How to Find Quality Temp Employees When You're in a Jam

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By Lisa Hutchinson

Topics: quality temp employees

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How_to_Find_Quality_Temp_Employees_When_Youre_in_a_Jam.jpgVirtually every business owner has faced a hiring jam at some point. No matter how well you try to plan, and how efficient you are, things happen. Several employees could get hit with the flu at the same time and all call in sick. Employees could quit without notice, leaving you short staffed. A sudden family emergency can also occur at any time. Or, alternatively, you could simply end up with an unexpected influx of work that you didn’t anticipate—and don’t have the large workforce you need to handle it all in a timely manner.

When you’re in a hiring jam, temp workers can be your life savers. You can get extra hands on deck when you need them most. But you pride yourself on quality work, and to ensure that productivity and accuracy are maintained, you need to find quality temp employees—not just anyone. The temp employees you hire need to have certain characteristics, including reliability, experience, motivation, adaptability and safety consciousness in order to succeed in their short-term roles.

So how can you find quality temp employees when you’re under a time crunch and need them right away?

Don’t Hire Alone

Finding quality temp employees isn’t always easy, and trying to hire them on your own can lead to an increase in risks and costs, especially on short notice. It can also lead to a lot of wasted time. You simply don’t have weeks available to post advertisements, review resumes and perform interviews because you’re short staffed right now and need the help immediately. In an effort to save time, you might skip some critical steps in the hiring process, like reference checking, background checking, and skills testing. And this can lead to an increased risk of errors, injuries, and accidents as well as reduced productivity if you end up making hiring mistakes and hiring the wrong temps.

Engage a Staffing Agency

Working with a staffing agency can get you out of your jam quickly. A temp staffing agency will already have pre-approved candidates on file who are willing and able to work on a moment’s notice. Best of all, though, these temps have been pre-screened—their resumes have already been checked with a fine-tooth comb, they’ve already been interviewed, and they’ve already been background checked. So you can count on them being quality temp employees.

The key, though, is engaging the right agency. It wouldn’t be wise to just pick the first agency that pops up on your Google search. Not all agencies are alike, and it pays to take your time with choosing the right one.

The best agency will not only have an effective, repeatable recruitment process in place, have stringent vetting processes, and have a great reputation, but ideally, it will also specialize in your industry or the type of worker you’re looking to hire. Such a niche staffing agency will have in-depth knowledge and expertise as well as relationships with the right type of candidates. It will have a candidate pool filled with quality temp employees with the right skills, experience, and expertise that you need.

Work with Your Agency

Your agency will be doing the legwork to find you quality temp employees but the better your relationship with the agency, the better the temps you’ll get. By engaging an agency early on, you can ensure that its representatives understand your business and your needs, which means they can better identify and recruit the best candidates for your open positions when you’re in a jam.

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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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