For start-ups and during periods of economic uncertainty, hiring temporary staff can help your business grow and prosper. It can often be difficult to budget for employees. Many businesses have an irregular flow of business, so it doesn’t make sense to have a permanent employee sitting around twiddling their thumbs for a few weeks with nothing to do and then be rushed off their feet for months.
If the business is overstaffed, you are paying out excessive money in staff wages and NI for no good reason, which is a financial drain on the business. On the other hand, if the business is understaffed you could lose sales and customer service is likely to take a hit.
Reduce Overheads
Labour is the biggest expense on a company’s balance sheet. You need people to help you run your business, but they cost money. Many businesses have variable staffing requirements. Their trade is seasonal, so it can be quiet during some months and frantic during others. A café in a popular seaside town is a good example of a seasonal business. During the summer, trade is brisk, and the business owner might decide to hire temporary staff to help cover staff holidays and sick days. But in the winter, there will be far fewer customers, so the business owner should be able to cope with a core team of employees.
Hiring temporary staff only when you need them saves your business money. You can hire temps for short durations and not worry about paying excessive wages. This kind of fluidity is far more efficient, even in larger organisations where staff needs can be reduced based on operating performance.
Increase Sales
A business can’t grow if sales flatline, but the only way to keep your sales trajectory moving in the right direction is by boosting the force of your sales. The problem is that you may not need permanent salespeople all year round. There are bound to be periods of slow trade, perhaps during a seasonal lull. It doesn’t make sense to hire too many salespeople if you know that they will be redundant for X months a year.
Instead, hire temporary sales staff for the busy periods and make hay while the sun shines. If you use a reputable temp agency, any temporary staff you hire should be experienced and more than capable of hitting the ground running. For example, if you run a busy store in London, you can hire temporary sales staff when the city is inundated with tourists. There are always people looking for temp jobs in London, so you won’t have a problem finding suitable candidates for the job at hand.
Boost Customer Satisfaction
Maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction is critical for any business. Thanks to the internet, bad reviews and poor feedback travel fast, which can have an adverse effect on your trade. The last thing you need is to have your customers griping online about poor service. Unfortunately, low levels of customer satisfaction are common when a business is understaffed. There is nobody to answer the telephones, deal with order issues, or send out refunds. If you don’t tackle the problem fast, your customers will be taking their trade elsewhere.
Temporary workers can plug the gaps and help you maintain excellent customer service. In turn, this will allow you to attract new customers based on positive recommendations and build the business.
Identify your staffing needs and see where you have gaps that can be filled by temporary staff. Contact a temp agency and forge a relationship with them. That way, they will know exactly what type of people you need. This makes it much easier if you need to hire someone in a hurry.
