How Tempting Are Temps?

The days when a temp was just someone who sat outside a manager’s office while his secretary was away on holiday are long gone.

In today’s rapidly changing world of work, flexibility is very much in the minds of both employers and workers. For growing numbers of organisations, employing temporary staff through recruitment agencies is now a permanent strategy. At the same time, more people than ever are embracing temping – either for a better work-life balance, to increase their employability, or as a career choice.

These trends look set to continue, as the use of temps becomes an increasingly attractive solution to many companies’ staffing problems.

For some employers, temporary workers help to maintain the continuity of their businesses, providing short-term cover for holidays, or emergency sickness cover. For others, temps provide a cost-effective way for organisations to acquire the specialist skills required to carry out specific projects.

Temporary help can also give a company access to the local talent pool by utilising temps on a ‘temp-to-perm’ basis and screening potential employees before recruiting them permanently.

AB, CD of Sevenoaks-based EF Limited, uses temporary staff as a way of minimising the risks in recruitment.

She explains: ‘We employ temps with the expectation they’ll go permanent. It’s good for them because it gives an insight into our company. It’s good for us because we get to see whether they’re suitable.’

The use of temporary staff is often related to the level and consistency of customer demand. The less predictable the volume of business, the more temps are used. This approach offers employers many benefits, which include avoiding traumatic redundancies and the costs that often result from over-staffing.

According to AB, DE at Tonbridge-based FG company, temporary staff provide an ideal solution to the problems of fluctuating business needs:

‘We are often introducing new products, which greatly increases the workload in our sales department, says A. Bringing in temps during these busy periods enables us to have the assistance of these people when we need them, without the costs when we don’t.’

And, as an organisation seeks new ways of improving its competitive edge, temps can play an important role. As part of a flexible workforce, their numbers may be flexed to the needs of the business, helping to drive down costs, increase responsiveness and deliver a high quality of service to its customers.

So, just how tempting might temps be in the future?

The continuing transformation of the economic and financial environment marked by developments such as, globalisation of markets, just-in-time management and business process outsourcing, will undoubtedly increase the need for rapid adjustments in how companies operate – particularly, their staffing arrangements.

Recruitment agencies and their temps are likely to play a vital part in meeting this need.