How Has Flexible Staffing Changed in 2021? Analyzing the Trends

As businesses continue to work to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic devastation it wrought throughout much of the last 18 months, they are getting creative with how they handle their staffing needs.

Flexible staffing is one option that has become significantly more popular among employers. This includes temporary staffing and the use of staffing agencies to find them as part of their business-recovery plans.

What are the benefits of flexible staffing plans? Let’s take a close look.

• Easily scalable: Temporary workers are typically able to begin work immediately on projects, which means you can avoid extended recruitment processes and quickly respond to changing market conditions. These workers can also be terminated without severance packages and long notice periods. In a still-uncertain recovery period, this scalability is crucial to giving businesses some security.
• Trial periods: Temporary workers can be used on a trial basis before hiring them on to a more permanent full-time position. This gives employers an opportunity to watch their staff on the job in a low-risk environment to determine their strengths and weaknesses, how well they fit with the company culture and how they interact with customers or clients.
• Cost savings: Temporary workers can occasionally have higher day rates than permanent hires, but by not having to pay benefits and saving money on recruitment, onboarding, offboarding and training, you save a significant amount of money overall by going with a more flexible staffing plan with temporary workers.
• Ease of finding workers: It’s getting increasingly easy to find flexible staff for openings. Companies can find temporary workers by using their own advertising channels or by employing a staffing agency. There are a wide range of flexible staffing platforms online that have also popped up in the last several years as demand for temporary workers has increased. Simply put, there are more opportunities than ever for employers to find temporary workers and get them on the job as soon as possible.
• The gig economy is thriving: How has flexible staffing changed in 2021? More people are looking into gig jobs than ever before, especially while in between jobs. One survey by Monster.com found 57 percent of workers were willing to take on gig jobs while in between jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The gig economy is only expected to continue to boom as more people look for temporary work or side gigs.

There are, of course, some challenges businesses must confront if they look to embrace flexible staffing. It can be difficult to get temporary workers fully on board with the company culture, and the onboarding processes you use for permanent hires may not apply to temporary workers.

But with the list of benefits above, it’s easy to see why more companies are exploring the possibility of using temporary workers as they recover from the pandemic.

To learn more about how flexible staffing has changed in 2021 and the benefits of flexible staffing, contact us at Key Technical Resources, Inc. with your questions.

Categorised in: Staffing Agency