Five Workforce Challenges You Can Overcome with Staffing Services
What are your workforce challenges? If you are like most executives/owners, your worries focus around fluctuating workloads that are a result of seasonal or unpredictable demand. You also worry about controlling labor costs, managing employee turnover, and quickly locating and hiring talent with the right combination of tangible skills, experience and that intangible “little something extra”.
These are the challenges that all businesses face at the beginning of this new decade – how to manage an unpredictable business cycle while maintaining an optimum staffing level. What does it take to keep all these balls in the air (so to speak) and maintain a profitability level that will keep your company humming into the next decade? Let’s break down these challenges and analyze them, and I will show you how Snelling Staffing Services can help you……
Managing fluctuating workloads. If your company experiences seasonal or other predictable changes during the business cycle, you can control personnel costs through the use of temporaries to supplement direct staff during peak work periods. Even if you require a large number of temporaries on short notice, planning your needs with Snelling Staffing Services allows you to keep your workforce lean, but flexible enough, to quickly ramp-up when needed.
High labor costs. In many cases, labor is the largest cost that a company will have. Any opportunity to reduce this cost should be investigated. Unfortunately, because there is a mark-up associated with the use of a staffing firm, many business leaders ignore this solution. However, the truth is that staffing firms, when used effectively, can save businesses more money than they actually cost. This is done by lowering labor expenses in two key areas:
- Convert fixed costs to variable costs. When you factor in unproductive hours, benefits, unemployment and workers’ compensation insurance, direct employees are expensive. Consider bringing in contingent staff to cover intermittent or non-core business activities. Therefore, when work is not needed, payment does not have to be made.
- Reduce or eliminate overtime. Using temporary workers to handle heavier workloads can reduce or even eliminate additional overtime costs. Besides being a significant cost to businesses, overtime can reduce employee productivity of up to 2o% (depending on sector and type of work). Utilizing contingent labor to eliminate staff overtime can be a monetary and productivity boost at the same time.
Turnover. While it’s an inevitable part of business, some job functions (particularly those that are repetitive or high stress) have inherently higher turnover rates. The costs of this turnover can be staggering, ranging anywhere from ½ – 5 times the employee’s annual wages (dependant upon his or her position). Snelling Staffing Services can help you staff these positions more cost effectively with temporary employees and alleviate the hassle and expense caused by a “revolving door.”
Finding candidates with specific skills. Job applicants may be plentiful these days, but finding candidates with the right skills for your job or project can make you feel as though you’re searching for a needle in a haystack. Staffing
services like Snelling are particularly adept at screening and testing individuals for the skill sets you require. We can:
- Shorten your time-to-hire. Our robust database and extensive recruiting networks help us rapidly recruit candidates with hard-to-find skill sets.
- Deliver substantial time savings. Sorting through piles of résumés, not to mention screening and interviewing, takes up valuable HR and management time – and distracts employees from other key priorities. Our services keep you focused on your most important tasks, while delivering best-fit candidates who are genuinely qualified for your available position(s).
- Provide temporary access to highly skilled workers. If you are tackling a new initiative or special project, Snelling can deliver experienced candidates with specialized skills on a contract basis. Use our employees to complete
projects, test new ideas or teach new skills to your direct staff – without adding to your headcount.
Immediate placement required. The unexpected loss of a key employee can significantly disrupt your business. If you don’t have a succession plan already in play, you may spend days, weeks or even months recruiting, screening and interviewing suitable replacement candidates. Snelling Staffing maintains robust candidate databases and can quickly pinpoint individuals with the right mix of skills, experience and personality traits to thrive in your organization. If you prefer to recruit candidates on your own, a staffing service can provide an interim replacement until you hire the right person.
No matter what obstacles your workforce faces, Snelling’s People+ can help you overcome them. City by city, town by town, we customize staffing solutions for all kinds of people problems. Snelling Staffing Services can deliver the People+ you need to overcome all of your workforce challenges. Contact your local Snelling office today and make us your people-problem solver.
