You’ve heard all about the benefits of the contingent workforce. How making use of temporary workers can give your company access to hot skills, flexible decision making, cost savings and many other benefits that improve the profitability of your business.
Yet building a successful temp workforce isn’t as simple as just reaching out to some staffing agencies and filling your open roles. You need to build a contingent workforce management program that puts process efficiencies, cost savings and vendor performance at the forefront of your strategy.
Without a plan that focuses on vendor management and vendor performance, your company will have no real visibility into important metrics such as turnover.
With that in mind, it’s no secret that turnover can cost your business a huge amount of money. That money can have a dramatic impact on your bottom line, making your business significantly less profitable.
So, what can your business do to prevent temporary workers from prematurely quitting their assignments early and, in some cases, never even showing up for their first day of work?
#1 - Work with the right staffing agencies
When building a temp workforce, your organization will be utilizing staffing agencies to fulfill your staffing requirements. That means you need to work with staffing agencies which you can trust to place the right workers into your organization, in the right positions and at the right price point.
To choose the right staffing agencies, you'll need to ask some key questions to ensure they are the right fit for your business. Read our blog, 'How to Choose a Staffing Agency for Your Company’s Unique Requirements’ (here), to learn more about the questions you need to ask.
#2 - Make sure you hire the right workers
The vast majority of turnover happens as a result of poor fit. There could be two reasons for this when it comes to your temporary workforce. The first could be that you're providing your staffing agencies with the wrong information in terms of the skills you need and the positions you need to fill, or, secondly, your staffing agencies are failing to provide your organization with the temps it needs.
To get the right workers, it’s important that your business is able to internally define your company’s non-employee staffing needs. Understand exactly what skills you need, what desired experience you are looking for and what positions within your company you need temp workers to fill - and then make sure your staffing agencies understand as well.
This includes screening resumes properly, providing agencies with clear feedback on resources that are not a good fit with your organization and keeping open lines of communication with your staffing vendors so that any challenges or issues are addressed properly.
If you have done that and your staffing agencies still aren’t placing the right workers within your organization, it’s time to evaluate the performance of your staffing vendors.
#3 - Evaluate the performance of your staffing agencies
Unless your company is doing something dramatically wrong, high turnover in your temporary workforce program is likely an issue related to your staffing agencies. To fully understand what this issue is, your company should be monitoring and tracking vendor performance to gain clear visibility into your non-employee workforce program.
Monitoring each stage in the vendor process will empower your business to identify areas in your contingent management program that could be improved. This could be anything from a staffing agency not fully understanding what your company needs, or a staffing agency simply failing to deliver on their service level agreement.
#4 - Pay the going rate
Since there’s a markup paid to staffing vendors, many companies try to pay temporary workers less than the going rate in an attempt to save money and keep costs as low as possible. This strategy typically backfires, with temp workers leaving jobs before they have been finished for higher paying assignments.
To access the hottest skills and limit turnover, your business really should be paying the market rate for temps.
It’s not just temp workers you need to pay the going rate for either. If your staffing agency is willing to haggle their markup down a significant percentage then it’s likely they’re desperate and, although your business will save money, they won’t help your organization achieve its desired results. Staffing vendors typically want a 35 to 45 percent markup - if you are able to haggle significantly below that number it’s probably a warning sign.
#5 - Use a vendor management system to manage your temp workforce
Managing a temp workforce isn’t easy. You will be managing a wide number of vendors, with thousands of transactions and temp workers spread across them. Managing these processes simply isn’t possible on manual spreadsheets, which only lead to human error and a lack of visibility into your program.
A vendor management system (VMS) will automate these processes and consolidate your vendors into one centralized system, giving your business complete visibility into vendor performance and costs. This improved visibility will give you clear insight into where your company, and the vendors you use, may be struggling with high turnover in your temporary workforce program.
Interested in learning more about Vendor Management Solutions?
Whether you are looking for a new VMS Solution, or just getting started, we are here to help. See how easy Conexis is to use by taking a quick 2 minute Self-Guided Tour. Contact Us for a Free No-Obligation Consultation to discuss your workforce challenges (and get immediate actionable insights) or Book a Personal Demo Today!
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