Flexible staffing might be the secret to growing your business.
Keep reading to find out why flexible staffing has become so popular—and how to implement it in your business.
What is flexible staffing?
Flexible staffing is the business strategy of hiring workers on a temporary basis. Unlike permanent workers, flexible staff are on stand-by for whenever they are needed. In short, you pay for the task you need, whenever you need it.
Also known as “temporary staff”, these workers will be there ready to fill any vacancy or complete any unexpected task that might pop up.
There’s a reason so many businesses are starting to depend on flexible staffing, and it is quite simple: you get all the benefits of a permanent worker while avoiding the downsides! We’ve listed below a few reasons you might want to consider this strategy for your business:
1. It’s easier to manage
As its name states, the flexible staffing model allows for maximum flexibility in your workers. When you have a vacant role or an urgent task in your business, there’s no need to run out and add someone new to your full-time employees. It is time-consuming and, frankly, exhausting to find new staff!
Understandably, the costs of full-time employees can be much more than your growing business can take, so you might be taking in less experienced workers to cut costs. You shouldn’t need to sacrifice quality for the sake of saving money, and you don’t have to.
Additionally, a 2022 survey revealed that 76% of flexible workers in Scotland saw a positive impact on their quality of life. They are more likely to be satisfied with their job, which allows them to provide higher quality work than an unhappy permanent worker.
2. It’s cheaper
When you’re constantly needing to find a new employee to get a job done, it can get very expensive, very quickly! So many fixed personnel expenses can add up, which takes a heavy toll on small businesses. (Note: we do think bigger businesses should spend on worker benefits; but for smaller businesses, these can be a deal-breaker, preventing them from even thinking of hiring someone.)
By switching to flexible staffing, you start using variable expenses, meaning you pay them as needed and can save on benefits and termination payments that small businesses often struggle to afford.
You can rely on a few specific workers to get the job done, without having to add them to the permanent payroll. Plus, you won’t need to spend money on training a new staff member every time another task pops up. You can easily fall back on your reliable, experienced temporary workers.
3. It’s more efficient
The constant hiring and layoffs in a business leads to inefficiency, extra costs, and wasted time! You spend so much unnecessary effort in finding an employee and interviewing them, before you’ve even hired them.
And that’s before getting into the training costs of each employee! Then, when their services are no longer needed, you have to deal with layoffs. Did you know it can cost 0.5 to 2 times employee compensation to replace a worker?
By introducing flexible staffing to your business, you cut down on turnover. You have a few specific workers on call for when their services are required. No need for extra hiring or training, just getting the job done!
When to consider a flexible staffing strategy
Now that you understand what flexible staffing is, you’re probably wondering if you even need a flexible staffing strategy for your business. Consider this strategy if you’re feeling challenged by:
- Finding and hiring direct employees: this can be so difficult with the overwhelming amount of people looking for jobs. How can you know if they are the right fit for you? With this staffing strategy, you allow a flexible staffing agency like iWorker to take on the task while you reap the benefits!
- High expenses: as a business owner, you quickly learn employees are more expensive than just their salary! According to a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, the cost range for a $50,000/year employee might actually be closer to $62,500 to $70,000 once you factor in benefits. We think it’s great that bigger and more established businesses pay these benefits to workers—but for smaller businesses, they can be impossible to afford.
- Hiring people quickly: the production rate in your business doesn’t usually stay the same throughout the year, and it can be difficult to have the right amount of workers on hand to meet all the demands necessary for each season. By switching to flexible staffing, you can ramp production up and down as needed.
- Finding the right staff: there’s plenty of potential employees out there but the problem lies in finding the right one for you. Not all employees are created equal.
- Lost employees & turnover: it can cost a company up to 6-9 months paid salary to replace a salaried employee, which means turnover isn’t just slowing down your production, but also costing you more and more every day!
How flexible staffing can benefit your business
If you’re experiencing any of those challenges, then this is the strategy for you. You can find the right flexible worker for your business fast who will work with you when business is booming as well as stay available on business downtime.
This leads to you saving money, meeting your business demands on time, and decreasing any work delays you’re experiencing.
Benefits for your business
In short, here are a few of the key benefits of flexible staffing:
- Lower labor costs
- Upscale and downscale as needed
- Access specialized skills in high-quality workers
- Attract talent when needed
- Support your core and full-time employees with extra help from the flexible staff.
