The Long-Term Potential of Temporary Staffing Automation

Many organizations continue to face talent shortages in 2019. Staffing Industry Analysts reports continuing revenue growth for temporary staffing agencies because organizations need existing workforces with contingent employees, but the agency also notes that contingent worker strategy has to continually evolve to remain relevant. Monster suggests that firms offering “total management solutions” are more likely to see success in the increasingly competitive staffing market.

The key to keeping pace in this new environment? Automation. Despite increasing concerns that automation could replace everything from contingent workforces to highly-skilled professionals, Quartz notes the bulk of automated impact will be felt in the need to educate, not eliminate, the new workforce. For temporary staffing organizations, automation offers long-term potential to help manage client relationships, reduce workplace risk, and enhance revenue growth.

Finding the Best Fit

Clients leverage staffing firms to find the best-fit candidates. This holds true for everything from front-line contingent workforces to higher-level consultants and potential permanent track positions. But as noted by Forbes, 70 percent of workforce candidates are “passive.” They’re not actively looking for new jobs.

Automation tools help parse client requirements for new staff into actionable insights that staffing firms can use to identify key talent pools and develop recruitment strategies. The use of automation also reduces the amount of time staffing agencies spend looking for initial workforce contacts. Instead of using internal staff to manually search job boards and social media sites, automated processes can identify contingent workers already in the system that meet key requirements.

Conquering Compliance Challenges

Compliance creates both opportunities and challenges for temporary staffing firms. As compliance regulations around OSHA worksite safety guidelines, worker data protection, and federal data reporting continue to evolve, clients are turning to staffing firms to help reduce their overhead and let them focus on mission-critical tasks.

Compliance for worksite evaluations and hazard identification, data handling best practices, and back-end accounting regulations often creates a profit-margin problem for staffing firms. The human effort required to manage multiple requirements both reduces ROI and increases the potential for human error. With staffing firms now required to inquire into workplace conditions and verify clients have fulfilled their responsibility, extra time spent chasing down worksite data means fewer contracts fulfilled.

Business process automation tools allow firms to enter data once and have it populate across recruiting and reporting systems, providing on-demand access to up-to-date information that helps bridge the gap between client expectations and the increasing complexity of compliance obligations.

Increasing ROI

One of the biggest impediments to staffing agency ROI? Contracts. Once clients have chosen contingent staff for specific projects, their primary concern is onboarding. How quickly can they get new staff on the job and up to speed?

However, paperwork often slows this process. Basic contracts, contingent worker terms and conditions, worksite evaluations, and service level agreements (SLAs) all have multiple data fields and signatures that are required to ensure obligations are met and all parties are protected.

While current digital systems may support data collection, automation empowers staffing companies to create mobile-enabled, reusable forms that include secure, trackable signatures for compliance and regulatory verification. In practice, this means contracts are signed more quickly, and with fewer errors, to get contingent employees in the field and increase potential revenue.

Process evolution is now critical for staffing agencies; companies must do more and spend less to remain competitive. Automation solutions from OnTask for Staffing provide long-term solutions for temporary staffing firms to improve recruitment, streamline compliance, and increase contract ROI.