What is flexible staffing?
Flexible staffing means you hire contingent workers to temporarily meet your staffing needs instead of hiring regular, full-time staff to fill a vacancy. Flexible workers can be contract, temporary, freelance or seasonal workers depending on your needs. You might hire them for a specific timeframe or keep them on staff indefinitely until your staffing needs change.
What are the benefits of using flexible staffing?
As the name suggests, this hiring strategy offers you more flexibility. You’re not committed to a regular employee, which can save on hiring costs, benefits and other expenses. You can easily scale up or down when your workload changes to control employment expenses. Your organization can gain other benefits as well, including:
- Staffing a temporary project
- Getting specific skills you need
- Filling a temporary vacancy, such as an employee on maternity leave
- Ability to adjust in an uncertain economy
- Taking repetitive tasks from regular employees to assign them more pressing tasks
- Ability to test out potential employees before hiring them full-time
- Filling positions quickly
Getting started with flexible staffing
Before you start hiring a flexible workforce, review your staffing plan and consider your current and future staffing needs. Look at your company’s long-term goals and how a flexible workforce could support those objectives. Identifying the skills that are missing from your current employee roster can also help you plan for a flexible team.
Identify which roles are the best candidates for contingent workers versus regular team members. For example, you might hire a full-time marketing specialist but use freelance writers and designers to develop the marketing material. Decide how much you want to rely on flexible staffing for your company. For instance, you might prefer permanent employees but keep a small roster of flexible workers for times when you’re in a staffing bind.
Plan for how you’ll manage your contingent workforce. This includes things like creating an onboarding process, communicating with them and assigning projects. Plan for training your permanent employees on how to work well with temporary employees to keep productivity high and disruptions low. Maintaining good relationships can help you retain flexible workers or get them to come back for future projects.
Review employment laws in your state to make sure you classify workers correctly. Ensure you’re providing all required benefits and support based on those laws. Consult with your business attorney to review your flexible staffing plan to ensure you’re compliant.
Finding flexible workers
Sourcing flexible workers can seem challenging when you first start. Here are some places you can fulfill your flexible staffing needs:
- Flexible staffing services: Many temp agencies offer access to prescreened flexible workers. Using established flexible staffing services can be the fastest way to fill your positions since you don’t have to source or screen the applicants.
- Freelancer job boards: You can find a variety of online job boards for people who want flexible job opportunities. Examples include FlexJobs, Upwork and Guru.
- Professional networks: Reach out to your contacts within your industry to find potential flexible employees to add to your roster.
- Social media: Make an announcement on your social media platforms about your need for occasional flexible help. People who already follow your company might enjoy the opportunity to work for you temporarily.
- Former employees: When employees leave on good terms, give them the option to come back occasionally as needed as part of your flexible staffing plan.
Using a variety of sources can help you keep a steady pipeline of flexible employees. This can be useful if a flexible worker decides to leave suddenly or you have an unexpected increase in staffing needs.
