5 Reasons to Hire a Temporary Employee

Need a quick project done? Or data input for marketing research? Has someone left on vacation? Hiring a temporary employee may be the solution to these projects and needs. Keep your business running smoothly by considering a temporary employee. Here are some great reasons to hire temporary staff to meet your human resource needs.

1. It’s so much faster. A phone call is all it takes to get someone at your location the very next day. Fill your unexpected needs with a temporary employee, or ramp up for product launches or special events—just get the hands you need right away. Hiring a permanent employee often takes weeks or longer. With a temp agency, all the screening and paperwork is simplified, and people are waiting by the phone, ready to work for you.

2. It’s less risky. When someone is needed right away, it is risky to use family or friends to fill roles. If anything goes wrong, from an accident to poor performance, you don’t want it to be a family member that you fire. And if you have a permanent employee to terminate, that has its own risks that distract from peak organizational performance. A temporary staffing agency will simply provide another worker so that your business can continue uninterrupted.

3. There’s a return policy. If you don’t like the temporary staffer for any reason, you can get a replacement with a quick phone call. You can’t easily do this with employees. If you are considering hiring a permanent employee, using a temp is a good start – try someone out first, and then decide later if you want to hire him. Many temp employees are looking for full-time work, anyway, so this type of trial period benefits both sides.

4. It’s cheaper. Sure, temp agency fees may be higher than the hourly wage of an employee, but using temporary staff simplifies HR responsibilities because there is no need to recruit, hire, check backgrounds, and for social security and workers comp insurance—all costly administrative endeavors. Instead, the temp agency handles all that. The service does come with fees, but it often justifies the price, especially given all the other benefits of using a temporary employee.

5. It’s Flexible. Temp employees can be hired for a day, a week, or a month—whatever meets your business demands. No need to pay employment overheads when your business doesn’t need the staff for long. If an employee is on family leave or taking a vacation, your needs may be predictable, but sometimes things happen unexpectedly like accidents or illness. Seasonal businesses, in particular, might swell their ranks for short periods of time. Using temporary employees allows you to scale your employee base based on your times of highest need.

There are many situations when a temporary staffer would make the most sense. Use temporary staffing agencies to quickly provide skilled labor to meet your ever-changing business demands.

Author Profile Jon Forknell is the Vice President and General Manager of Atlas Business Solutions, Inc., a software marketing company specializing in employee scheduling software, including ScheduleBase employee scheduling software, and other business software solutions. In the past, Jon has been recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration as a SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Atlas Business Solutions was named as one of Software Magazine’s Top 500 Software Companies in 2004 through 2007, and 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2018.