Hiring temporary employees can bring positive energy to your business and help your team meet goals. Still, there are several areas you need to understand before hiring them.
Permanent talent is better than hiring temp employees, don’t you think? We say: Not necessarily. The increasing trend toward hiring temps indicates these employees might actually help you out.
CareerBuilder indicates 42% of businesses have plans to increase temp hires, and 43% hope to convert temp workers to full-time.
Staffing Industry Analysts forecasts that the temp worker trend will continue through 2017.
Do temporary workers a permanent solution to your workforce needs or are they a short-term solution? To answer, let’s start by looking at the in’s and out’s of temporary staff.
Temp Employees—Who is hiring them?
Department of Labor defines a temporary employee as one who will be employed less than 12-months or who has a specific end date. These workers make up a larger share of our US workforce than ever, over 2.9 million people or more than 2% of the total workforce .
Some have a mistaken belief that temporary workers are used only in certain job market segments, such as day laborer, seasonal help, or low-skilled jobs. A study from CareerBuilder and EMSI showed that companies use temp staff for almost everything including purchasing agents, writers, drivers, maintenance, sales, and marketing.
$64,000 Question – is temp staffing a cost-effective strategy for companies to achieve business and operational objectives and goals?
Does Hiring Temp Employees Actually Cost Less?
Think about the typical costs of recruitment. You pay to post job ads, pay for employer branding material like brochures and materials, pay to attend job fairs, and sometimes even to fly in talented candidates. Those are just the costs on the surface. The hidden costs can be much more prohibitive.
You have to pay for time spent skimming through, on average, at least 250 resumes for a single position. You must pay for onboarding an employee, and hope this money for training and education will pay off. If it doesn’t, a bad hire can set your company back $50,000 or more, to say nothing of lost productivity and a renewed gap in your workforce.
Temporary talent can be a great way to deal with a short-term problem while nurturing a long-term solution. The cost of temporary labor isn’t free, but it can often lead to more confident hiring, since the candidate went through a “try before you buy” period to ensure fit and skills.
You can see how their skills really shake out in a real-world setting, and evaluate how well they fit in to your existing culture.
Hiring Temp Employees to Look Beyond the Resume
Taking on temporary talent can provide an opportunity to give someone a chance. You might not have been impressed by a candidate’s credentials and experience, but when you connected in person or through a video interview, you were impressed with just how passionate they were about the opportunity.
Passion is necessary for all companies, and it’s often the lifeblood of growing businesses. Hiring passionate people with room to grow might be a better idea than hiring someone with the perfect skills that is only lukewarm about your company. Setting a trial period for a temporary hire will allow you to see if this candidate’s passion translates into value for your company and an ability to learn new skills and grow into a great employee.
Flexicrew Staffing has the expert knowledge and resources to help you find the right candidates. Let us assist you in finding the right person for your small or midsize business.