The Benefits of Hiring Temp Employees
September 9th, 2016Regardless of your industry, there will be weeks or months’ worth of busy season and you’ll need bodies, fast. There will be times when a staffer quits with little notice, goes on vacation when you need work done, or takes maternity leave earlier than expected. There may suddenly be a need for an individual with a specialized skill set necessary to complete a project. What if the project deadline was moved up by a few weeks and your staff becomes overwhelmed and overworked? Today’s temporary employees (or “temps”) are highly skilled people, who can fill a gap at a moment’s notice and there’s no long-term commitment involved. Sounds pretty great, right? Here are some other benefits to using temps:
Flexibility
This is an obvious advantage to using temps. You can bring them on board with very little notice and stop using them as soon as your workload subsides. If you’re feeling obligated to add workers but haven’t determined whether you really need someone full time, bringing in a temp will allow you the flexibility to figure out your long-term plan. Your new temp will help you determine if there is enough work to justify adding to your permanent roster. If he or she ends up being a great fit, you have a go-to person you can call to handle the ebbs and flows of your workload.
Temp to Hire: Try Before You Buy
Bringing in a temp employee affords you a trial period to make sure the person is a fit for the job as well as your corporate culture. During these weeks or months, you can determine whether the temp professional meshes well with the team, has the right level of experience, likes your management style, and is interested in investing in the role long term. You’ll get to view these qualifications first-hand, instead of relying solely on the interview process.
Happy Employees
Do you have peak times where you need more staff? Is your existing staff feeling burnt-out and over-burdened? Today’s temporary worker is motivated to continually show they can do the job for every company they work for. Because you won’t be bringing in a disgruntled staffer to join your team, these eager-to-please temps could bring in a needed boost to staff morale. Extra help motivates permanent employees because it takes the burden off their shoulders and shows them that management understands their needs.
Networking Opportunities
A temporary employee who has a great experience with your company, is going to share that experience with their network and their staffing agency. A positive experience will spread quickly and will help promote your brand and reputation. Temporary employees bring a unique network of past professional connections – Sharing those anecdotes and contacts could introduce your company to new clients, vendors, employees, or partners.
More professionals are recognizing the advantages of the flexible nature of temporary work; the ability to work in different environments, the opportunity to build new skills, and the platform to meet new professional connections. Savvy companies are taking advantage of this growing, highly-skilled temporary workforce by implementing a temp-to-hire staffing strategy, and the benefits of hiring this type of help are many. One of them is something that every manager wants – More time.