How Staffing is like Football

In business, there are several ways staffing is like football.

At Flexicrew we often discuss recruiting and sports analogies.  And recently, one of our recruiters blurted out, “Staffing is like football.” We discussed this idea with several thoughtful employers and they also see parallels where staffing is like football.

Manage Staffing Levels to Budget

Both football teams and employers have to manage their staff size to available budgets annually.

And that ain’t easy…

On salaries alone, NFL teams have considerable variability on base pay, bonuses, performance overrides, etc.  Companies must predict business demand changes, performance increases, employee retention and continued evolving responsibilities. But, in a quote from Yogi Berra, “Never make predictions, especially about the future.”

Dealing with uncertainty creates situations where staffing is like football.  Because of the uncertainty of future business conditions, there are justifiable business reasons to hold off on direct hiring and instead using a temporary staffing agency.

Risk of Bad Hires

What if companies could use the NFL’s “practice squad” method?  They could keep players around?  They train, practice with the team and are available to play but at a greatly reduced salary.

Well, companies actually can…

Staffing is like football for savvy employers who take advantage of similar “practice squad” or “test drive” opportunities before making a large investment.  Staffing agencies offer clients a chance to “test drive” a potential new hire.  In fact there has been significant growth of the hiring tactic known as temp-to-hire.  In this model, a company will hire a temporary employee through a staffing agency for an undefined time.  During this temporary period, the employer gets the benefit of:

  • Filling immediate hiring needs by bridging the gap with temps until direct hire budgets are approved
  • Watching the candidate in a variety of real-life situations
  • Saving money by avoiding the long term cost of a bad hiring decision
  • Seeing how the candidate interacts with the team
  • Letting the staffing agency assume all the employment risks, payroll costs and legal compliance.

Ebb and Flow of Employee Levels

NFL teams have a set number of players they can keep on board.  Their numbers rise and fall due to normal loss of key players from injury, sickness, poor performance, etc.  They replace those players by hiring from their own practice squad.  Or they can go outside their team for trades or to bring in unemployed players for a tryout.

Frequently, companies go through workforce issues caused by business growth, followed eventually by slowdown. This leads to shifts in employment levels with frenzied hiring followed by later reductions. The challenges of this hire-fire cycle include recruiting, training, retaining and firing employees.  Frequently there’s pressure from economic downturns, product becoming outdated and sales falloff.  That involves staff reductions of even their more experienced and talented employees.

But yes, there is an improved way: Flexible Staffing.

Flexible Staffing is Like Football

So growing reliance on staffing agencies for their staffing requirements gives a welcome reprieve to employers.  This is true especially for those experiencing periods of high growth.  Especially where delivery must keep in step with demand. With flexible staffing organizations are increasingly protecting their best and brightest resources. The ability to more effectively retain and nurture in-house expertise lets companies improve results.  They can really focus and train the core competencies key to the company’s mission.

Today’s flexible staffing model allows companies to hold onto the key skills they need to advance.  This way they ride out the ebb and flow of business demand. With this type of staffing model, an organization can make better use of in-house resources to attack vital activities.  They can maximize their productivity by adding outsourced staff only when needed. The result is improved ability to balance cost with budget.  Also it minimizes the inefficient business practice of hiring bursts and staff reductions.

Flexicrew Staff Management

For staffing agencies, this flexible staffing model improves their efficiency of moving staff between customers.  Thus, they apply their own flexible staffing across accounts. Moving the job of staffing from an internal department to a staffing agency lets employers pay more attention to their core ability.

As a result, flexible staffing applies to all companies looking for gains in efficiency. Flexible staffing should be the goal of every firm that wants to score a touchdown.

Wrapping it up

Let’s wrap this up, shall we? Below is a recap of how flexible staffing is like football:

  • Risk of a bad hire decreases
  • It means lower turnover caused by changes in market demand
  • Flexibility means more time for your key staff to focus on critical tasks
  • Temporary staffing yields higher productivity.

So that’s a wrap! However, there are many more ways to gain competitive advantage through wise use of flexible staffing.

Partner With an Award-Winning Staffing Agency

Let Flexicrew Staffing do the hiring for you. Flexicrew is ready to bring your company the best employees. We will help you optimize your internal employee level.  Plus, we support them with contingent workers to let them focus on your top priorities.  Contact us today! Get started working with one of the key staffing agencies on the Gulf Coast and Southeast.