Do you make use of temporary staff as an employer? For some types of business, temping lends itself perfectly to the business set up. Companies that run theme parks or summer activity centres, for example. Events companies also make use of temporary staff along with firms that have traditionally busy periods such as Christmas or Black Friday.
But these are not the only types of companies where temps can really boost a business and keep productivity at an optimum level. There are also circumstances in all sectors where it is possible to make use of temps.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the advantages of making use of temporary staff. School leavers, students and graduates often seek out temporary roles. Reasons for this can be to fund their studies, to pay off some debts, to save up for travel or other gap year activities and also, to boost their CV and gain some valuable hands on experience in the workplace.
Benefits Of Employing Temporary Staff In Your Workplace
Could your company benefit from making use of temporary staff? Here are some of the advantages.
SMEs Can Benefit From Employing Temps
Young people – especially students – are increasingly looking for freedom and flexibility as one of their criteria for applying for positions and this makes temping particularly attractive to them.
The freedom and flexibility that temp work has to offer can also be a tempter for employers, too. If you are an SME, employing temps can be easier on your company finances and it means you can pull in staff on an ‘on demand’ basis without having to commit to offering a contract.
Employing temporary staff can be a great way for small and medium enterprises to make themselves to students and graduates who might otherwise apply to bigger firms within the same sector.
Temporary Staff Can Offer A Broad Range Of Skills
When it comes to employing temporary staff, it isn’t only the manual or entry level jobs that they can cover. If you are employing students or graduates, for example, many have covered subjects as part of their degree that you could make good use of in your workplace. You can employ temps to assist in law, medicine, scientific or engineering roles, for example.
Lots of young people these days also have valuable IT and digital skills. If you have a one off project within your company where extra hands might be needed for digital marketing students and graduates could be ideal for these roles.
Neither Side Needs To Make A Permanent Commitment
Another advantage to employing temps in your company is that neither side needs to commit. You don’t need to commit to taking someone on permanently and your temp doesn’t need to sign any contracts committing to you.
The advantage to this is that both employer and employee get to see if this arrangement works for them. You could be employing young people on temporary contracts with a view to offering permanent roles in the future.
If this is the case, your temp could be someone who looks great on paper and they seem like an ideal fit for your company. When they start to work for you, however, perhaps they don’t fit in with the culture of your company. From the young person’s point of view, they might decide the role they have been employed to do – and this could be a career choice, too – really isn’t for them.
In this case, temping is a win win. You get to ‘try before you buy’ and therefore reduce your hiring costs. Students and graduates get to sample different companies and different company cultures before committing to career roles.
You Get To Assess Young Talent
As well as filling roles you need to fill quickly, employing young people as temps means you can get access to young talent before they start applying for graduate jobs elsewhere. Even if you are employing temps as bar staff, warehouse staff or events staff, for example, you might still spot some leadership qualities or particular skills in a young person that would benefit your company if they were trained in a more senior position.
If you do spot this talent, you could offer that young person future employment – this could be a graduate role after they have completed university or an Apprenticeship. Especially if you are an employer for an SME, attracting the best young talent can be difficult. Spot this talent whilst they are temping for you, however, and you could tempt them to take a more permanent offer.
Temps Can Add A Touch Of Freshness To Your Company
Even if you have a successful team of staff working for your company, it can always be beneficial to bring in some temps who will naturally have new ideas and perhaps a different perspective on how projects might be handled. They can help prevent the workplace from becoming stagnant.
All temps will also need, if not a bit of training, then at least some guidance on how things tick over in the workplace. In this case temps can help keep your other staff engaged and motivated as they guide your young temps in their role. You could even spot some leadership qualities or mentoring abilities in your existing staff.
Temporary Staff Can Meet Workload Fluctuations
Whether you need high numbers for manual jobs or you need people with specific specialist skills, a culture of hiring temps means you can meet your workload fluctuations. You get help when you need it most. If a project ends up taking longer than anticipated, or you get new projects to complete in the meantime, many temps are also willing to stay around for longer than originally planned. They appreciate the flexibility as much as you do.
Workload fluctuations can arise for many reasons. It can be seasonal orders, one off projects, covering of staff summer holidays, covering sickness or a member of staff who has left suddenly.
Once a project is complete, because you hired temps, this means you get to be able to scale back without having to go down the path of reducing the hours of permanent staff or considering redundancies. Your temporary staff know they are temporary so they expect an end date for their role.
Cover Tasks With Temps
Sometimes, your workforce, through no fault of their own, can get a backlog of work that needs to be completed. This can be smaller, ongoing tasks that get put on the backburner whilst other work is being completed. If you get a backlog of this, temps can be hired in just to clear the backlog so that your regular staff can continue with their roles.
In an office situation, this could be role such as filing, data entry and other administrative duties, for example. Again, you could hire temps with specialist skills to complete other work.
Temps Give You Value For Money
When you hire temps in, as well as reducing your recruitment fees, you also get value for money in that temps tend to be motivated and productive. If you hire a student or graduate with specialist skills, that young person is likely to be productive because they want to boost their CV and demonstrate that they are capable of doing their role.
Temps Mean Your Company Can Run More Efficiently
Hiring temporary staff means you get flexibility you need to keep your business running efficiently. If you have the type of company that regularly needs temp workers, you can build up a team of regulars that you can call upon when you need their skills. This saves you a lot of time in the long run because when your temporary staff come into the workplace, they already know the company, the culture and the way things work.
When you employ students and other young people, they can also act as a great staff referral scheme for you by recommending their friends if you need an extra pair of hands. This, in turn, gives you access to more young talent.
Temps Can Keep Your Permanent Staff Happy
A culture of hiring temporary staff in your workplace also gives you the flexibility to offer more flexible working hours to your permanent staff. This can then be good for your future recruitment and staff retention.
Young people are attracted to working for companies that can accommodate flexibility with working hours. Also, staff who might consider applying for positions elsewhere could be more encouraged to stay if they know you are open to ideas when it comes to flexible working.
Advertise Your Temporary Vacancies
Whether you have temporary vacancies part time roles, Apprenticeships or graduate jobs on offer for young people, take a look at our audience and advertise your vacancies with E4S.
