UNITEMP Blog

Great staffing results don’t happen by accident.

They occur when smart people (like you) invest in creating the best possible relationship with a quality staffing firm (like UNITEMP).  Don’t leave your staffing success to chance.  Use these 10 ideas to achieve better staffing results:

1. Give temporary employees formal job descriptions. Job descriptions should be well-defined, prioritized, current and submitted in writing to your staffing firm.  They should include your expectations in terms of candidate abilities and experience, along with specific performance goals and standards.
2. Give your staffing service as much lead-time as possible. This will optimize your chances of finding an ideal candidate for the assignment and may give you more than one suitable candidate to choose from.  And when lead-time isn’t an option, let your staffing provider know which skills and traits are most critical for the assignment.
3. Be mindful of cut-rate deals. People – including temporary employees – are your organization’s most important asset.  They should be viewed as an investment, not an expense.  When it comes to staffing, you get what you pay for, so work with a staffing service that takes the time to fill your needs correctly.
4. Train your staffing services representative. Educate your staffing representative on your company’s mission statement, goals, culture, history and current performance.  Tell them what types of work styles or personalities will fit best in your organization.  Familiarizing your representative with your company’s needs and preferences helps your staffing partner become a more knowledgeable extension of your human resources department.
5. Take full advantage of your staffing vendor’s resources. Invest a little time to learn about your staffing firm’s full range of capabilities and value-added services, so you can take maximum advantage of their resources.  A good service can provide not only qualified candidates, staffing flexibility and cost savings, but staffing expertise and employee relations support as well.  To learn more about your staffing service, request a tour or a capabilities demonstration.
6. Set clear expectations. Establish mutually agreed upon expectations for interaction with your staffing supplier at the beginning of your relationship.  This may include order-placing procedures, appropriate quality control checks and feedback methods.  Setting expectations will ensure clear communication and expedient service.
7. Benchmark performance. Find out what tests candidates are required to take at your staffing firm.  When candidates are referred to you, ask what their test scores are.  Establish preferred scoring levels for placements within your company, using your own employees as benchmarks.  Additionally, encourage your temporary employees to take advantage of training available at the staffing firm.
8. Provide feedback. Maintain an ongoing dialogue and honest relationship with your staffing contacts, keeping them abreast of changes in your company.  Provide feedback on their service and the performance of their temporary employees.  Meet regularly to obtain their input on what you can do to improve the quality of service and placements.
9. Create a partner in your success. Consider involving a staffing firm in your company’s business planning.  For example, you might include your staffing representative in an annual meeting to plan staffing strategies.  Staffing experts can offer valuable insight regarding the possible uses of strategic staffing to meet your needs for workload variations, new hires and managing attrition.  They can also offer valuable market data to help you retain key employees.
10. Reward results. High quality staffing firms focus on more than filling orders.  They want to help you save time, lower expenses and get work done.  When you find a vendor who does a great job, look for opportunities to enhance the relationship.  Invite them in.  Challenge them to help you solve problems.  See what you can do to reward their good results.  Not only will you make your top vendor happy, you’ll increase their commitment to your success.

What can UNITEMP do for you?  Give us a call.  Together, we can explore opportunities to enhance your staffing results by:

• identifying inefficiencies where work could be performed at a lower cost;
• providing access to qualified and diverse candidates seeking temporary employment;
• offering the staffing flexibility you need to stay fluid during economic challenges.

In the wake of historic employment litigation (e.g., Vizcaino v. Microsoft), some companies have adopted policies limiting assignment length for temporary and contract employees from staffing firms.  Why?  These employers view assignment limits as a way to protect themselves from the kind of “retro-benefits” claims Microsoft faced back in the 1990s.

Unfortunately, these assignment limit policies have downsides.  They can cause economic harm to on-time temporary or contract employees whose assignments are terminated prematurely, and they can disrupt your company’s business operations.  To better protect your organization, you should closely examine its staffing policies to ensure that such limits are truly necessary – and not based on misinformation.

If you have questions about co-employment law, as it relates to assignment limits and associated benefits, here is a great resource with the answers you need.  The American Staffing Association’s Staffing Smarts Intelligence Report:  Assignment Limits and Concerns About Benefits Liability, by Edward A. Lenz, Esq., General Counsel, reviews the basic principles of law that apply to employee benefits plans, and then describes steps employers can take to avoid retro-benefits exposure:

Create a plan that expressly excludes staffing firm employees. The report suggests template language (that your legal counsel should review)  you can use for the purpose of excluding staffing firm employees from participation in your Erisa plan.

Use employee waivers. In addition to amending benefits plans, you may be able to achieve additional protection through agreements in which the staffing firm’s employees expressly waive their right to the company’s benefits.

Allow the staffing firm to handle employment related functions for temporary and contract staff, such as:  recruiting, screening, determining wages, hiring, firing, assigning, resolving disputes, disciplining, etc.

Keep the lines between direct staff and contingent staff clear. The report includes several other steps (such as channeling social invitations through the staffing firm) you can take to avoid blurring the distinction between your core staff and temporary employees.

Make Co-Employment Work with UNITEMP. Read our tips for successful co-employment, or contact UNITEMP with your staffing questions.  Our goal is to help New Jersey employers like you use staffing to achieve more.

Part 2:  Co-Employment Tips for Success

An earlier post featured a link to a brief quiz on co-employment laws.  How well did you do?

