How to Reduce Temp Time to Hire - Viewpoint - careers advice blog Viewpoint careers advice blog

How to Reduce Temp Time to Hire - Viewpoint - careers advice blog With organisations becoming increasingly aware of their recruitment metrics and how they affect their bottom line, many are realising it’s actually better to take on a temporary worker rather than hire someone on a perm basis that’s not the right fit, or spend months trying to find the perfect perm candidate. Although their salary may be higher than a perm employee in the short-term, in the long-term savings will be made. For you to reap the full time-saving benefits of hiring the temp worker, it is critical that you reduce ‘time to hire’, i.e. that period between a candidate’s first engagement with an organisation and accepting an offer of employment. Reducing time to hire is important; being short staffed will have a knock-on effect across the business, depleting the hiring managers’ confidence in the recruitment process and creating a poor candidate experience. With this in mind, how do you reduce time to hire for temp vacancies? Anticipate who and when you’ll need to hire Recruitment plans are often made in the New Year and as part of this process, you should anticipate what percentage of your workforce will need to be flexible. You can then plan how many people you will need to find and how much resource you will need to spend finding them. Look at your past figures and see if there are any trends. What’s the average number of maternity leaves you have each year? How often were people off sick for longer than a few days? How much of your hiring was planned versus unplanned? If you are consistently underestimating the number of temp hires you need to make each year, then it’s time to re-evaluate your approach. At Hays if we have a Managed Service Program (MSP) with a client we will sit down on a regular basis to go through this process with them. An MSP is when the sourcing, engagement and administration of ‘non-permanent’ resources and tasks are managed by an external provider. Planning and predicting future talent needs is a core component of the service. The more open the clients are with their information, the better plan we will be able to put in place and the quicker we’ll be able to react to their needs as they appear. Taking an open and honest approach to your planning is the only way you’ll improve in the future. Ensure you are able to advertise an open role as soon as possible You should try to keep up-to-date job specs for all positions in your company as a matter of best practice. This means you can quickly refresh them as and when needed and roll out your job ads. If you dont have a job spec immediately to hand, a recruitment agency such as Hays should be able to send you something to adapt, especially for commonly recruited roles with a high turnover. If you have plenty of lead time for a vacancy (e.g. if you are covering a maternity leave) don’t leave it to the last minute to advertise the role. This may sound obvious but properly scheduling out your hiring/interview process ahead of time is a step often ignored despite the fact it will maximise efficiencies. A benefit of working with Hays is that we have a pool of good candidates available for ‘high-churn’ roles. Many hiring managers are actually willing to take candidates for junior roles without interviewing them if they have a strong relationship with their agency â€" safe in the knowledge that if they don’t work out they can get someone new in the next day. Speed up the process of interviewing and decision-making With junior roles, I would recommend limiting the decision-making process (and the number of people involved) as much as possible. You dont need five rounds of interviews for an admin assistant on a two-week contract. When it comes to making a hiring decision, speed is critical. In the temp world, a candidate wont wait too long while you deliberate on the pros and cons of everyone you interviewed. They need an answer the next day or they will find themselves another assignment the day after. Try to do all of your interviews on the same day and commit to making a decision before you leave the office. In sum, temp workers can save you a lot of time when it comes to hiring. However making the most of this benefit requires planning, urgency and decision-making â€" these are the key ingredients in reducing your temp time to hire! I hope you found this blog useful.  Here is some related content which you may enjoy: Attracting the Temporary Worker How to hire the right team for right now Employers beware: is your online reputation discouraging jobseekers? How prepared are you for your new starter? Five tips for an effective induction How appealing is your business to overseas candidates? Is it possible to unite a remote workforce? How to ensure your candidate enjoys their interview Share this blog: