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.

Taking tests are never fun, but they are a window into a person’s abilities and aptitudes. That’s why more and more employers are using them as a tool to pre-screen candidates for the right combination of Competence, Ethics, Emotional Intelligence, and Ambition/Drive.

According to Harvard Business Review, 76% of organizations with more than 100 employees use tests for external hiring. And the more senior the role, the more likely the employer is to use assessments to identify candidates with the right traits and abilities. According to HBR, it is estimated that 72% of middle management positions and up to 80% of senior positions have pre-qualification tests.

There are several reasons why pre-employment assessments are useful.

1. Resumes don’t paint the whole picture

Resumes are a great starting point to view a candidate’s summary of experiences, but it talks nothing of their other attributes like interpersonal skills, management skills, ability for defusing confrontations, nor their level of ambition, as examples. That’s when employers turn to pre-employment assessment tools to gain a better picture of whether the candidate will be a good fit to the corporate culture.

2. Specific Skill Test

Certain jobs require a specific skill set that is difficult to convey within a resume. Imagine a surgeon who must perform triple bypass surgeries, or a pilot that must fly a jumbo jet. We cannot rely on resumes to simply assure us that people who claim they can do it can actually do so. Imagine the chaos that will ensue. There needs to be a qualifying test (or in the case of the two examples above, real-life demonstrations and proof) before the person can be placed.

3. Ethics and Morals

It’s fairly easy to convey experience and ambition during interviews, but how do you measure someone’s ethics? It’s an important aspect to consider when hiring, as ethics and morals can ultimately drive a company’s corporate culture. Jack Welch said it best, “First we get the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great.” The last thing you want is someone who doesn’t buy into your corporate culture, or even worse, will derail the bus.

Great! Let’s do it!

Let’s do it! I hear you say. But administering all these tests requires a lot of resources. You need professionals to find the relevant questions and put the tests together; technology tools to administer and grade the tests; and finally you need people to comb through the results of the tests to ultimately select the right candidate. All of this takes effort that an SME (or even a corporation) might not have the resources for. Not to worry, simply outsource the admin tasks to someone who is best at it. Workholler has the platform to not only filter and matches candidates by experience, skill-set, and availability, we also offer a wide range of aptitude tests that are used to pre-qualify candidates for a wide-variety of roles. With our six-step pre-qualifying assessments, we take vetting to the next level.

With Christmas creeping near, most retailers are gearing up for the holiday shopping season. That means more merchandise, more foot traffic, more holiday promotions, and more staff needed.

Not enough qualified candidates to go around

That means lots of hiring leading up to the holiday season. We visited several clients in the retail industry to discuss their hiring needs, and they all seem to have a similar problem.

1. With so many companies all hiring around the same time, candidates can pick and choose where they’d like to work. This is especially true for very qualified candidates.
2. That means qualified candidates do not call back, or show up for interview, or even worse, they’re hired but get a better job elsewhere then just don’t show up for work.
3. Companies that do not have competitive hiring structure (i.e. seasonal to permanent hires) or competitive pay will often be left scrambling to staff their stores at the last minute.

That means hiring managers may need to be a bit less restrictive in hiring criteria when it comes to the holiday shopping season. Unless it’s a specialty store, the requirements are largely the same. If the candidate is responsible, has a positive attitude and is willing to learn, that should be all it takes for a successful seasonal hire.

Accountability means Less No Shows

At Workholler, we believe in accountability. It’s easy for someone to be irresponsible, and hide behind the anonymity. But they will think twice if their reputation is on the line, which will impact future job prospects.

We rigorously vet anyone who joins our platform, and only the top 15-20% make it to the final round. These candidates are established to be responsible and accountable. One No-Show means the candidate is barred from applying to jobs through our platform for 2-6 months. Furthermore, negative performance reviews will directly impact the candidate’s ratings on our platform, resulting in less job offers.

This way, retailers can rest assured that their new seasonal hires will be of the top quality, and there will be some accountability at the end of the day.

By definition, temps are workers who step into your business to help out when you’re understaffed or have a special need such as a project. You know the length of time this person is needed, the skills required, and you’re willing to bring them on board for a set amount of time.