4 Reasons to Hire Temporary Staff When You Have Empty Positions

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By Lisa Hutchinson

Topics: Temporary Staffing

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4_Reasons_to_Hire_Temporary_Staff_When_You_Have_Empty_Positions.jpgWhen you have empty positions at your company, you might go straight to thinking about who you need to hire to fill them permanently. But wait, not so fast. Have you considered filling the positions with temporary staff instead?

Temp work is on the rise, and for good reason. Having temp workers on staff can often be more beneficial than hiring more permanent workers. Just check out these reasons to hire temporary employees.

1. Reduce Your Costs

The cost of hiring temporary workers is often lower than hiring permanent staff. This is especially true when you employ a temp staffing agency to do your recruiting and hiring for you. The agency is the temp workers’ employer at this point, not your company. This means the agency bears the financial burden of advertising empty positions, screening, testing, and interviewing.

But the cost savings don’t stop there. Permanent staff can be costly. Not only do you have to pay a salary, even when your workload is low, but you also have myriad other expenses associated with permanent workers. You’ll dish out a lot on medical benefits. You’ll have to pay for sick days, holidays, and vacation. You’ll also have to pay your share of employment taxes, Employment Insurance, and Canada Pension Plan contributions. Then there’s the costs of administration—the payroll processing and paperwork, etc.

With temp workers you don’t have to pay any of that. You pay a straight wage and the agency’s fee, and that’s it. This can be significantly more cost effective than hiring more permanent employees.

2. Maintain Workforce Flexibility

One of the top reasons to hire temporary staff is workforce flexibility. You no doubt understand how expensive it is to have too many workers on staff—you increase your payroll costs, which can damage your bottom line.

Temp workers might better meet your workforce flexibility needs. When influxes of work occur, you have the extra hands on deck that you need to maintain productivity, employee morale, and customer service. But when work slows down, you don’t have to keep paying fixed payroll costs. You can ship the temp workers back to their agency until you need to hire them again. These short-term flexible work arrangements can ensure that you always have the exact amount of employees you need, at any time. You’ll always have an efficient workforce.

3. Temps Make Great Permanent Employees, Too

Hiring new permanent workers when you have empty positions can be risky. You might make poor hiring decisions and hire new employees who aren’t cut out for the job or aren’t a good fit within your work environment. And this can be worse than hiring no one at all—it can result in high turnover costs, reduced productivity, and wasted time.

Hiring temporary staff to fill those empty positions first, though, can let you see those workers in actions and to evaluate their skills and capabilities, without commitment, thanks to the advantageous temp-to-perm hiring model. Hiring temp workers is an excellent and cost-efficient way of recruiting new staff members and testing abilities before signing them on permanently. This can reduce your risk of hiring mistakes by allowing you to make informed hiring decisions.

4. Maintain Productivity while You Search

At the very least, hiring temp staff to fill empty positions can allow you to maintain productivity while you search for a full-time worker to fill the void permanently. The longer you’re short staffed, the more damage you can do to your company, to your employees, to your customers, and to your bottom line. It pays to fill those positions quickly until a permanent replacement can be found.

Reducing your costs, maintaining workforce flexibility, testing out workers before hiring them on permanently, and maintaining productivity are only three of the reasons to hire temporary staff. The next time you have empty positions, consider filling them with temps. 

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Lisa Hutchinson

I started with Liberty Staffing in 2004 as the Regional Business Manager of the London office. I have over 20 years of experience in the customer service and retail sectors, as well as leadership experience including Store Management, People Development and Recruiting. In 2016, our London location moved to a larger office in order to accommodate growth of our business, which included adding a Clerical Division.

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