Hiring temporary employees is on the rise in Canada, with more and more companies choosing to turn to staffing firms to find their temp workers and solve their staffing problems.
There’s actually a really great reason for this, and it’s that temp employees offer companies five big benefits.
1. Not Their Employer
When you take on temporary employees, you’re actually not employing them yourself. Instead, you’re working with the staffing agency that represents them. The firm, in turn, supplies you with quality temp employees.
This has a whole host of benefits for you as an employer. For one, any mediation that needs to take place during the course of their employment is done externally. Your time and energy can be directed more fully to making sure that they’re skills are put to the best use while they are with you, because any bureaucratic tasks are taken on by another party. All HR tasks, including payroll, are handled by the staffing firm.
2. Specialization
The stereotype of the temp worker as someone who is only suitable for administrative work or menial tasks around the office doesn’t hold up to the current shape of the temporary employment market. In fact, quality temp employees are actually more likely to have specialized skills that are essential to intricate and complex work.
Taking on a temp worker can be a great way of finding someone who is capable of highly specialized tasks, the sort of skill set that you may not find among your current employees.
3. Project Deadlines
One of the most common reasons for a company to bring on quality temp employees is to get help meeting project deadlines that are fast approaching. Expecting your current workforce to absorb the additional labour that comes about in stressful and overloaded periods of work is not great for company morale.
While you may not need a full-time person, temporary workers are ideal for this situation. They’re able to step in immediately, require little training, and can help ease the strain of deadlines and complicated projects.
4. Opportunities for Full-Time Work
Though quality temp employees begin on fixed contracts, they don’t have to remain that way. For many companies, hiring full-time employees can represent a fairly big risk.
You’ve yet to see proof of their performance or work ethic. Should they not work out, the turnover can be costly. If you bring on temporary workers and find that their work is of the calibre you need, you have the opportunity of extending the offer of full-time employment to them. Under these circumstances, you’re already familiar with their work and know in advance whether they’d be a good fit at your company.
5. Cost Efficiency
Easily one of the most inviting benefits of hiring quality temp employees is the cost efficiency that comes along with the decision. Hiring is incredibly expensive, but bringing on temps is one way you can decrease these costs to a degree.
As mentioned earlier, you don’t actually employ the temps themselves; the staffing firm does. That means the staffing firm is the one responsible for things like payroll and ensuring HR questions and concerns are taken care of. Aside from the huge benefit of not having to worry about things like payroll is the fact that it costs less to have temps working on your team. As highly skilled workers who are able to jump into the role immediately, they don’t require the same degree of onboarding and training processes that would be needed by a full-time hire. Being able to cut these tasks represents savings for you and your company.
