Businesses in the Greater Boston area seek temporary or temp to hire employees with a number of expectations. Flexible staffing is beneficial in several ways, such as:
- Offering additional support during peak seasons/busy periods while ensuring low overhead.
- Completing low-priority tasks so that in-house staff can devote their core skills to strategic initiatives.
- Utilizing specialized expertise on short or medium term projects.
- Testing new processes or concepts without disrupting existing work environment or burdening in-house staff.
- Managing the costs and stress of overtime by bringing in temporary workers on a product/service that needs to be launched quickly or a difficult project that needs more hands on deck.
Today’s flexible work environment, on-demand economy, and the low unemployment rate in Massachusetts have only increased the challenge in hiring qualified temp workers. The quality of the hire is a critical consideration. Your next temporary worker may be an asset or a liability to your team or process. To avoid recruiting the wrong individual for the job and ensure that every temp hired is money, time and effort well-spent, consider the following tips.
Turn to an experienced temporary staffing services firm
A professional staffing agency experienced in providing temporary employees will give you access to local talent across multiple disciplines, such as legal, human resources, accounting and finance, office and administrative, data entry and customer service.
Besides access to talent, a temporary staffing service matches your requirements against candidates’ qualifications to determine suitability and fit, through resume screening, personal interviews, and reference checks. Based on your requirements, the staffing agency may also offer skills testing, candidate background screening and drug testing.
Effectively matching your requirements and the candidates’ qualifications is the single biggest factor determining hiring success for temporary positions.
Create a concise, complete job description
A good job description describes the competencies and skills needed to capably perform the role. It tells candidates how their role assists other processes or managers, and where it fits within the organization’s hierarchy. For temp to hire employees, a well outlined job description serves as an effective performance management tool.
Provide a detailed and unambiguous description that isn’t unnecessarily long yet covers all key aspects of the job. It will help the staffing agency find the perfect candidate match more quickly and easily. This will not only improve your success rate, but save time and money in the hiring process.
Ensure open lines of communication with the staffing agency
While a temp staffing service will do the heavy-lifting for you, a collaborative approach to recruitment is advised. That means communicating your needs transparently to the agency, requesting that you only interact with a single point-of-contact to avoid re-stating requirements (especially if you plan on maintaining long-term relationship with the agency), and being open to interactions during business hours to answer queries or alerts on top talent as and when they become available.
These simple tactics will help you avoid common hiring mistakes and take maximum advantage in your use of temporary help.