Temp workers: your adaptable employees

The world of temp workers is as wide and varied as the world of work itself. With a talent pool of engaged candidates ready and available to start work immediately in many cases, the question is: how will your business benefit from using temp workers?

Page Personnel and our specialised recruitment consultants are on hand to answer your questions and guide you through the temp worker recruitment process.

What function do temp workers serve?

Picture this: you have already built your team of permanent employees and are happy with the way they are performing. However, as we all know, the only constant in business is change. And how you deal with this change will affect your team and your company’s performance.

Temp workers serve many different functions for an employer, dependent on your needs and operational objectives.

As Olivier Dufour explains, “Temp workers can bring new skills to your team or help build up or deepen existing skill sets. They allow time for you to evaluate the skills you need to take your team to the next level, or simply the next delivery.” he says. “And vitally, they are a highly cost-effective way for you to manage your businesses ever evolving needs and priorities as you only pay for what you use.”

Download here your ebook about how to recruit and manage temp workers

Are temp workers appropriate for you?

The general view on temp workers is that they are great to help cover sickness, maternity leave or general absence. However, there are many further reasons why temp workers can add value to your team. For example, how would you cope with a key customer moving a delivery deadline?

Olivier Dufour believes that all businesses can benefit from using flexibility in their workforce, as he explains. “Of course, you could reassign existing members of your team to cover the workload, but what would happen to their workload as they help to cover the absence,” he asks. “The skills and experience a quality temp worker can add to your team is definitively measurable – in terms of team stress, meeting deadlines, cost-effectiveness and upskilling, amongst others.”

What profile do you need?

Temp workers give employers like you the scope to test out new technical and soft skills in the framework of your team, to better understand how to further drive productivity.

“If the temp worker proves to be a good match, and the skills they have add value to the company, that employee can then potentially become a ‘temp-to-perm’ hire as the term is known,” explains Olivier Dufour. “Alternatively, if not a good match, the temp employees’ contract can simply run out leaving both parties able to find something or someone more suitable, “ he concludes.

Start-ups and NGOs also have great use for temp workers as they can help to expand teams without adding expensive permanent employees when, for example, the company is waiting for further funding rounds or an input of capital.

Download here your ebook about how to recruit and manage temp workers

When should your company use temp workers?

The overall role of temp workers in any business has in general hugely expanded. As Olivier Dufour explains, the roles and responsibilities of a temp worker has changed in recent years. “Initially they performed lower paying positions, such as assistants or general admin employees. Now temp workers do accounting, marketing, IT engineering, management roles – the list is almost as endless as the permanent roles that exist, “ he says.

The only real question is when will you use the temp workforce to help you deliver on your objectives?

Below we detail some specific times when our clients have asked us to help them find temp employees to help their business:

Leave - illness, maternity, sabbatical, etc.
Project implementation - ERP, discipline specific, reorganisation, outsourcing, M&A, startup, legislation, etc.
Peak - seasonal business: year-end close, Christmas period, etc.
Transition period - otherwise known as a ‘wait and see’ period

Can temporary employees boost morale?

What is another benefit of using temp workers, that might at first not seem obvious? They can be a huge boost to your team’s morale. For example, if you are approaching an important delivery for a key customer and your existing team needs to work overtime or even perhaps at the weekend. They might also need to take on extra roles and responsibilities.

As Olivier Dufour explains, “This can all add to existing stress and to the potential for exhaustion and even in the worst cases, burn-out. Temp workers can really help teams of all shapes and sizes and skill sets here. They can be the extra capacity you need to meet that deadline,“ he concludes.

Use our checklist questions to be temp worker ready

These questions will help you better understand your needs when it comes to hiring temp workers, by framing their use in terms of department need and your rationale for using them.