Using Temporary Staffing As a Cost Containment Measure
With every business being challenged to find ways to reduce costs during this period of economic uncertainty and business slowdown, the traditional manpower strategy is to minimize your temporary workforce and employ only full time staff. This approach in many cases is appropriate, but in others, utilizing temporary staffing as part of an overall strategy to manage your employee costs, risk, and fluctuating workforce requirements can be an effective means of lowering your total labor costs while maintaining productivity.

Flexibility—Only Who You Need, When You Need Them
Addressing fluctuating workforce needs through the use of temporary labor allows companies to quickly adjust to changes in market demand without adding to their permanent workforce. By using temporary staff to balance the ebb and flow of production schedules, companies can avoid lay-offs of full time employees. This is particularly true of many non-core business processes that can be done by a temporary workforce at a lower cost and frees regular employees for more critical tasks. For firms that have implemented “hiring freezes,” bringing in temporary workers for spot projects can alleviate pressure from periods of higher demand without adding to the direct head count.

Offsetting Employee Costs
Using temporary staff can offset direct employee costs in the areas of health benefits, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance. Turning the fixed costs of full time staff into variable expenses associated with temporary workers, can provide cost savings in the short term. By having staffing firms assume responsibility for handling these items, internal administrative time can also be reduced. In some instances managing your workforce to eliminate overtime for your full time staff can also be an effective use of temporary workers.

Finding the Right Candidate
During periods of higher unemployment, there can be a number of qualified candidates for open positions. Processing large candidate pools can absorb the time of your internal Human Resources team when most organizations are running with smaller, leaner staffs. And, while temporary staffing may not be a long-term human resources solution for all firms, it can offer effective, value-added assistance to an organization that has immediate labor needs without the heavy “overhead” price tag.   

At the same time incurring the costs of bad hiring decisions in the form of high turnover, absenteeism, and poor work performance can add unnecessarily to the cost of filling both permanent and temporary positions. Staffing firms are ideally suited to minimize the risk of making a poor hiring decision and incur much of the cost of the hiring process. Staffing firms advertise, screen, test, interview, and do reference checks on prospects in order to find the best candidates. In many instances prospective employees can be hired on a temporary-to-direct hire basis, allowing a company to evaluate someone prior to hiring them as a permanent employee. Additionally the staffing company saves an employer time by managing the employee’s payroll and benefits.

Need More Information?
For more information on how temporary staffing may help address your immediate cost management objectives, go to Contact Us and send us your request. We’ll be happy to respond and tell you more about how the Morales Group can help you with your temporary staffing needs.