Hiring full-time employees is a time-consuming and expensive process. If you have projects that occasionally overwhelm your staff, bringing in temporary workers can lower your stress and help you meet your deadlines. However, productivity concerns can arise when you’re working with temp workers.
Find Your Teachers
There will be members of your staff that are better at directing and supervising your temp workers. You may be surprised to find that your senior employees may not be an ideal fit; change is difficult and bringing in a temp crew is always a source of change. When bringing in workers from a staffing agency in Fort Lauderdale or other areas you do business in, you may be dealing with folks of all ages.
You need a dependable staff member with strong teaching skills. Many folks working temp positions are hoping for a permanent posting. If you find that you have temporary workers showing up with lots of energy and a strong work ethic, the person you have directing them needs to channel this energy. Of course, you will need to support and empower your staff members who are leading temp workers. Additionally, your staff members will need to be the go-to contacts if you do want to offer permanent positions.
Create Small Chunks of Work
You’re probably going to get better results from your temp workers if they understand their project from start to finish. Do try to create a working space and assembly line that incorporates their entire chunk of the project.
If your staff is really stretched and you are familiar with the temporary workers you’re bringing in, you may also be able to hand them a finished product and allow them some space to reverse engineer the process. For example, if you need to create a large selection of brochures for a trade show that includes business cards in the flyers, the simplest step may be to provide a finished item and the raw goods to put things together. Allow temps a bit of time to get into the rhythm and make them aware of just how many items you need so they have an understanding of the whole project.
Temp Tech Worker Parameters
You may be in need of temp workers with strong technical skills. Carefully consider what type of information your tech workers need to readily have access to on your system. If you keep proprietary data for your organization or if you collect any proprietary data from your clients, your best bet may be to load the project you need to be worked onto a laptop and allow your temp worker to store data on that machine before you reconnect the computer once the project is done.
The handy thing about hiring temporary tech workers is that you can really hire the best skillset a la carte. You can hire these workers from around the globe as well. Best of all, if you can find a data entry contractor across the country or on the opposite side of the world, these part-time or temp contractors can process data while your full-time staff is away from the office.
Because their skillset is so strong, there are many temp workers who are exceptionally productive in their niche. If you find a top-notch producer, do your best to get on and stay on their radar. There are many employers looking for what they do and if they are nomads who aren’t seeking full-time employment, their dance card may be full the next time you need help.
It’s About Relationships
Do take care not to assume that everyone is looking for a permanent position. There are many temp workers who are quite happy with the flexibility of temp work. For example, someone who has small children to care for during the day may want to pick up temp evening or overnight work to boost their income. Students who are taking evening classes may need to earn a bit on their lighter days. Just because someone is happy working a temp position doesn’t have to mean that they can’t be reliable when they get to your facility.
Temp workers can often take a burden off your full-time permanent staff. They’re not saving the day, but they can certainly help to put out fires that are putting excess pressure on your staff. Do make sure to give positive reviews to workers who especially impress you and ask for them back by name the next time you need help.
