Temporary Staffing – Is It A Fit For Your Business?

Temporary Staffing

What is temporary hiring?

Talent strategies that leverage variable staffing options such as full-time, part-time, temp-to-hire, and temporary staffing enable Poughkeepsie businesses to stay agile amidst unexpected interruptions. Companies that are flexible have the upper hand in navigating tricky business terrain when external factors pop up unexpectedly. Temporary hiring is employment on a contract or freelance basis where temp workers don’t receive the full benefits that the company offers. Instead, they are brought on at an agreed-upon hourly or project rate for a specified amount of time through a third-party agency, referred to as the temp agency. Temp hiring is similar to a lease where the employer gets a trial run with the candidate and has the option to renew, extend, or end the contract at the end of the work period.

Main reasons to hire temps

Temp hiring can be initiated for a variety of reasons. Often, it’s per a cost-saving business need that is immediate and specific:

  • Urgent need. In the case of an absentee employee, expected or unexpected, some roles require a manned post at all times. It’s sometimes impossible to allow for reduced productivity and critical for a temp to come on immediately. Roles that don’t require rare and technical skill sets are easily trained and onboarded.
  • Position testing. If a role is new for the company, for example, an executive assistant for the CEO, temp hiring is ideal for trying out a particular position. Testing out a position through temp hiring gives you complete control and visibility into how the new role impacts business results. Like the lease example, you dictate the details of the trial (who, what, when, and where), with the full option to renew, extend, or end the role based on observations and performance.
  • Specialized skills. Temporary staffing agencies are great resources for larger-than-you-could-have-found-yourself pools of specialized talent. Agencies specializing in recruiting specific skill sets are experts in assessing a pre-vetted candidate pool that can deliver what you need on the terms you need. An ideal case would be hiring a freelancer on a part-time basis when you don’t have an open headcount.

Drawbacks of temp hiring

While convenient, temp hiring doesn’t come without drawbacks. Companies should carefully monitor and evaluate the impact of temp hiring on multiple dimensions of the business, such as cost savings and company morale, before making it a regular part of their talent strategy. These are the two most significant drawbacks to temp hiring:

  • Incessant training. With temp hiring, training becomes a routine activity. Recurring training can drag productivity from management if they’re spending most of their efforts ramping up temp hires.
  • Morale issues. Frequent perceived turnover can impact culture negatively. When employees see people just come and go, they’re more reluctant to form deep coworker bonds. These relationships are essential as some of the strongest drivers of engagement are purpose, collaboration, and peer-to-peer connectivity.

At SMART Staffing Group, Inc., we help businesses build a strategy around talent and staffing. We believe that companies can employ different workforce strategies in different seasons of the business cycle. With more than 20 years of collective expertise, we are the go-to experts for talent consultancy and services. We’re proudly a Certified Minority and Woman-Owned business that has served the Mid-Hudson Valley and Tri-State areas since 2014.