Author: Martijn Arets (Website - LinkedIn)
Floor van Haaren
Cocoroco jobs are helping employers tackle global labour shortages by unlocking talent across borders."There is a lot of talent available worldwide,it's just that we often lack the vision to look across national borders to engage talent and solve the labour shortage," says Floor van Haaren, co-founder of the remote work platform Cocoroco. That is exactly what he is helping employers with via the platform.
Through Cocoroco, international companies looking for customer service personnel connect with skilled candidates from around the world, who then work remotely from home. In this episode of The Gig Work Podcast from the WageIndicator Foundation, I talk to Van Haaren to learn more about his unique platform, how remote jobs are reshaping the global labour market and the opportunities and challenges it brings.
The story can be listened to as an episode of the Gig Work Podcast.
How Cocoroco Jobs Build Long-Term Relationships in Remote Customer Service?
Cocoroco jobs prioritise employment over freelance work and ensure a strong match between candidates and clients to foster long-term collaboration. Their model benefits all parties, clients and platforms by emphasising retention and shared success.
Cocoroco jobs stand out in the remote work market by offering stable employment instead of short-term gigs. Unlike many platforms that rely heavily on freelancers, nearly 80% of Cocoroco workers are employed,not just contracted,ensuring job security and compliance with labour laws.Those who want to work as freelancers must consciously choose to do so.
Founded in 2021 by Dutch call centre and outsourcing company 5CA, Cocoroco leverages industry expertise to match candidates with the right career opportunities in remote customer service. "We basically want to ensure long-term relationships between employer and employee," says the co-founder. "Given our business model, we have a common interest here together with the client, candidate and ourselves. When someone works longer for a client, everyone is happy."
Cocoroco's job database includes over 10,000 screened candidates from 60 countries.
How does Cocoroco Manage Cultural Differences?
Cocoroco tailors job recruitment by researching cultural norms and matching candidates based on both organisational and local cultural fit. This increases compatibility and improves employee satisfaction in global roles.
Cocoroco invests in researching local habits. "Making a good match is our goal, but it is not easy," he says. "It depends on the wishes of the company and the employee, cultural differences and the organisational culture. For example, cultural differences are more influential in a small company with only Dutch employees than in a large, international organisation."
Currently, Dutch companies such as Rituals, Picnic and Autoscout24 in particular use the platform. In the scarce labour market, they struggle to find enough suitable employees. Via Cocoroco, they have a choice of candidates from all over the world. Most candidates now come from southern Europe and South Africa, says Van Haaren. "This has mainly practical reasons, namely fewer time and cultural differences. They are often Dutch or German who live abroad and want to work for international companies in the same time zone. But we also work a lot with local people and with people from Asia and Latin America for e.g. evening and night shifts at Dutch times. If a customer has more options, he can be more selective and the chances of a good match are higher."
Do Cocoroco Jobs Ensure Fair Payment for all Workers?
Cocoroco jobs ensure that every worker is paid more than the local minimum wage, with salaries calibrated to market standards and legal compliance.Clients and candidates agree on pay, while Cocoroco enforces fairness across geographies.
Van Haaren believes it is important that everyone working via Cocoroco gets a fair wage. Employees have an employment contract with conditions appropriate to the country they live in, e.g. a market-based salary. Candidate and client negotiate the conditions among themselves, Cocoroco provides a guideline and ensures it complies with local legislation. Van Haaren: "The salary has to be fair, so we calibrate salaries in the local market and support the employer in this. That still means that an employer pays less for someone in Portugal, than someone in the Netherlands."
He stresses that everyone earns more than the minimum wage in their country anyway. "In fact, all candidates speak their mother language and always English, 80% have experience in customer service work and 65% of candidates are higher educated ", he says. "We want to give them the opportunity to connect and gain experience in international companies and earn more than if they take a side job in the local market. Being the cheapest is not our goal. We go for the right match for a long-term relationship and the client and candidate determine the tariff."
How Do Cocoroco Jobs Support Upskilling and Career Growth?
Cocoroco jobs offer stepping-stone opportunities for young professionals like recent graduates and plans to integrate in-service training to support career advancement. Many workers progress into permanent roles and evolve into higher-skilled positions in IT or marketing.
Van Hareen finds that Cocoroco is often a stepping stone to the labour market, for example for recent graduates struggling to find a job in their country of residence. "Often, people start with us on a six-month contract and in 90% of cases this is extended," he says. "If they want to, we help clients hire people on a permanent basis. I also see highly educated people progressing via customer service into roles that match their studies, for example IT or marketing."
In the future, Van Haaren plans to offer in-service training via the platform. "I think this is a big advantage for candidates and clients," he says. "If we help people grow into other roles, it makes working via Cocoroco even more interesting. In our data, we can see what skills the worker lacks to grow from assignment A to assignment B. We can then offer training for that. This keeps candidates in tune with customers' needs."
Technological developments will significantly change customer service specifically and the labour market in general, Van Haaren expects. "Nobody can predict what the market will look like in 10 years," he says. "If you work online, you already have human competition from all over the world. And increasingly, you are also competing with technology. So upskilling is very important to keep up with the rapidly changing labour market. And responding to changing demand for skills in the labour market is exactly where our strength lies."
What Drives Cocoroco’s Success and Vision for the Future of Online Work?
Cocoroco succeeds by prioritising stable, long-term relationships instead of short-term gigs, smart client-candidate matching, and its readiness for tech-driven shifts in the job market. The platform aims to lead in scalable, future-proof hiring solutions in remote service.
Cocoroco is not a standard gig platform where the worker goes from short gig to gig. Van Haaren and his team do not go for short and one-off deals, but long-term relationships with candidates. Unlike competitors, they do not have to invent tricks to bind workers by having a suitable offer for everyone and offering a strong proposition on both sides of the marketplace.
Van Haaren has an interesting take on the future of the online labour market and the value his platform can add. I share his conviction that the market will look completely different in less than a decade. I also like how Van Haaren and his colleagues think about the value they add for both clients and candidates. Of course, there is always a tension between Cocoroco's wishes and those of the client. That the platform also regularly rejects clients is strong.
Focusing on long-term relationships with clients and candidates seems very sensible. First, because it will become even more important in the future to identify missing skills of workers and help them develop. Indeed, artificial intelligence can answer many simple questions in the near future and so the work of a customer service professionals is changing. This will revolve more around things like data analysis, personalised advice and dealing with new tools.
Second, Van Haaren has an interesting take on the future of the online labour market and the value his platform can add. I share his conviction that the market will look completely different in less than a decade. I also like how his platform reflects this mindset, adding real value for both employers and job seekers through transparent practices, fair pay, and future-focused skill development. Cocoroco jobs are not just about filling roles, they're about building lasting careers in an increasingly digital world.
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Glossary
Freelancers vs. Employed via the platform
Freelancers are self-employed, take up temporary jobs and are usually paid per project or hour, not on a full-time salary, while employed workers have contracts with the platform with pre-decided terms of service, including fixed hours and benefits.
A salary that matches what others in the same country and job usually earn.
Adjusting pay so it's fair and fits local wage levels.
Saving money by doing things in larger amounts - like hiring or training many people at once.