By Christine Sharratt
According to the American Staffing Association, over 2.8 million temporary and contract workers are employed by staffing agencies every day. Assuming those employees work an 8 hour day; staffing firms are billing over 20 million hours per day. I wonder if the ASA knows what value is being produced from the 20 million hours of work billed each day?
As a precursor to my next few statements, I want to mention I spent six years in the staffing industry, and I believe traditional staffing firms have and always will have a place in the business world. Many organizations need flexibility in their workforce and some firms swear by the “try it before you buy it” model that temp-to-hire services offer.
But let’s circle back to the question at hand….traditional staffing firms bill you by the hour, not by the amount of work produced by that employee for that given hour. So while buyers of staffing services know the cost of an hour worked, they probably don’t know the value or output of that hour. That’s the inherent risk of using a temporary workforce: Joe picks and packs 10 units per hour, and Jane does 25, but both Joe and Jane cost the company $16.00 per hour.
While working in temp staffing, I cannot count the number of times a customer called and did not want to pay for an unsuccessful or unproductive employee that was sent to their site to provide labor. (Because there always seems to be a Joe or a Jane who manages to pick and pack just 2 units per hour and work about 4 hours per day.)
So why not pay for the actual work completed, versus the time put in? Why not find a business partner that:
- Can provide the tools and technology to give you total visibility into each employee’s output and utilization?
- Shares in the risk of that variable worker output?
- Has the end goal of reducing your labor costs and increasing your throughput versus increasing the amount of hours billed?
That’s where New-Era fits into the workforce staffing and services industry. Only New-Era combines contract workforce management and visibility with a team of engineering and supply chain professionals who can optimize the processes and operations across your entire facility. And we’re accountable for your success—and share the resulting cost savings back with you.
Compare that you your current staffing vendor. Do you know what you’re really paying for?