Oftentimes businesses use temp workers to fill an immediate and temporary need. This could be for a project or to cover an immediate staffing gap.

Once the temporary staff are on-site and hitting the ground running, this is when you should consider whether or not to convert them to full-time.

Determine the Need

Oftentimes you might think a full-time role is required, but is it really? Consider Susan, her design company needs someone to take care of the company’s social media content and to follow up with potential clients. She has posted the job but hasn’t had the time to go through the hiring process, resulting in a glaring gap in her company’s day to day operations.

Through Workholler, the next generation hiring platform, she was able to source a pre-vetted temporary worker Joyce. Joyce joined Susan’s company under Workholler’s Try’n’Hire program, where a business can “trial” a candidate on a temporary basis typically between 1 to 3 months, in order to fill an immediate need, while providing management with time to decide on a permanent solution.

Within a week of the job posting, Joyce joined Susan’s company, and immediately started to update its social media presence, and clearing the backlog of follow-ups.

Susan is now considering to make Joyce a permanent member of her small team. She considers the following.

1. Her company needs a social media expert.
2. Client follow-ups used to be done by the sales team but they are too busy getting more sales, and Susan doesn’t want to disrupt the flow.
3. Joyce is doing a good job with the social media. However, while she is doing her best to follow up with clients, she just doesn’t have the design knowledge or training required to answer detailed questions.

Is the Candidate a Right Fit?

Susan sees Joyce’s performance and positive attitude and thinks she is a good fit for the company. She makes the following decision.

1. Susan offers Joyce a part-time job working 2 days a week with the company’s social media content. Joyce is able to work from home one day and participate in the company’s activities the other.
2. Susan decides to create a new Sales Support role, which requires a candidate with a design background and customer service experience.
3. Susan posts the Sales Support job on Workholler, and was connected with David, who has been pre-vetted by Workholler and has the necessary design experience. David started his 2 months trial period right away.

Revisit After the Trial Period

While Joyce preferred a full-time job, she was able to accept Susan’s offer of a part-time job, while Workholler found Joyce another part-time job as a social media expert within a different company. She works 3 days a week there and 2 days with Susan, providing her with a full-time income.

After David’s trial period, Susan decided not to extend a permanent offer. David was very good technically but Susan felt he was not a good fit for the company’s culture. Workholler then sent another candidate, Amit to Susan under the same Try’n’Hire program, and this time it was a home run. Amit was excellent in both design and customer support, as well as fitting into the company’s culture. After only one month, Susan quickly extended a full-time offer which Amit gladly accepted.

The Answer

There’s no right or wrong answer to the question of when to convert a temporary worker to a permanent hire. It’s entirely up to a company’s needs, which can differ drastically from one to another. Whatever your staffing needs are, be it temporary or permanent, Workholler is here to help. We aim to make the hiring process as quick and as seamless as possible, so your business won’t be interrupted by staffing shortages, and can go on running smoothly.

I recently watched a documentary on Andrew Carnegie, the U.S. steel tycoon of the late 19th century. It detailed his life as a poor young immigrant from Scotland, who built one of the biggest companies in the world. He’s now largely remembered as being both the wealthiest man of his time and a great philanthropist, whose credits include the prestigious Carnegie Hall and Carnegie Mellon University.

But interestingly there was a dark side to this great man. His company, Carnegie Steel in Pittsburgh, was the setting of one of the bloodiest strikes in U.S. history, the Homestead Strike in 1892, which lasted 143 days, and resulted in the death of ten men. One of the reasons of the strike was the company’s decision to decrease wages when it was making record profits. Benefiting from the industrial revolution, Carnegie and his chairman Henry Clay Frick were both in favor of replacing human workers with machines, saying that machines don’t demand wage increases and never sleep.

The industrial revolution saw the replacement of low-skilled human workers by steam engines and machines. Manufacturing being the first ones to bear the brunt of this change. Now in the age of AI (artificial intelligence), and low-skilled workers are again the first ones being impacted. Wal-mart and other supermarkets are already testing robots used to greet people and check inventory on shelves. Human greeters are replaced with robot counterparts, who amuse children and adults alike. Self checkouts went from an annoying presence in McDonald’s to proliferating within every major retailer.

There are already robotic chefs and baristas being tested. While their hefty price-tags keep most retailers away, it’s only a matter of time before these technology become cheap enough for mass consumption.

The advancements in automation leave low-skilled workers in a tough spot, resulting in an oversupply of labour, stagnating wages for decades, and creating a huge boom in the post-secondary education, as workers scramble to become better educated and more qualified for jobs that are less likely to be replaced by machines.

Politicians like Elizabeth Warran in the U.S. are calling for higher corporate taxes and a new wealth tax in an attempt to shrink the growing wealth gap. While this may appeal to some, in the end corporations and the wealthy will always figure out a loophole. And it’s always better to reward than to punish. Perhaps a dual reward/penalty system could work. For example, for every job that a company cuts, as long as the company is in profit, it should pay a tax equivalent to 5 years salary as compensation for social benefits the now unemployed person will claim. And for every new job a business creates, it can gain a tax incentive equivalent to 5% of the salary for the position, effectively making it cheaper to employ human labour. Hopefully this will help normalize the adjustments needed in a future world driven by A.I.

But with a painting created by A.I. selling for over $430,000 at auction, is any industry truly safe?

I recently had a chat with a small business owner. His business has about 15 employees and is doing well. We talked about establishing and running the business, his day-to-day tasks, and his future plans for growth.

I can talk about building an amazing company culture that nurtures employees, etc, but let’s be honest, small businesses just can’t compete with bigger corporations when it comes to promotion and pay. And that’s what matters a lot of the time. In a company of 15 people, you can never be promoted to be the boss, because the owner is the boss. But in a big corporation, there are multitudes of levels a person can be promoted to, along with hefty pay raises.

I suggest for small businesses, instead of hiring and hoping the person will stay forever, try to change the perspective. Understand that this person will be with you for a short while, be it 6 months or 5 years. Eventually they will move on, and that’s ok. It’s just a fact of life. Better people will always move on. The best talents I’ve met rarely stay for longer than 3 years at each job. Even if they’re not looking to move, they will be head-hunted. That’s reality, accept it.

What I will suggest is for small businesses to find a way to hire quicker and more easily, so the departing employee doesn’t leave a critical hole in the company.

In comes Workholler, an on-demand staffing company with a growing talent pool, tailored for small businesses. Qualified, pre-vetted staff are available to be hired on short notice. And should they leave after a while, a replacement will be found immediately, with minimum input required from the business owner. No more posting on multiple job boards, flipping through resumes; no more calling people just to get their voicemail, and no more interviewing multitudes of people just to hire the right one. With Workholler, our technology driven platform does all the work, and the right one is sent to your door.

Perhaps we don’t have the solution for retaining talent for small businesses. But we can sure make finding your next hire easier.