By Len Adams, CPC, CTS
Companies who have recently received large contracts, urgent work, or seasonal needs have a
choice to make:
Do you take on the task of trying to quickly find people to fill the extra positions or
do you hire a staffing agency to do it for you?
Here are nine reasons to hire a placement agency to the hard work for you:
- Ability to try out an employee before hiring- It is hard to determine whether an employee will fit in just through interviews. This can create a giant headache later on if the employee does not mix well with the other workers, the management, or their skills are lacking. Now you have not only a problem employee, but also a position that needs to be filled immediately. By using a placement agency, if a worker does not fit in they are simply removed from the project and replaced by the next one in line. This allows both the employee and the employer to decide whether or not the placement was successful without having to worry about a long-term relationship.
- Ability to access very specialized skills and roles for a short period of time. A new project may require skills that your team does not possess or training they cannot get in time. Placement agencies can access candidates with those talents and bring them in to complete their aspect of your project without committing to finding them another job after the specialized task has been finished.
- Ability to level out resource needs that are not constant or long term- This point goes along with the previous one. If your resources do not cover the needs of a new project, then an agency may be necessary to bring in a source for a short or sporadic period. You do not want to make a long term commitment to a short term problem.
- Quick way to get employees in without the hassle- Every person who has worked in HR or in a business environment is aware of the mountains of paperwork that come with the hiring process. For a short-term contract, the process of sorting through resumes, interviews, and eventually hiring is excessive. A staffing agency handles all of that paperwork for you, so they get the headache and you get a new worker.
- Avoidance of the ACA limits- When a company reaches 50 employees, they have to provide health insurance for their workers. If you are a small company, and not at the point of being able to provide insurance or benefits then using an agency to find contractors may be the best solution. This way they are not categorized as full employees, but they do the work you need.
- Cost appears in different place on accounting statements- Contract labor, through staffing agencies, can be directly attributed to a project and then capitalized. Employee labor is difficult to capture the complete cost and capitalize. A full-time employee may be credited with working eight hours, but how much of that was used for other administrative duties? A contracted employee is credited based on how many hours of work they put in to their project.
- Finds a much larger talent pool- Placement firms are constantly recruiting so they always have people lined up. In order for your HR group to keep up, they would have to already have jobs posted, without knowing actual need, in order to gather the quantity of candidates that these agencies have. This also allows you to see a different group of workers who may be more interested in doing short-term projects instead of those who are looking to come in to a career track at a company. It avoids any reputational problems your company may have- Sometimes a company does not have the best reputation for potential employees.
- Be honest: have there been large layoffs, scandals or public problems that are preventing your company from being an appealing place to work? Contracted workers through staffing agencies do not have as much of a choice in which company they go to. These are not your employees; they do not care if the managers agree with them, they do not pay attention to office politics, and massive layoff rumors do not affect their contract. This person has one job and that is to finish their contract and provide a service.
- Avoid fear of firing- Many business ventures can be risky, and no one likes to fire employees when something does not work out. With contract workers, there is no fear of losing their job because the contract has simply ended.
- They are not relying on you to provide a job that will carry them to retirement. This puts less stress on your ability to take risks with your company and keeps your employees from feeling the pressure if a project goes badly.
Staffing agencies have many attributes that make them appealing to help you hire workers for your company. Here are only ten of the best benefits of using a placement agency, and once you have worked with one there will probably many more reasons that come to mind.