Staffing agency – HR ADVICE CENTRE

Five Tips for Hiring Seasonal Workers

It’s very common for organizations to look to the support of seasonal temporary workers to during peak production times. In fact, hiring seasonal workers on a temporary basis can be one of the best ways to realize a positive return on investment for your business because it’s less costly than hiring regular employees.

Each year, major retailers hire seasonal temps to help out during the holidays and support increased shopping demands. The biggest industries that use seasonal help are manufacturing, retail, hospitality, customer service, sales, and shipping and transportation. However, any company may choose to hire seasonal temps to cover summer vacations or maternity leaves for regular employees.

Seasonal assignments may last for a few days to a few months, depending on the need of each organization. During this time, it’s up to the company to provide training and supervision so that seasonal temps have the ability to be productive. There are some key ways that any business can get the most from their temporary seasonal staff.

Create accurate seasonal job descriptions. Your first step in maximizing seasonal staff ROI is to write seasonal job descriptions that clearly spell out the tasks and responsibilities of each assignment. Your seasonal workforce may have limited time to get projects completed, so make sure they are reasonable given the scope of work.
Provide training and resources to get the job done. Set up all seasonal work stations and systems in advance to make sure you get the more out of seasonal temps. Arrange for an orientation and training day, utilizing your seasoned employees as mentors to seasonal staffers. Give your seasonal workforce access to the information and resources to be successful.
Set clear goals and deadlines for tasks and projects. Your seasonal workers can only accomplish what you expect if you communicate this to them. Provide seasonal temps with a list of tasks they are to complete, along with daily and weekly goals. Provide reasonable deadlines for getting things done.
Give seasonal workers incentives to perform to highest standards. Seasonal workers often respond well to short-term incentives because they may not have access to the same benefits as your regular employees. Set fun contests and provide bonuses for top performers. Give seasonal workers incentives such as on-site lunches, wellness services, and discounts for merchandise.
Treat seasonal workforce with respect and offer some permanent jobs. The reason why some individuals take on seasonal work is to prove their worth for future employment consideration. Remember to treat all seasonal workers with respect and appreciation, offering a few the opportunity to become permanent employees based on their performance. You can find out who may be interested in perm placement by talking with your staffing agency.

Seasonal workers can be a valuable way to stay on top of busy production periods and project demands. Remember to make the most of your seasonal staffers by giving them rewarding assignments and interesting tasks.

How To Increase The Productivity of Temporary Workers

You have determined that a specific project or work in one of your departments could benefit by hiring a temporary rather than permanent employee. Follow this advice to increase efficiency and productivity.

Determine needs

First meet with managers and others who will be working directly with the temporary worker (temp) to determined required skills, duties, and responsibilities. Knowing these will help the agency you select to find the best person for you.

Work with an agency

When possible, contact agencies that specialize in your type of business to get the right person for the position.

Work with the agency to determine salary ranges. Because temps will be facing new environments and unusual challenges, experience is always desirable. This usually comes at a price, but is almost always worth it.

Orient the employee

Before the temp arrives, prepare an orientation guide to help get them up and running. include all the little things your regular employees have become used to, such such as working hours, check-in and check-out procedures, break and lunch schedules, safety regulations, names of managers and co-workers, and the names and contact information for direct supervisors, Take advantage of orientation brochures provided by the agency that assigned the temp: These often offer insightful suggestions for bringing temps up to speed quickly.

Do not leave the new worker alone the first morning, lest they become disoriented in their new environment. Assign a co-worker, preferably a long-time employee “mentor”, to give the temp someone to ask questions of and look to for input.

If your temp is required to operate equipment or to undertake specialized duties, make sure that a regular employee will be available right away to train or help them. Remember to plan and co-ordinate the schedules of all employees improved.

Set up lines of communication so the temp can get answers to questions quickly. Just because a temp doesn’t ask questions, don’t assume they are completely on top of the job. Have managers or supervisors contact temps frequently to monitor progress and to make sure the temp is not being overwhelmed. Temps often feel that much more is expected of them because of the short term of their employment to demand that a temp become completely competent in a week when a full-time employee takes several months.

Look at permanent possibilities

If permanent employment may be available to a temp, inform the agency at the start of your relationship. Some temps will be eager for the opportunity, while others will know that they can’t take advantage of such an offer. Talk with the temp when they arrive and set up parameters so they know exactly what they need to accomplish to be considered.

Bringing temps on board can be a great solution to your business for short-term projects, seasonal up-ticks in business, or a variety of other reasons. You never know: that temporary employee might turn into your next superstar!

Five Tips for Hiring Seasonal Workers

Create accurate seasonal job descriptions. Your first step in maximizing seasonal staff ROI is to write seasonal job descriptions that clearly spell out the tasks and responsibilities of each assignment. Your seasonal workforce may have limited time to get projects completed, so make sure they are reasonable given the scope of work.
Provide training and resources to get the job done. Set up all seasonal work stations and systems in advance to make sure you get the more out of seasonal temps. Arrange for an orientation and training day, utilizing your seasoned employees as mentors to seasonal staffers. Give your seasonal workforce access to the information and resources to be successful.
Set clear goals and deadlines for tasks and projects. Your seasonal workers can only accomplish what you expect if you communicate this to them. Provide seasonal temps with a list of tasks they are to complete, along with daily and weekly goals. Provide reasonable deadlines for getting things done.
Give seasonal workers incentives to perform to highest standards. Seasonal workers often respond well to short-term incentives because they may not have access to the same benefits as your regular employees. Set fun contests and provide bonuses for top performers. Give seasonal workers incentives such as on-site lunches, wellness services, and discounts for merchandise.
Treat seasonal workforce with respect and offer some permanent jobs. The reason why some individuals take on seasonal work is to prove their worth for future employment consideration. Remember to treat all seasonal workers with respect and appreciation, offering a few the opportunity to become permanent employees based on their performance. You can find out who may be interested in perm placement by talking with your staffing agency.

