When it comes to temps, and all your employees in general, you should be doing your best to create a great working environment that they feel safe and comfortable in. Losing temp workers due to a bad work environment can cost you more—the workers you’ve already trained won’t want to come back, so you’ll have to spend more time training someone else. What’s more, a demoralized employee might not work as hard, which can affect productivity.
Here are five easy steps you can go through to create a great working environment for all employees.
1. Health and Safety
Naturally, your temporary workers don’t want to risk their health or safety while working at your company. This is a given. Providing them with a safe and healthy work environment will go a long way. Temps who have to work with certain equipment or machinery or perform tasks that they’re not quite trained to do can result in accidents or illness. And this isn’t good for anyone. If a temp doesn’t feel safe working for you, he certainly won’t risk coming back the next time around. You should have a health and safety program in place and actively recruit your temps to take part in it. This can include having daily hazard checks, observational checks, and quick safety meetings every morning.
2. A Welcoming Environment
A cold, unwelcoming work environment can make your temporary employees feel uncomfortable. Creating a great working environment that is focused on open communication between you and your entire team can help make your temporary workers feel welcomed. Unfortunately, permanent employees often treat temps like second-class citizens—if they’re just going to leave after a pre-determined amount of time, why bother getting to know them? Though it’s true, they’re probably going to leave, this doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve to feel welcomed in the workplace. Create an atmosphere of openness, trust within your company—, and make sure you take the lead on it — to make your temps feel included.
3. Honest Communication
It happens. Sometimes you just forget about the temps working for you. You’re busy with other responsibilities and you’re attending to the needs of your permanent employees. But ignoring temps and keeping them out of the loop can make them feel unwanted, so open communication is important. Your temporary workers should feel like they can talk to you and that they know what’s going on when it affects their job.
What’s worse than just simply not communicating with your temp is to be dishonest with him. For example, a temp might feel frustrated if you’ve tried to motivate him to work harder by hinting at or promising him a full-time position. This dishonesty can make him feel used. You should be honest and realistic about your expectations and his future at your company.
4. Give Credit
Your temporary employees help you out when your business is busy—they bust their butts to get the job done fast and efficiently. And they should be given credit when it’s due. Nothing is more demoralizing than working your hardest and not getting any recognition for it. So try to keep morale up by praising temporary workers when the situation calls for it.
5. Be Inclusive
Discriminating against temporary workers because they’re not in it for the long haul can affect retention rates and productivity. Why would a temp work his hardest if you don’t even recognize him as a human being? An equitable and fair workplace is the foundation for a great working environment.
