The Most Appropriate Jobs for Temporary Workers

From: www.allbusiness.com

Across the board, companies now use temporary professionals to handle special projects, to fill in during employee shortages (due to sudden expansion or contraction, maternity or disability leave) and to provide help during seasonal or peak periods.

Besides helping out when someone is sick or on vacation or maternity leave, using temps is also a great way to recruit and test the abilities of new employees before signing them on full-time. Some firms test the waters with temporary workers to determine the need for full-time positions. This "temp-to-perm" strategy can be an effective means to identify candidates for the new position and/or to determine the qualifications and qualities that the job requires. As long as you have your own well-established job description and management plan for the temporary position, you can build a clear path toward a great candidate.

Other firms use high-level temps as consultants when they need to start a new department or implement a new service. For example, if your company is about to sell its products internationally for the first time, you might want to bring in an international sales expert to get your sales staff up to speed on global commerce. Or, if you are setting up a call center, you could bring in a former call center manager to set up your new operation and train an in-house employee to run it.
Hiring a temp is also a great way to continue getting work done while you search for the perfect candidate. While you search for that fabulous human resources manager who speaks 10 languages and can do backflips when cheering on your team, you might want an ordinary HR specialist to fill in and keep the department running smoothly.

To service the specialized requests of today´s companies, temporary-staffing agencies have also become increasingly specialized. According to the National Association of Temporary and Staffing Services (NATSS), office and clerical skills still account for 43 percent of temporary help industry jobs. The industrial segment, which includes manufacturing, warehousing and maintenance, accounts for 30 percent of the business. Professional, technical and medical segments have been undergoing rapid growth as the demand for more highly skilled jobs continues to rise.

This trend toward temporary specialization and high-level temps should continue as more and more professional, well-educated workers jump on the temporary bandwagon. Fueling the growth will be full-time, college-educated employees who want more career flexibility, retirees eager to return to work part-time and parents who want to continue to work part-time.

So, next time you wonder what to do when your best advertising rep quits or your head of distribution wants to take an extended family vacation to Africa, call a temp agency. With today´s pool of temporary workers, you could end up with a star.

As you weigh the decision about hiring temporary workers, be sure to consider the length of time you'll need the help and the number of positions you need to fill. The Cost of Temporary Workers cautions against some of the mistakes that companies make when relying too heavily on temps.