COVID-19 Business Environment: Hiring Contract Employees

The COVID-19 pandemic brought on a handful of side effects, including a (probably) forever changed business environment. We’ve entered a recession, with a once all-time-low unemployment rate skyrocketing to the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression in a matter of weeks. Over 40 million Americans have now filed for unemployment, meaning thousands of businesses were forced to make the tough decision of whether to lay off employees or potentially succumb to the financial burden of a recession.

Benefits of Hiring Contract Employees

Those same business owners are now faced with the question of, “How do I get work done with less workforce” and “Is it possible to make my team stronger during these trying times”? We aim to answer those questions by explaining the benefits of hiring contract employees through a recruiting agency.

Business Continuity

Just because we’re facing an economic downturn doesn’t mean all business needs to come to a halt. If you are a business owner who found yourself with the burden of laying off full-time employees, but still have the same amount of work to do, you may be struggling to find an answer to business continuity.

This is a better problem to have than going out of business, for instance, but you may find yourself in this position for a variety of reasons other than coronavirus fallout. Maybe your business scaled quicker than your team was ready for and you’re scrambling for a short-term solution. Maybe you rebranded and need someone to help with the building out of a new service offering.

There are so many hypotheticals, but often times, hiring a contract employee can be the answer to business continuity. A contractor is an employee on the payroll of the recruiting firm that placed them and works for a specified period of time instead of indefinitely. This leads to our next point: risk mitigation.

Risk Mitigation

Hiring another full-time employee may seem scary amidst all the uncertainty. That’s where hiring a contractor comes in. First, a recruiting firm will handle the hiring process for you, allowing you to focus on running your business. Next, a contract employee will be employed by the recruiting agency, taking that liability off of you. They are also only hired for a set period of time, reducing your long-term labor cost from salary, benefits, and paid professional development. Lastly, they provide flexibility. They often work remotely, saving office space. They can be hired on a project basis or however long you will need them for. This is a kind of flexibility you don’t get with permanent employees.

Strengthen Your Team

Contractors provide a unique ability to strengthen your team. This is because often times, they are highly skilled in a specific niche, providing a skillset your current team doesn’t carry. Having someone with a niche skillset on your team is really great for moving business forward. They also are able to offer a fresh, outside perspective. Sometimes change is catalyzed by just one outsider, so the more temps you hire, the more adaptive your business will become.

Conclusion

If Who Staffing can help you in any way with building a process that allows you to win the war on talent, please feel free to reach out to start a conversation or go here for more information about us. If you’re interested in learning about our different hiring arrangements and levels of service, you can read about them here.