Temporary staff, otherwise known as “temps”, are tremendously useful for organisations in all manner of different ways. This option is often undervalued or misunderstood. These are the top seven reasons an organisation might consider bringing in temps over permanent staff:
- Workforce flexibility – one of the main advantages of hiring temps is for flexibility. For example, if a team has a busy period or a heavier workload, a temp can be brought in to help ease the load for a while, until things get back to normal again. This avoids the need to bring in a permanent employee that may not be needed at other times.
- Cost effectiveness – by their very nature, temp staff can be more cost effective in some cases. This is because the business will not have to invest heavily in a ‘full-length’ recruitment process to get the skillset into the company. This is particularly effective for There is also a distinct cost benefit of being able to scale up and down utilising the services of temps as needed
- Gaining access to skills – the organisation may very well need certain skills for a period of time and drawing on temp workers can enable it to gain access to these very quickly to address a specific need. This can be extremely useful in the case of specialist skillsets, such as IT, Finance, HR or Administration.
- A trial run – a really great advantage for a company of engaging a temp is to try a person out in a role before committing to them permanently. This allows the possibility of assessing an individual’s capability to work within a team on the job – which is an excellent indicator of likely performance in the future.
- Cutting recruitment time – with temp workers the organisation does not usually get quite so involved with undertaking a full recruitment process. Instead, the temp agency usually plays a bigger role. This can save significant time through avoiding having to go through a full hiring process. With minimum fuss, the business can quickly have people in the door ready to do the work.
- Cover for absences – within businesses there are frequently situations that arise where cover is needed for absences, which may be planned, or not. Maternity and paternity leave are examples of planned absences, as are periods of annual leave. However, there are also situations such as a person going off sick. Temp staff can be extremely helpful in these cases for stepping in and ensuring continuity of business.
- Undertaking a project/interim working – temp workers can also be extremely beneficial for undertaking specific projects for which the organisation may not have the skill set in-house. Interim workers in particular can be beneficial for driving change and providing strategic thinking, but in a more objective way than internal staff could perhaps bring.
SureSkills is an expert provider of temps to help address a wide range of organisational needs. We can offer temp candidates across a broad range of industries and roles. If you’re thinking of bringing in temps, why not contact us now to see how we can help?