Based on our own experience at North Bridge and some of the best practices at large in the recruitment and staffing industry, these are some pretty worthy tips for any organization looking to bring on temporary or contingent employees.

One good rule of thumb, to start?  Approach temp hiring with the same standards and expectations you’d have in mind if you were looking for permanent employees.  Your business deserves the best possible people on staff, regardless of how long they’ll be on the team!

1. Know thy market: the depth of talent in a given category can vary greatly market-to-market; a national surplus of widget engineers doesn’t necessarily mean your area has the same profile.  Work with your staffing firm to make sure you know the real availability of the types of role players you need, or may soon need, so you’ve got a true picture of how long it will take to land the talent you want so you can project accordingly.
2. Be precise with your recruiting firm in terms of skillsets you need, and the salary range you’ll offer.  That will obviously help narrow the field to candidates you can really afford – and will save you considerable time, of course.
3. Move it or lose it, because even in times like these, the best candidates go first – and you’d better be prepared to get in front of them quickly and decisively, whether they’re temporary or permanent hires.
4. Set benchmarks for what constitutes success for your temps, just as surely as you would for a full-time hire.  Measure their contribution: it’s surprising how many businesses think there’s some sort of efficiency in throwing people at a task or problem simply because they’re temporaries.  It’s still money ill-spent if you’re not auditing results.
5. Ask around: get perspective from others in the organization about how a temp could be put to work on its behalf.  There may be needs beyond the obvious assignment where an interim hire could make an impact, especially if they’ve got specific expertise that could benefit different facets of your enterprise.
6. Let the recruiter inside your organization, so they can have a good handle on its organization, culture, expectations and projects.  The time you spend indoctrinating a recruiter will pay off in better candidates.
7. Vette your recruiters thoroughly, because just as in any business, there are good and not-so-good providers out there.  There’s absolutely no substitute for the due diligence and quality of service you clearly find in a good recruiter – and they should be proud to offer up referrals who’ll testify to that!

The jobs market has improved, but it’s still no walk in the park for college graduates.   One survey found that slightly over 24% of grads had a job waiting for them – up from 19% the year before.

Much of that hiring is apparently not permanent, as firms are still treading carefully: temporary and contract hires make up a fair share of the new jobs grads are finding.

As one graduate put it, “The tendency that I’ve seen among my friends is for someone to get a job, but it’s a yearlong contract for a project.  Then they expect to lay off the people they hired for the project, so within the year they’re going to be looking again for another job.”

These grads may be in the vanguard of a new model for the job market, where “permalancing” and conditional employment is more the norm, rather than the exception.  The jobs market of tomorrow may demand more and more flexibility of this kind from employers and employees alike, which will make the expertise of recruiters and staffing professionals more crucial than ever, linking the best prospects, companies, screening processes and connective technologies together like never before.

If you’re an employer – or a staffing consultant – who’s considering placing a temp or contingent employee of any kind, there are a few simple “to-dos” that will make the experience run more smoothly – and rewardingly – for employer and employee alike!

Tip #1: Ask the existing team. They’ll have the best possible information on where and how temporary workers should fit in, and for how long.  And by doing this, you lead into the next tip…

Tip #2: Keep up a dialogue with existing workers about temp hires; employers need to make sure they know who’s being brought on, why, for how long, etc.  Even a secure staffer can be intimidated by the presence of a temp.

Tip #4: Lay it out clearly. Make sure the temp plainly knows what the job is, what the firm’s policies and rules are, and what you expect of them from the get-go.

Tip #4: Who’s in charge here? Be absolutely clear about who they’re reporting to, where their job occurs in a department or company’s org scheme, who they should ask for help or guidance, and so on.  Have their supervisor meet them and help walk them through their job from the minute they arrive at your door!

Tip #5: Ready, set, work! Don’t get caught unprepared on day one of a temp hire’s tenure – have their space, phone, computer, office supplies and everything they need to do their job ready and waiting for them, so they can hit the ground running – and you can get your money’s worth out of them ASAP.

Tip #6: Feedback matters, both to the temp and to the firm you may have used in acquiring that employee.  Look in on the temp regularly, talk about their performance, give them input.  And make sure the staffing company that brought him or her to you is apprised of how they’re doing, too.  If they’re competent and reputable, they want every ounce of feedback they can get from their clients!

There’s every chance that more members of the post-recession workforce will be temps, it appears; the difficulties of the recession have made employers cautious, not just in the near term but probably over the long haul as well.  That will mean more temporary positions versus full-time hires, even after the economy improves for many businesses.

This Business Week cover story cites figures from the Iowa Policy Project, a nonpartisan think tank, has estimated that 26% of the U.S. workforce had jobs in 2005 that were in one way or another “nonstandard.”    The trend is, apparently, for that number to grow, because of economic pressures and because more and more businesses are becoming comfortable and experienced with utilizing contingent labor resources versus permanent.

This makes it more important than ever for staffing firms that specialize in temp and temp-to-hire services to stay on the hunt for the best-qualified personnel possible.  With a greater pool of prospective temps out there, it might seem simpler to find a solid candidate, but the cream still rises to the top in any market.  Staffing firms and their clients are still best served by thorough screening of prospects.  Regardless of the state of the overall market, firms are always better off bringing on the highest-caliber contributors available.

Daniel Indiviglio at The Atlantic has been a proponent for some time of the idea that temp hiring is a good indicator for growth in the general economy, and now has a chart he’s discovered that helps prove his point. His capsule summary of what it shows (and very plainly, too — make sure you hit the link!) is, “as this chart demonstrates, temp jobs lead permanent job growth. It’s rare to see such a clear correlation between two variables.”

This is a graphical demonstration of the plain and simple predence and logic we see every day from our clients: in periods like this, qualified temps or temp-to-hire staffers are the safest bet, until any improvement really takes hold in time. Then those temporary positions turn into permanent hires.

The real concern comes in making sure the people you bring in, especially on a temp or transitional basis, have the skills and focus that let them jump right in, and seamlessly serve the client’s business. That’s obviously a sober and serious responsibility for staffing firms like North Bridge.