Need To Fill a Skill Gap in Your Team Immediately? Consider Using a Temp

Skills gaps in your team can happen without much notice for any number of reasons. For example, your team receives a project in an area it doesn’t have much expertise in, a team member decides to quit, gets a quick transfer or dies, to name just a few causes. Rather than putting projects on hold and hurting the company, one solution is to bring in temp workers to fill the gap. You certainly won’t be alone. As a report from The Recruitment & Employment Confederation shows, eight out of 10 employers use such methods to fill skills gaps.

Anticipation and Availability
Many businesses, especially startups, are finding it difficult to fill certain skill gaps. In fact, the American Staffing Association uncovered 172 jobs that have proved hard to fill in 2014 and 2015. The job titles include occupational therapist (and OT assistant), long-haul truck drivers, surgeons, nurse practitioners and many others in the medical field. Temp agencies use that data as early as possible to start recruiting workers who can plug in these gaps so they’re ready to go when companies need them.

Speed
Time is less of a factor when you’re bringing on temp workers. They start when you’re ready and are able to contribute from day one. The screening process that agencies use ensures that temp workers know the software programs you need and other job requirements. However, you should still practice quality onboarding training processes like you would for a newly hired permanent employee.

Help without the Hassle
If the skills gap exists because of a project of limited length, say seven months, a temp worker definitely saves your company money compared with hiring a permanent employee. At the end of the seven months, if you decide you want to retain the temp to become a permanent member of your company, you have that option.