If your score was less than perfect, don’t worry.  This week’s post contains practical tips to maximize the effectiveness of your co-employment arrangement, while minimizing the potential for problems:

• Let the staffing firm do its job.  When co-employment problems occur, they often stem from situations in which a client company unnecessarily assumes employment responsibilities over temporary or contract workers.  So remember that when you pay a temporary or contract employee’s hourly bill rate, included in that rate are the services the staffing firm provides – recruiting, interviewing, testing and selecting candidates.  Head-off potential problems by allowing the staffing service (who is the employer of record for these workers) to perform these tasks.
• Take advantage of on-site coordinators.  If you have a large temporary workforce, ask your staffing service to provide an on-site representative.  This individual can reinforce the staffing service’s role as employer, by carrying out administrative functions, handling performance counseling and addressing disciplinary action.  Although there may be a charge involved, the benefits usually far outweigh the costs of an on-site coordinator.
• Give the staffing firm specific feedback on their employees’ job performance.  If performance issues arise, it may seem natural for you to speak directly with the temporary or contract worker assigned to you.  But to steer clear of potential co-employment problems, you should instead speak with your staffing representative about your concerns.  That way, when the individual is subjected to disciplinary action, the staffing service will be able to provide him or her with the performance-related reason for the action – making the individual far less likely to consider the action to be discriminatory, or to file a charge.
• Allow the staffing firm to handle employee termination.  If you are dissatisfied with a temporary or contract worker, ask your staffing provider to handle disciplinary action and / or termination and replacement.  Provide information about the individual’s work performance to your staffing representative, and then allow them to handle the rest.
• Review your benefit plan descriptions.  Ask an expert to make sure that the language in your benefit plan effectively excludes temporary employees.  To guard against lawsuits that stem from ambivalent wording, be sure to incorporate exclusionary language that makes benefit entitlement dependent upon your employment classifications – regardless of common law definitions.

Ensure Successful Co-Employment with UNITEMP

As a leading New Jersey staffing firm, UNITEMP’s staffing experts can work with you to develop effective co-employment procedures from both a legal and operational standpoint.  Give us a call to learn more.

Temporary employees can be a great asset to your organization.  They can help you meet critical deadlines, fill-in for unplanned absences and free your core staff to focus on their most important tasks.

But if your company uses large numbers of temporary employees, it’s easy for your direct staff to fall into an “Us vs. Them” mentality.  And while treating temporary workers as an entirely separate workforce may seem innocuous, the practice can have unintended consequences for your direct employees. 

For example, research from the University of Arizona has found that direct employees (particularly at lower levels) are less satisfied with co-workers and bosses when working with a higher proportion of temporary employees.  Why?  The responsibility of training and socializing temporary workers on company-specific processes is often assigned to direct employees.  As a result, having more temporaries can complicate full-time workers’ jobs.

Here are a few suggestions for improving the working relationship between temporary and direct employees to achieve even better staffing results:

• Make temporary employees feel welcome.  While temporaries are, in fact, a separate part of your workforce (and must be treated differently because of co-employment laws), you and your staff can still make them feel welcome in your organization.  By encouraging social interaction (e.g., formal or informal introductions) among all workers, you can foster social ties that are essential to a cohesive workforce.
• Educate your direct staff.  Take the time to clearly explain the role and value of temporary workers.  The better your direct employees understand the benefits temporary help provides, the more likely they’ll be to work productively with them.
• Take advantage of training.  If you use large numbers of temporaries, many staffing services will develop customized orientation and training programs for specific positions.  This shifts the time-consuming burden of getting new temporary employees up-to-speed off your direct employees’ shoulders.

Bottom line, there are a number of steps you can take keep relations between temporary and direct employees positive.  And the more positive their working relationship, the better your results will be.  Contact UNITEMP today to learn more about our smart staffing solutions for New Jersey employers.

Temporary employees can do so much for your business.  They can help you:

• meet critical deadlines;
• lower employment expense and risk;
• and free your staff to focus on core competencies, to name just a few.

But while using staffing services is clearly a smart business strategy, the ways you use them can be an equally important consideration.  Here are a few best practices to help you get the highest return from your contingent staff, while minimizing co-employment concerns.

1. Set clear performance expectations.  Determine what you want temporary employees to accomplish and provide those requirements to the staffing firm.  Document tasks to be performed, required skills, and expected standards of performance.
2. Benchmark your staff.  Ask your staffing provider to test one or two of your staff members using their skills assessment software.  This will help you determine which tests your temporaries should take, as well as minimum acceptable scores.
3. Do not tolerate poor performance.  Track each temporary employee’s job performance.  If any of them fail to meet your standards, ask the staffing firm to replace the employee(s) immediately.
4. Prepare your staff.  Foster a  positive work environment by clearly explaining where and why you are using temporary employees.  Open communication will encourage cooperation and keep your staff from viewing contingent workers as a threat to their own job security.
5. Provide a job site orientation.  Provide a facilities and resources tour for new temporaries.  Be sure to introduce them to co-workers and onsite supervisors who can answer questions and provide direction.
6. Do not train contingent workers.  If training is required, ask your staffing vendor to handle the training.  You want the employer of record to be responsible for training of its employees.
7. Do not negotiate the pay rate of your temporary workers.  While it’s fine to negotiate bill rates, all discussions regarding pay, benefits, and raises should be between the staffing service and its employees.
8. Do not coach a temporary on job performance.  Provide all feedback to the staffing firm’s service coordinator and request that they, in turn, coach the employee.
9. Train your service coordinator.  Bring the service representative on-site to inspect your work environment and develop a thorough description of job duties and performance expectations.
10. Do not terminate a temporary employee directly or discuss future job opportunities.  All changes in job status should only be discussed with the staffing firm.  You may refer temporary employees to publicly available job openings.

Achieve More With Staffing

UNITEMP wants you to achieve even better results with staffing.  Contact us today to learn more about how our services can help you save time, money, and headaches.