses send out a message via the Husl app to approved temp employees. Much like the Uber app, workers respond to the request, then the employer picks who will come in to work the shift. Workers are treated like independent contractors.

“We built a platform that has the hiring process, background checks, a payment platform and messaging, so that whenever a business requests a shift it immediately messages out to approved workers for that brand,” Hamilton said.

Businesses find their open shifts “are usually filled within minutes,” said Martha Looney, director of management development and acquisition for EAT Restaurant Partners, which joined the Husl test this spring. “The Husl workers have either worked in the restaurant business before, or retail, and have a good intuition for it.”

Husl will continuing testing in Richmond for a few more months before expanding into other cities.