There are many ways that you can structure a staffing agency. The goal is to manage your resources to profitably place qualified candidates with your clients. Your processes and employee structure impact how well you achieve that goal. Specialization of roles can help improve your agency’s performance. In this 3-part series, we’ll discuss the staffing process, staffing agency structures, and best practices.
The Staffing Process
The staffing process is not complex. But, there are many moving pieces that need specialist skills to manage. We can separate the entire process into the following broad sections:
- New Business Development
- Job Order Intake
- Job Order Fulfilment
- Contractor Care
New Business Development
Staffing is a service business. Once you provide the service, you need to find new customers. Sales are the lifeblood of any business. You need to have a process in place to break into new accounts and get onto large companies’ preferred supplier lists.
Job Order Intake
Once you break into a new account, you can work with that client. The client usually has a good grasp of the skills they need and of the compensation they are willing to offer for those skills. You need to drill into the client’s requirements and find out what is necessary and what is nice to have. It is important to manage expectations from the outset. Running a job order intake process increases the likelihood of a successful placement.
Job Order Fulfilment
You received and qualified the job order, now the rubber hits the road. You must use all your tools, techniques, and experience to find well-suited candidates. Once you find those candidates, you need to qualify them. You need to make sure their resumes are true representations of their skills. You have to sell them on the opportunity and then prepare them for the interview. Once you’ve sourced and qualified candidates, you’ll have a shortlist ready to submit to the hiring manager. The client will either accept or reject those candidates. If the client accepts them, we move onto the next step in the process. If the client rejects them, the whole process may need to start over.
Contractor Care
Once the client accepts a candidate, then the fun starts! You’ll need to onboard the candidate as an employee. Start by sending the candidate a contract of employment and the employee handbook. Next, set her up in your payroll and timesheet systems. And run the usual background and work eligibility checks. It’s your responsibility to ensure the candidate turns up on their start date and to keep in touch with them throughout the contract. They may have questions about their timesheets, their pay, or their next role which you will have to answer. And issues may arise during their contract that you’ll have to help them with. It’s in your interest to keep the candidate engaged throughout their contract. Once the current contract expires, you’ll be in a good position to move them onto a new contract.
In the section, we discussed the staffing process. In part 2, we’ll review staffing agency structures and in the final section, we’ll look at some best practices.
