How Staffing Agencies Can Boost Staff Productivity and Disposition
Some employers regard staffing agencies as a gamble, and that’s understandable. Even when 90 percent of American businesses now use staffing firms, the results have been mixed.
If you speak to a group of entrepreneurs or HR reps, you’ll typically get a variety of answers about their experiences with staffing firms. Some will recall full-time hires that exceeded expectations, but others may have gone through dozens of temps before they found one that stuck around for more than a month.
Given the fact that staffing agencies will have hundreds or thousands of potential employees in their network, you would think they’d be better able to guarantee excellent and dependable candidates more often. So is this the nature of the beast with staffing firms? Is it always going to be a gamble?
Not necessarily. Not all staffing firms are created equal, and the way they choose and groom candidates has a significant bearing on eventual performance (and whether the person gets hired on full time at the end of the temporary assignment).
It’s in the agencies’ best interest to perform well, since most of them rely on social proof and word-of-mouth to build their reputation. But how can a staffing agency cultivate an environment that lends itself to more reliable, more productive workers? And what benefits do these strategies confer?
The Approaches
Staffing specialists such as the ones at First Professional Services employ the following tactics to ensure we attract and propose the best candidates for client firms. Not only does this filter out the least reliable workers, it also encourages better work ethics among those who pass our tests:
- Candidate selection. Everything starts with choosing the right candidates. More than 15 million people sign up for staffing agencies each year, for positions that range from entry-level administrative assistant to seasoned CEO. But not all the candidates share the same work ethic, obviously. Regardless of education, experience level, or background, some employees are more willing to work hard to get results for their employers, and some are after a long-term working relationship, but others want little more than an easy paycheck. At First Professional Services, we screen applicants with personal interviews, not just a typing test and highlighted resume, to learn more about who we’re considering, and to guarantee that all our contracted employees have the drive and heart necessary to get the job done.
- Individual relationships. Staffing agencies that take the time to build personal relationships with their employees, rather than just collecting them into a pool, also tend to be more successful. The individual attention instills workers with a sense of recognition and gratitude, and makes them feel they’re a valuable and appreciated extension of the organization. In response, they work harder and strive to uphold a positive image. As another advantage is that this approach helps agencies find better fits for their workers.
- Customer service. We view staffing agencies as a service for employees, and we do what we can to make the service as desirable as possible. Whenever a person isn’t satisfied with an assignment or the way the agency is running, we regard it as our responsibility to step in and try to make accommodations (if that’s possible, and when it doesn’t conflict with the agency’s core values).
- Mutual feedback. Good staffing agencies also provide opportunities for mutual feedback. Employees are offered an opportunity to review the agency, as well as the agency reviewing employees. This makes the worker feel more valued, as well as giving him or her opportunities to improve. It also helps an employee feel more like an integral part of the organization, rather than just replaceable work fodder.
- Strong culture. It’s also smart for a staffing agency to cultivate a strong central culture, including core values that foster motivation and commitment. If an agency doesn’t appear to possess any core brand, its contracted workers are less likely to be unified. How can you be sure those employees share the same values as your organization? It’s also worthwhile to note that culture is more than just words on a page; a strong staffing agency needs to live its culture, by committing to and enforcing its core values at all levels.
The Results
What happens when you adhere to these approaches?
- More investment. Employees feel like they’re a part of a bigger team, and they commit to the core values of that organization, which means they are more invested than unmotivated counterparts elsewhere. When they take on more positions, they’re automatically more invested in them; they regard them as genuine opportunities, rather than pointless, temporary assignments.
- Higher loyalty. You’ll also notice that employees from these staffing agencies are more loyal and more dedicated than others you may have encountered. They show up on time, every time, and are less likely to drop an assignment because they don’t feel like doing it anymore. They want to preserve a good relationship with the employer and the agency, so they strive to create a good impression.
- Higher productivity. Speaking of good impressions, employees from the right staffing agencies will be more productive -- for a variety of reasons. They’re more eager to prove themselves, more confident about their abilities, and they’ll end up in positions that are better served by their skills and expertise.
- Higher morale. As an added benefit, such workers will tend to have a higher morale level. Not only does this raise their productivity and job satisfaction, but it may also have a contagious effect on the rest of your staff. Positive employees who appreciate their jobs tend to elicit similar feelings and behaviors from their coworkers.
- When staffing agencies are consistent in their practices, you can bet that one good employee suggests more good employees are available just around the corner. The values and work ethics of an agency’s workers tend to be fairly consistent, in spite of individual differences.
If you’re looking to get started with a staffing agency that treats employees right, contact First Professional Services today. We build individual relationships with every worker in our network, and those relationships carry over to higher productivity, higher morale, and better results for your firm.
Talk to us today to learn more about how our process improves our workers’ attitudes and work ethics.