How to Hire the Best Temporary Staff

When you need temporary workers you want to hire the best temporary staff available: Those with the right skills, drive, and attitude who will add value to your bottom line. As more organizations move towards a model of treating human resources – including temporary resources – as an asset rather than an expense, the competition for the best workers is increasing. Through the right temp agency, you can access the help you need to find, screen, and hire the best temporary staff for your organization.

Hire the Best Temp Staff: It Starts with Your Temp Agency

Every organization is different, including yours. Every temp agency is also different; some agencies may specialize in very narrow industry niches, while others are broad and established enough to specialize in several industries. As a hiring manger, it can be difficult to determine which type of agency is the right one to use to hire the best temp staff for your particular industry. There are, however, several advantages to choosing an agency with specialties in several areas:

A multi-specialty temp agency is more likely to be able to meet your current demands as well as future demands
A multi-specialty temp agency is likely to have a greater number of qualified temporary workers in its databases
A multi-specialty temp agency has deeper resources in the staffing industry to help you hire the best temp staff whenever and wherever need arises

These factors can save you from hiring temps through multiple channels, which can escalate into a confusing, and costly, endeavor when your organization is working on a tight schedule, detracting from your ability to focus on the drive to hire the best temp staff. A multi-specialty temp agency can also save you time through streamlined candidate screening, since an agency accustomed to working in multiple areas will already be familiar with best practices in hiring wherever your need may be.

Hire the Best Temp Staff: Thorough Screening Ensures Quality Candidates

All too many organizations shorten the candidate screening process when hiring temp staff. Although the temporary nature of these assignments makes it tempting to try to save expenses through reduced screening, organizations that follow this practice are usually putting themselves at a disadvantage. Several benefits of temp staffing, including the ability to move to permanent hiring based on a temp’s performance, are diminished or erased when screening is skipped.

Especially for longer assignments, your organization needs to know the skills and attributes of those on temporary payroll. Experienced temp agencies make it easy for you to screen candidates for quality by putting a range of technological and more traditional screening tools at your disposal, ensuring that you hire the best temp staff possible. Make sure that your agency screens its candidates before recommending them for your open assignments, and perform your own secondary screening whenever possible.

Hire the Best Temp Staff: Adopt a Long Term View

Temp agencies are of enormous benefit when your organization needs workers at the last minute for assignments of short duration. Still, last minute changes and rushed temporary hiring can be taxing and reduce your chances of recruiting top quality candidates. What if you could project when and where such help was likely to be needed and plan accordingly? An established temp agency will have the experience needed to partner with your organization to create a long term hiring plan that addresses your needs for temp staff and can make the best temp staff on its roster available to you during your rush times through such prior planning.

The competition to hire the best temp staff is not expected to slow anytime soon. Make sure that your organization is prepared and in a position to hire the best available candidates by working with your temp agency to address your organization’s temporary hiring needs. With a comprehensive temporary hiring strategy you can add value to your organization while saving costs, a winning approach.

Temp Agencies Can Help You to Maximize Your Workforce

A knowledgeable staffing agent is more than a convenience to busy business owners in need of temp workers or new full-time staff. Business owners know their own company’s needs, but staffing agencies bring their independent, outside assessment to the table and can help companies make the very best hiring decisions. Staffing agencies offer outsourced staffing solutions; whereby, recruitment staff isn’t needed in-house.

Moreover, with a keen understanding of ways to develop the talents of current staff, pinpoint gaps and areas of development, as well as make informed recommendations about hiring, a reputable temp agency can provide valuable insights and advice that can improve any company’s bottom line.

The greatest advantage of outsourcing your hiring and recruitment to a temp agency is that you will gain insight into your own company’s real hiring needs. It turns out that most companies looking to hire are actually overstaffed or underutilizing their current staff. With an in-depth assessment of a company’s strength and weaknesses, a temp agency will prepare a detailed and customized workforce optimization strategy that pinpoints actual hiring needs. Of the most value are their recommendations of how a company might make the most of current staff and maximize their talents and productivity. The result is better employee retention and less expense on excessive hiring.

Temp agencies help business owners with a crucial aspect of business function: employee retention. When a company loses an employee through termination or resignation, the damage does not end there and leaves more than an empty desk or work station. Loss of an employee can, directly or indirectly, hurt a company’s bottom line. In fact, that loss can cost a company up to 150% of the employee’s annual salary. Temp agencies help prevent this damage by increasing efficiency and employee satisfaction and also by carefully matching potential employees to fill vacant positions. With proven strategies for pairing workers and employees based on many detailed criteria, business owners enjoy better employee retention and a satisfied, content staff.

Outsourcing hiring to a temp agency is not a luxury set aside for only the most successful business owners. Even the smallest companies can benefit tremendously and save money in the long run by trusting a reputable staffing agency to take on the task of identifying true hiring needs and then finding the perfect candidate for the position. A temp agency is indeed a time-saver and convenience for business owners; also the valuable insight and independent assessment can improve hiring choices and employee retention.