Contingent Staffing Success: Tips for Successfully Managing Temporary Employees

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If you use temporary employees, then you know they can help you:

  • meet critical deadlines and relieve the burden on your core employees;
  • lower employment-related expenses and risks;
  • increase productivity;
  • free your staff to focus on core competencies.

But to get the most from your contingent workers, you must manage them differently from your direct staff.  Here are a few practical tips for successfully managing temporary employees:

Before Temporary Employees Start

To ensure success from the outset, invite your staffing service representative to your location to inspect your physical work environment and culture.  Be sure to document things like assignment length, project scope, skills required and job responsibilities when ordering.  Clearly communicate these parameters to your staffing partner so that:

  • the staffing service will be able to deliver the right candidate for your needs;
  • the new temporary will understand performance expectations;
  • the new temporary will quickly adjust to his or her new role.

Prepare your staff by clearly explaining why you are using temporary employees.  Open communication will prevent direct staff from viewing contingent workers as a threat while encouraging cooperation.

When Assignments Start

Provide a thorough tour for temporary workers, introducing them to direct staff and supervisors along the way.  Make sure your contingent workers understand whom to approach with questions or concerns.

Throughout Assignments

As a rule of thumb, discuss all issues concerning performance, pay, training and termination directly with your staffing provider:

  • Ask your staffing partner to provide additional training for temporaries, if necessary – because as the employer of record, the staffing service is responsible for training its own employees. 
  • Likewise, if job performance becomes an issue, provide feedback directly to the staffing firm’s service coordinator.  Request that he or she, in turn, resolve the issue by counseling and/or replacing the temporary employee.

Finally, remember that, as they move from assignment to assignment, temporary workers amass a great deal of diverse experience.  So when appropriate, solicit their input.  You may find new ways your company could benefit from their ideas, skills and experiences.

Achieve More with Staffing

Snelling Staffing Services wants you to achieve even better results with staffing.  Please contact us today to learn more about how our workforce solutions can help you save time, money and headaches.