When your business is humming and everyone is comfortably busy, a sudden increase in your workload can throw folks into a tizzy. To keep everyone from panicking, bringing on more help quickly can keep things calm. The tips below can lower your worries.
Hire Temps For The Lowest Tier Work
If you have a skilled maintenance team who can keep your machinery running, consider bringing on temp workers to support them. The right temp worker can be put to work handling some of the heavy-lifting, while someone with more aptitude can shadow your existing workers and may turn into a full-time hire.
If your receptionist supports your admin team and your admin team is buried, hire a temporary person just to catch the phone while your receptionist focuses on other work. This may also be a great time to set up an automatic phone answering system.
Look For Part-Time Workers At Senior Centers
Recent world events have many recent retirees looking for a way to bump up their income. While there are some tasks that may be too physically demanding for a newly retired senior, an elderly temp worker can bring a lot of skills to your business. These workers will also probably bring a great deal of gratitude to the hiring situation.
Consider offering a bonus perk to this hiring situation. For example, you can offer a small gift card bonus at the end of the project. A simple pre-paid credit card or card to a local grocery store can be a great incentive to bring people back the next time that you have a crisis.
Look For a Freelancer
There are many skilled workers doing well in the gig economy. If you have a technical project that is creating a roadblock, a skilled freelancer with strong skills in specific software or tool can quickly turn a challenging project into a more manageable one.
For example, you may have a huge data entry project that is slowing things down within your facility. Hiring a freelancer who can work on your project on the other side of the globe means that you get to work when your freelancer signs off; work on the project actually progress while you sleep.
Contract With A Staffing Agency
The work of hiring a staffing agency in Fort Lauderdale or other major US cities is a one-time commitment that can pay back quickly in a short amount of time. Your staffing agency contact will know the type of employees you need, the skillset that will serve you best and the urgency required.
You can also let your staffing agency contact know exactly what you’re looking for. Do you need a temporary worker to cover vacations or medical leave time? You may do better with a student who has the summers off and needs to make more money. If you need help each day to cover lunches and breaks, you may be able to find a parent with children in school who can work 4 or 5 hours a day. While a temp to permanent hire is certainly possible, a temp to part-time hire may be even easier to set up.
Ramp Up Your Existing Workforce
If you have a short-term project that will take a lot of hours but isn’t sure when the situation will arise again, promote this to your current employees as a way to earn some overtime. Be consistent with the bump-up; if hourly folks are going to make more, make sure your salaried folks can either get a similar pay bump or get comparable time off and are allowed to take it.
For some employees, this may work best by adding Saturday hours. Bring in lunch. For some employees, it may mean coming in an hour or two early or staying an hour or two late. Allow schedule flexibility to allow for a breakfast break or longer afternoon break. For some employees, it may not work at all. At the end of the day, overtime may be easier to pay for than training.