Temporary Recruitment? Permanent Recruitment? Confused on how to hire your next staff member? Keep reading…

Temporary recruitment (also known as casual or labour hire) can offer the following benefits:

Flexibility

Hiring a temp allows you to have coverage through busy times and reduce staff hours and wages in slow periods. You can call on temporary staff to cover sudden employee absences, unexpected business demands and special projects.

Trial before you commit

You can trial the employee on a temporary basis and offer them permanent employment down the track once they have proven to be the right fit for your business. This will give you time to assess their skills and team fit, and look at your budget to make sure you can commit to another permanent employee’s wages.

Save money

In the short term, the cost of hiring a temporary staff member is often cheaper that the cost of committing to a permanent employee. However, temporary assignments that are expected to run for more than a couple of months may actually end up costing you more than making a permanent hire. Make sure you do your sums before you make any decisions.

And if you are hiring a temporary employee through a recruitment agency this can also save you a lot of  time and money. Agency fees cover statutory costs such as insurances, payroll, tax, superannuation and payroll tax on super. There may also be tax benefits for your business when hiring temporary staff through an agency, so speak to your accountant to find out what will work best for your business.

Now let’s look at some possible cons:

Training

When a temporary employee starts an assignment, regardless of their level of skills or experience, they will require some form of training and induction. No one can walk into a new work environment and automatically know how systems and procedures are managed without any training. So be prepared to put in some time during their first few days.

Reliability

If you take on a temp and offer them a 3 month assignment with no promise of moving them into a permanent position, I can guarantee you they will be hunting for other work at the same time. So, if they are offered a permanent position 1 month into the assignment it’s highly likely they will take the permanent offer, and most likely without any notice. Just remember that the flexible arrangement of temp works both ways, if you can let them go with no notice, they can also walk with no notice.

Us and Them
Cracks can begin to show when you have long term temps working alongside permanent employees. Temporary staff can sometimes begin to feel like they deserve the same benefits as permanent staff, and permanent staff can often treat temporary staff like they aren’t part of the team.