By Celeste Gudas
At last! You’ve been given the green light to hire, but, to your frustration, key positions remain open. Maybe it’s because you’re looking for a specialized skill set, and it’s taking longer than expected to discover the right candidate. Or, the interview process isn’t quite enough to assure a good fit with 100% confidence. In the meantime, mission critical projects have been languishing with no one to move them forward. And the fact is, with 2011 just around the bend, you can no longer postpone them. What to do? Now’s the time to deploy your Talent 911 plan: a temp to perm hiring strategy.
Temp to Perm to the Rescue
A temp to perm hiring strategy allows you to keep business moving forward by retaining prescreened, highly-skilled professionals for specified periods, providing immediate benefits:
The Show Must Go On. Buoyed by the Recovery, everyone’s ready to act on neglected strategic initiatives. By hiring a highly-qualified professional to manage key projects, you can bring 2010 to a strong close, while you continue your search for the ideal candidate.
It’s Not an Interview, It’s an Audition. Anyone can look good on paper, but you don’t really know whether they’re a good match until they’re working on the team. Temp to perm is the next best thing to a crystal ball. A veritable talent test drive, it’s an opportunity to watch the candidate’s skills and experience in action, so you can evaluate how they think, react and handle themselves in the actual workplace. Don’t forget – it allows a candidate to check you out too! Job seekers are equally anxious about guaranteeing
a good fit.
Proof of Concept. As companies start to rebuild their teams, there’s still some hesitancy to create new roles or restore ones that were cut. Temp to perm allows you to confirm whether additional positions truly return value. With a low-risk, no-obligation temp fulfilling the job description, you’ll be able to determine if the role is really necessary. Should it be full-time or part-time? Maybe it’s seasonal? Does the role improve productivity? Is it worth the expense? If not, simply end the temp contract with no messy loose ends to tie up.
Pinching Headcount Pennies. Although ‘open to buy’, you’re not quite convinced that investing headcount currency on a particular business area or project is the right move at the moment. Temp to perm allows you to provisionally fill roles until you’re in a more secure position to make a full-time hiring commitment.
Mitigate Hiring Risk to Dodge Unnecessary Turnover & Costs
Temp to perm is the ideal solution to avoiding costly hiring errors. The dollar impact of worker turnover due to a bad full-time hire is surprisingly high. Not to mention the hits to team morale and productivity you’ll experience. Here are some bottom line benefits of a temp to perm strategy:
– By hiring a candidate as a temp first, companies save on upfront full-time hire fees, and avoid steep separation costs and potential legal issues should the temp arrangement not work out
– When hiring a temp you are not typically paying them directly. From a cash flow perspective, the staffing agency bears the financial burden during the trial period, covering all employment and SG&A expenses
– The trial period can be considered an “insurance policy” to making a long-term and successful hire, with clients assessing a candidate’s experience, leadership and cultural fit
– Agencies are often willing, when transitioning a temp candidate to full-time, to offer flexible and tailored conversion fees
– A thorough staffing agency stays connected throughout the employment period, ensuring a smooth on-boarding process and double-checking that both temp candidate and client are satisfied
As a workforce solutions partner, 24 Seven takes an unparalleled approach to finding the most high-potential candidates, whether it’s for a full-time hire or contingency role. We’re not about grabbing the first “temp” available. We rigorously vet our vast pool of active and passive candidates via a hiring filter that’s based on deep client company knowledge. Beyond the immediate experience demanded for the role, we consider the soft-skill sets required and understand the role’s place in the grand scheme of the client’s business growth. With over a decade’s experience, 24 Seven has built a reputation on making the perfect match for each client.