- Increase labor efficiency with experienced workers.
What are the types of flexible staffing?
Flexible staffing can come in different shapes and sizes, but don’t let that deter you from giving it a chance. To know which type is the right one for you, it’s necessary to understand which options are out there. We’ve broken these types down into five definitions:
- Leased workers: these are workers that come from a leasing company, meaning you pay the company for their services and they allow you to use the workers on their payroll. For example, a construction company lends out its workers for your project. You give the workers direction, but the company handles their payment.
- Staffing agencies: these are agencies dedicated to finding specialized workers, so businesses can find the right worker they need. An example of this would be iWorker. You state what type of worker you are looking for, and we will find the one for you, setting up the communication channels and managing payments between the two parties.
- Independent workers: these are self-employed workers that you find and hire on your own for indefinite periods of time or specific projects, like an accountant or freelancers. You pay them directly, with no company in the middle.
- Temporary employees: these temps are workers you hire on your own when needed for a previously defined duration of time, such as extra help managing customers only for a busy holiday season.
- On-call contractors: these are direct employees in your company that don’t work full-time, but instead check in when they are needed, like a substitute teacher.
How to apply flexible staffing to your business
Knowing what flexible staffing is and applying the strategy to your business are two very different things. Fortunately, we have laid out some steps for you to start implementing a flexible staffing strategy in your business.
First, you should identify what needs your business has:
- What jobs do you need to get done?
- Which skills are necessary for this work?
- If those skills overlap, could you hire one person to do various tasks?
- Could any of your permanent workers be switched over to flexible staffing?
Before you can consider how many flexible workers you need to hire, think about the future of your business. Are you looking to expand in the future or start providing new services? Your current staff might not be qualified to get those new services done.
This is important to keep in mind, because you could hire one temporary worker that is qualified to do all of these jobs you currently need done. And, in the future, they will be available for these new, specialized tasks.
However, you might still need permanent workers in your business, so hybrid work might be the ideal strategy for you. Hybrid work allows for permanent and flexible employees to work in unison, which provides a high-performing environment by maximizing worker satisfaction.
How to train flexible staff
While the benefits for having flexible staff are numerous, there can be a few downsides that must be mentioned. These lie in the communication aspect of things, and can be resolved with effort and dedication from the managers.
With flexible work comes the need for on-the-job training. Don’t misunderstand, though. This is true for all workers, both flexible and permanent. A study done by Lorman Team says that 59% of workers had no workplace training, relying only on self-taught skills.
Luckily, online training can (and will!) solve these issues.
How technology can help
Flexible staffing doesn’t need to mean that you don’t see or hear from your workers. It’s essential to have regular online meetings to keep everyone in the loop about what is happening, what is required from them, as well as give them space to ask any questions they might have about the job.
However, before getting these workers started, you need to give them proper training! Oftentimes a few Skype calls is enough to get started. iWorker also offers its clients suggestions and templates for how to train workers. In addition, there are plenty of e-Learning platforms out there for you to use if you want to build out a more extensive worker training curriculum.
Another thing that’s useful to keep in mind is to give your flexible staff opportunities to ask questions! Research shows that, by providing a more engaging, communicative space for your workers, they will be 17% more efficient.
Legal considerations
Since flexible staff involves hiring someone, despite being a different type of worker than your regular staff, there are some legalities to consider here. For example, if you misclassify your worker, it could lead to tax issues later on. This is why it’s important to know exactly which type of worker you are hiring.
A good note to keep in mind for legal situations: in most cases, you apply the laws from the state where the worker resides, not where you or your company are located.
Another important thing to consider is specifying “Work For Hire” in the agreement you have in place with your worker. This ensures that all creations by this worker will be your property, and that you paid them for this work. Therefore, you will prevent any copyright issues in the future.
Independent workers require their own type of agreement, and to avoid any issues in this area, it’s best to allow an expert to create this and cover your bases. Essentially, a qualified lawyer will create a contract for you and your worker to sign, to protect both of you and your company.
Hiring a flexible staffing agency
An excellent staffing solution is iWorker (that’s us!). Just share with us the type of help you need (social media, graphic design, sales, marketing, etc) and we’ll send you some good candidates to review.
This is a great solution for small businesses as it allows for on-demand hiring. As you need more staff, we can set you up within 24-48 hours with someone to meet your needs.
Reach out to us by clicking on the Get Started button on our homepage.
