Josh TolanTemp jobs made a sharp rise of 19,300 in May 2022, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics insights explained by the Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA).
This means you and your staffing clients will have more openings for contract work and you’ll have an increased number of temporary workers to place. To set both your clients and candidates up for success, you must understand how to communicate with temporary workers based on their needs, expectations, and on-the-job experiences.
Use the tips below to improve communication when screening temporary workers for clients:
Make communication easy
Temporary workers often juggle multiple commitments and jobs. They may not be as quick to respond through traditional channels, such as email.
Companies should text their temporary workers instead. According to MailChimp’s Email Marketing Benchmarks, the average email open rate is 22.71%. On the other hand, 90% of text messages are read within three minutes.
Via two-way communication channels, it’s important to send temporary workers reminders about company policies and their start dates. You should also encourage temporary workers to frequently inform you about changes to their availability.
Alfredo Salkeld, Marketing Manager at SimpleTexting
Communicating and connecting with temporary candidates needs to be quick and simple, but the interactions must also be personalized. Find balance using short branded video messages for updates in the placement process, introductions to companies, and as a way to remain top of mind for these constantly moving candidates.
Over-communicate
Temporary workers may not have arrived at a job posting by choice but out of necessity. Maybe they have a more difficult time communicating which has caused them to seek temporary employment in the first place.
When placing and working with temporary workers, it’s important to over-communicate, clearly state your expectations, and have patience. They may or may not have previous experience and oversharing is definitely better than underscoring.
Jenay Sellers, Director of Marketing at GigSmart
Your temporary work candidates have a short amount of time to acclimate themselves to a company and role. It’s critical to share every detail possible to ensure their expectations of the role align with its realities.
Share the right amount of information
When communicating with temporary workers, the biggest problem is sharing sensitive information and walking the fine line between giving too little and too much information. There are things that you don’t want them to know, and no matter how good your non-disclosure act (NDA) is, you may still be worried about slipping through some of your company secrets.
When communicating with temporary workers, we add them in Slack (since we work remotely most of the time) as multi-guest channels. That way, they can only see the information that we want them to see. Additionally, they can’t see channels where we discuss our product, marketing and internal operations.
Dennis Vu, CEO and Co-founder of Ringblaze
Your staffing clients need to know they can trust you with vital information. However, it’s also important that candidates feel they can trust you’re being open and honest with them. Create a shortlist with clients of what you can share, what they prefer to discuss with candidates, and what is off-limits before entering into the temporary placement process.
Establish a rapport
It’s smart to ask temporary workers about their career objectives. Some will be using temporary work as a pathway to a permanent position. However, that’s not the case for everyone, and it’s good to know from the start whether they could potentially be a permanent employee if they fit into the company’s system.
Jon Hill, Chairman and CEO at The Energists
Frequently follow up with temporary workers regarding their job search goals and status. Depending on their goals, this allows you to know when they’re available for another contract or when they’d like to stop being contacted for temporary opportunities.
Make processes clear
Temporary employees should be aware of organizational structure. While performing their assigned task, they might need to connect with the right point of contact. Helping them in
understanding the structure could save their time as they can directly reach the right person.
Payment processes should also be clearly discussed from the start. For temporary workers, the payment process is always different. They need to submit their invoices on a specific date, using a certain format which varies from company to company.
Shradha Kumari, HR Manager at Survey Sensum
It’s challenging to keep staffing productivity high when you’re juggling client demands, candidate expectations, and temporary worker processes. Keep the wheels moving by asking clients these questions upfront before the recruitment process even begins. In addition to being organized, you’ll improve the candidate experience by immediately sharing information that’s vital to their success as temporary workers.
Spark Hire
