Most small business owners are not aware of the tremendous benefits of leveraging the services and expertise of a staffing company. Many owners have a vague recollection of working with a temp in their corporate life in a larger company but are unaware of how staffing companies can help their smaller enterprises.
Business owners who have discovered the many advantages of using a staffing agency are reaping the benefits of costs savings, better access to top talent, less administrative work, workforce flexibility, and a better-engaged workforce.
Here are 5 reasons why you should form a partnership with a staffing agency:
- Expertise Staffing agencies often have a level of expertise that far exceeds the human resources departments in most small businesses. The agencies are more in tune with employment trends, law changes, and recruitment best practices because this is their core business.
- Better Talent Pool Many smaller employers cannot compete with the larger businesses when it comes to pay and recruitment tactics. As a result, they are either unknown or left out of consideration by top performing talent. Staffing companies bridge the gap by leveraging their outreach, reputation and brand power, transferring these benefits to their clients.
- Cost SavingsUsing a staffing company is a cost effective option for certain positions within your company, especially non-exempt roles. Your cost savings will be realized by:
- Efficiency & Speed: Recruiting, screening and hiring a candidate takes a lot of time. Delegating these tasks to an expert will reduce the amount of time and expenses you spend on the hiring process. Hiring a staffing agency will also allow you to onboard your new team member quickly and reduce down time.
- Advertising Dollars: Recruiting for top talent takes an investment in advertising dollars to reach your talent pool. Staffing companies have already set aside advertising dollars for recruiting and are already reaching out to the talent you need. You can leverage their effort and dollars and save yours.
- Convert Fixed Costs to Variable Costs: For some positions in your company you could save money by converting your “Fixed Employee Cost” to Variable Employee Cost”. For example, if your business has very little room for overhead but you still need employees to respond to customer orders. Plus you gain the benefits of expert recruiting services with the costs spread out over time.
- Reduce Risk When you engage the services of a staffing firm, you get the talent but not the HR overhead. The employee reports to you but you have no liability for workman’s comp, payroll taxes and unemployment claims. Plus you have the expertise of the staffing company to reduce your risk of DOL or employee related legal claims. Hiring a staffing agency employee is also better protection against an audit instead of hiring an independent contractor (1099), especially if the independent contractor is a one-man show or performs any part of your core service offering.
- Flexibility & Morale
With the speed and expertise of a staffing company organizations can take advantage of this partnership to be able to quickly respond to new business growth, onboard many new hires at the same time for training efficiencies, and/or have a pipeline of qualified hires ready to go on short notice. As a small business owner you have the flexibility to discontinue them if the demand was not as expected without going through painful layoffs and as business picks up you will have access to great workers who can fill a vacancy in a matter of days.
The ‘temp to hire’ process also creates a more formal trial period and an opportunity for reward and recognition when individual performance and business needs enable the ‘temp/contractor’ to be converted to a permanent employee now eligible for the company’s benefit package. A staffing agency can also use a direct hire model if this is needed to hire away top talent and will usually include a replacement guarantee (60-90 days is most common).
Summary:
As outsourcing non-core services becomes more and more essential to enable business owners to differentiate and compete, a partnership with a staffing agency can accelerate talent acquisition while at the same time reduce costs, risks and turn over. Plus, once your staffing partner becomes more familiar with your culture, their ability to identify top talent for your unique needs will improve over time, giving you a competitive advantage in addition to the peace of mind having a local HR expert as part of your team.
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About Premierehire:
Premierehire is a Southern California based staffing and executive search firm. We encourage employers to connect with us to discuss their hiring needs for 2020 to prepare strategies and pipelines for planned growth and enable us to quickly engage for unexpected hiring needs.
For a free consultation please contact us at 760-579-0248 or email Leanne Abraham (leanne@premierehire.com).