How To Grow Your Temp Staffing Business
The Challenge
When you work in the temporary staffing industry, you know how challenging it can be keeping your clients and workers engaged and satisfied. Many times a month your clients call demanding a certain amount of people for an event. And more often than not, the event starts tomorrow or even tonight! Of course, promptness is an asset you want your temp staffing business to be known for. So even though it’s a ridiculous request, you jump at the opportunity.
It can seem easy to manage 20, 30, or even 50 workers. Your managers know their teams and you think they can rely on their memory to know their availability, experience, certificates, and payment terms. You ultimately rely on the candidates to have their legal documents up to date. You seem to connect with your managers and your staff. Your clients send you compliments. You seem to be ready to expand your business.
You Start Hiring
When you want to grow your temp staffing business, you expect more opportunities to come from existing and new clients. You want to have a bigger workforce to be able to provide a larger amount of people to that client’s big gig. You want to sell and fill more hours. You want to satisfy your clients so that they will recommend you to others, and slowly but surely you want to keep bringing more and more people to your business and become an industry leader. Everything looks clear in your mind because you’ve been doing so well so far. What could go wrong?
Everything Goes Wrong
You’ve put a lot of effort into bringing your business to the next level. You’ve reinvested, hired more managers, you’ve interviewed more candidates and you have, perhaps, moved to bigger and fancier premises. Your good intentions are undeniable and everyone should see it. But one day, one of your clients calls complaining about the lateness of some of your workers, or tells you that they didn’t even show up! That hard knock repeats week after week and eventually, some of your clients stop calling you at all. Many of your managers can’t put up with such long hours and busy work and decide to quit. Some of your candidates quit as well, as they don’t feel engaged at all. You don’t understand why is this happening. Why are the same well proven methods and processes you had as a smaller business no longer sufficient?
Suddenly You Understand
You do some research, receive good mentoring, you talk to people. Finally, you figure out that a larger and more complex workforce requires a higher amount of technology to keep track of important things. Their availability, skills, permits, legal documentation, payment terms, and more, everything should be unified. You understand that your managers are just human and can only retain a certain amount of information in their memories. They can’t have everyone’s data in their minds AND keep your operations smooth. You understand that your managed teams should be interchangeable between your managers if some of them are sick or need to go on holiday. Quick, immediate, without hours of training. You acknowledge that your clients are looking for the best service. If you don’t provide it, they can go to any of your competitors, which are not just a few in such a crowded industry.
Rebounding
As you know, every cloud has a silver lining. One day you decide to not only grow, but grow stronger by leveraging technology to empower your staff. You start using a cloud-based workforce management solution that allows your managers to work from any device or location, allowing them to work from home when convenient. You keep all the important data up-to-date and available to everyone. You have staff requests at your fingertips and directly implemented into the roster. You leverage GPS technology to know when someone can’t make it in time before they even know, so you can solve the problem. Your roster software suggests the best candidates for a specific job so you don’t need to think who’s the best fit. The system knows who is the best depending on the gig.
Everyone in your company benefits from a mobile app that allows your workers to communicate with your managers to request time off. They can view their incoming shifts and payments. They even receive notifications with enough time to leave their house for work in time, getting directions to the venue. They use the app to swap shifts with relevant team members, and their managers can approve. Workers would only need their phone to clock in and out and get the client’s signature–no paper required! These and many other modern functionalities engage them with your business.
Finally, That Day Comes
Cautiously, your instinct and your easily accessible reports tell you how your operations are starting to run so much more smoothly. You start to see how your managers are happier, and they actually like to work for you. They have more free time during the day, so they have started to focus on higher-value tasks they were unable to tackle before. One day your temp staffing business receives a call from a big client. They want 50 extra people for tonight’s event. And after what happens next, you don’t suffer anymore: one of your managers inputs the request in the system, all the relevant candidates receive an immediate invitation via app to work tonight, and the 50 fastest fingers click and get the job. Your stare wide-eyed at how your client is still on the line when you can give confirmation. And that night you go to bed knowing that everything will be just fine.
As you can see, growing your temp staffing business can be easier when you decide to leverage technology to engage your staff and make your operations smooth. There are a number of KPIs and processes a modern agency should be tracking before making a decision. Check out our Staffing Software ROI calculator today and don’t hesitate to reach out to learn more.
