Get What You Pay For

You need extra staff for the season, but you do not need permanent employees nor can you afford to hire workers permanently and pay them benefits. What do you do? The next logical step is to contact a temporary staffing company for help, but unfortunately, you have never used a staffing company and you do not know what to ask.

What now?
When placing an order for a temporary employee, you need to take into account the job responsibilities along with the necessary background and drug screens required. The job duties are easy enough to address. Provide a complete position description to the recruiter along with lifting requirement, time slot, and hourly wage that you expect to pay the employee. Make sure to ask the recruiter about the mark-up. This is the fee that you will pay the firm. If you are interested in a temporary to hire conversion, there are two things to beware. Often, a firm will tell you that there is a 90-day conversion period, but they do not specify if it is 720, which includes weekends, or 520 hours, which does not. Also, make sure there is no conversion fee at the end the 90-day period.

Will you require drug screen and background check?
If you do, confirm with the staffing firm if they charge extra for this service. Some staffing companies do charge and some will include it as part of the service. Unfortunately, there are those companies that will not fulfill their part of the service, so it would be a good idea to have the drug screens conducted through a drug screening facility where the chain of custody can be returned to you for confirmation that the drug screen is complete and the individual has passed.

Recruiting firms can be a handy tool for warehouse facilities. Just make sure that you get what you pay for.