It is becoming more difficult and expensive to hire new employees in a competitive labor market. According to SHRM, it costs $4129 per employee to hire new employees. It takes an average of 42 days to make a hire. Turnover costs of $3500 for a worker you hire at $8 an hour, even though the employee is only being paid $8 per hour. These numbers do not include annual training costs, which are $1886 per year, according to Training Magazine. The highest annual costs are incurred by small businesses with fewer than 1000 employees.
It can also be very costly to hire the wrong person. It could cost your company as much as $78,000 just to replace the wrong hire, if they were making $60,000 These indirect costs include lost opportunities, new recruitment efforts, marketing delays, and employee morale.
A staffing agency offers many advantages. A staffing agency can help find the best talent for the most difficult job opportunities. They can usually do it for a fraction of what you would spend to recruit, advertise, do paperwork, interview, and negotiate salary.
Here are eight reasons why you should work with a staffing agency to help you find the right person for your job.
1. You can save time
The greatest benefit of using an IT staffing agency to help you is how much time you can save. It might take just a few days instead of 42 days to find the right person. Good staffing agencies don’t waste your time searching for the right candidate or interviewing incompetent candidates. They will conduct background checks on candidates and interview them before they present the right candidate to you.
Anybody who has ever worked in business will know the amount of paperwork involved in the hiring process. This is especially true in the IT industry. Many IT jobs are contract-based or short-term. Imagine going through this process over and over again each time you need to hire a worker for a project. Good staffing agencies handle all paperwork before you can send a qualified candidate. You get a great worker because they do all the hard work.
IT staffing agencies‘ recruiters help to save time by staying on top of the latest trends and changes in the IT industry. It can be difficult to find someone within your company with the right skills for a specific contract. If you have a new contract to fill and need someone who has the skills and experience to help your company, recruiters can help you identify that person and tell you how they can benefit your company.
This will save you time and money for your business. This is particularly important if you need your contract to begin as quickly as possible. A staffing agency can find you the right person faster than your HR department.
2. You can choose from a larger pool of candidates
Staffing agencies can help you save time by having access to a larger talent pool. Because staffing agencies are always looking for people to fill new positions, they have a large talent pool. An internal HR department may find this difficult as they might not be aware that you will require a certain type of candidate in the future. They might have to start over to find the right person.
IT staffing companies will have someone available to fill the position within a few days or less. Most cases you will only need to call the number and “place your orders.”
Staffing agencies are often thought to only work with people who cannot find work elsewhere. This is false. This is not true. Many contractors and freelancers work for staffing agencies because they enjoy the flexibility it offers. They are more comfortable working on different projects and learning new skills from multiple assignments than they are doing one job.
You can also do it the opposite way. A staffing agency is able to help you if you are looking for someone to work temporarily but would like to offer a full-time job. A staffing agency will have done many interviews with candidates so they will be familiar with who is open to flexible work and who prefers a full-time job. They will then send you the best candidate based upon your preferences.
3. Save Money
Why should companies hire staffing agencies? The biggest reason is the money they save. A staffing agency can help you save money in many ways, including these:
If you don’t already have one, a good staffing agency could replace it. It can manage functions such as attracting qualified applicants, terminating employees if necessary, and handling disciplinary actions. Because you will not need an HR department on-site, you will spend less. You’ll also make fewer payments to employees for their retirement plans, premiums for health insurance, and other benefits.
Increase training efficiency: Staffing agencies improve efficiency by reducing the amount of time that your employees spend training new hires. The staffing agency will already have the right candidate who has the IT experience that you require. A staffing agency will provide initial training to new employees so that they can contribute to your company as soon as they arrive. Your current employees can now focus on increasing sales, creating new products and reducing errors. These things can all lead to a better bottom line.
Reducing overtime: Asking employees to work overtime increases their fatigue, which can lead to errors and adds unnecessary costs to your budget. Working with a staffing agency can reduce overtime payments. This is because it reduces how many hours your staff must work in order to achieve production goals. This also reduces the risk of burnout, which can lead to fewer mistakes and less stress.
Flexible staffing is possible: Information technology recruiters and staffing specialists can help you hire the staff you need when you need them. If you know that you have an IT project of significant importance, you can hire staff to help you meet it. You can also reduce the number of employees if your company experiences a slow period in the year. A staffing agency can help you reduce some of these expenses, including lost productivity, paperwork and interview costs. They can also perform background checks, drug testing, and pre-employment testing to help lower costs.
4. Benefit from the Agency’s Expertise
Staffing agencies have a level that is beyond what human resources departments can do. While a good human resources department will have extensive experience in recruitment and knowledge about the culture of your workplace, they may not be able to provide the specific knowledge needed for a particular position or task. Staffing agencies can help find the right person for your company with the right skill set.
While your human resources department may be in contact with one group of people most of the time, a staffing agency will interact regularly with people from different industries. They are often at the forefront of technology learning. Staffing agencies and recruiting agencies will work hard to find qualified candidates.
4. The Agency Accountability
Working with staffing agencies also has the benefit of their accountability. Staffing agencies are dependent on their clients’ success, so you are their number one priority. It is not uncommon for an internal HR department to have multiple priorities. This is why it can take up to 42 working days to find the right candidate. It doesn’t matter if one agency isn’t able to do the job, you can find another one and move your business somewhere else.
5. You can access specialized skills in a short time
You may need to have skills that no one on your team has in order to take on a new project or contract. However, it may not be in your best interests to hire a full-time employee right away. You may need to wait for the contract to be completed. This will allow you to determine if it is possible to do the type of work that your company is capable of. Staffing agencies have the expertise to find you the right people. Without you hiring them, they’ll send them to you to help with the task you have assigned. After the task is completed, they will be sent to your company.
6. Reduce friction among hiring managers
You may have been in a situation where several candidates were interviewed by your company for a job and there was disagreement between your hiring managers and department heads over who is the best candidate for the job.
This can not only cause internal tension but also slow down the hiring process. It can be hard for human resources specialists to grasp the specific skills required in a field such as IT.
These situations are best handled by IT staffing agency recruiters. Their industry knowledge helps them to understand the needs of the hiring manager, often without long, tedious explanations. They can help group of hiring managers and department heads come to a common understanding on the skills-set required for the job, the best candidate, and other issues such as the job title, salary, and start date.
7. Reduce the risk of hiring the wrong candidate
This was briefly mentioned above. Every new hire faces the risk of hiring the wrong person. If you invest time, money and effort to hire a new employee and then hire the wrong person, you will have to do it again. This can lead to additional headaches and costs. You can “kick the tires,” and the IT staffing agency will select a candidate for you. If they aren’t the right candidate, you can ask for another. You can then see how they perform before hiring them full-time if they seem like the right candidate.
8. Place the Job Position in the Market
A staffing agency also saves time and money because you don’t have to worry too much about marketing or advertising for your new job. You should work with an IT staffing company to take on the same responsibilities as the company for hiring. This includes advertising for a potential hire.
Technology has made advertising more targeted and relevant, but it is still true that some advertising dollars will never be spent. This is not an issue when you work with an IT staffing agency. There is no need to advertise. The staffing agency will find the right person for you by simply telling them what kind of person you are looking for.