Best Practices for Integrating Temporary Staff into Your Business

Bringing temporary staff into a business is no easy job. Training programs often fail to meet temps’ needs, and regular employees may not be immediately open or welcoming around a new person.

Integrating all employees into the team makes for a more effective workplace, especially during peak seasons. The right approach can ease tensions among long-term employees, make temporary employees feel included, and encourage everyone to work well together. 

1. Give Permanent Staff a Heads Up

For most people, sudden changes bring some level of discomfort and often fear. Bringing temps in with no warning to your long-term employees is nearly always a morale dampener.

With no warning, these fears are likely to be amplified. Long-term employees’ discomfort could make the workplace less welcoming for the new temps and interfere with effective training and communication. On top of the general unpleasantness of sudden change, your employees may view the new temps as a threat to their job security, a barrier to getting coveted paid overtime, or a judgment on their productivity. 

If your company wants a harmonious workplace, management needs to soothe permanent employees’ concerns. Take the time to speak to long-term employees well before the temps come in and explain how the temps can help them. Explain the roles the temp workers will fill, how they will impact the existing employees’ workloads, and how they will alleviate stress.

2. Provide Good Training

No matter what the temp’s role is, good training is essential. For short-term temp assignments, you likely don’t need to provide the full company onboarding experience, but your temps will need to know how to use your equipment, stay safe, and follow your company’s processes.

Keep temp training focused on information relevant to the temps’ roles. Include a brief overview of how the work impacts other people, but don’t spend excessive time talking about the history of your company.

3. Assign a Mentor

Your temp employees are likely to have questions and encounter problems you didn’t anticipate during training. They need someone to go to when these issues arise.

Assign a manager or long-term employee to act as a mentor to your temp staff. Don’t overload the mentor with other work — keep their duties light enough to support the temps as needed.

4. Include Temps in Team Activities

Part of integration is making temps feel like part of the team. That means temps should be invited to your team-building exercises, group lunches, and anything else your company does that builds a sense of belonging. 

Team-building might not have an easily measurable impact, but it affects everything your employees do.  Both the temps and the long-term employees will feel more comfortable with each other if you include them in activities.

5. Treat Temps as Equals 

Temps should be treated with the same respect as permanent employees. In other words, management should recognize their contributions and listen to their concerns. Many temps will also appreciate some autonomy after they’ve had time to learn the ropes. 

As long as a temp is working in your company’s workplace, they’re an employee just like everyone else there. It’s important to treat them as such.

6. Pay Fair Compensation

For most people, money is a key driver at work. Almost everyone needs to work for a living, and your temps may need to support family members as well. Fair compensation not only makes a temp more likely to take the job in the first place but also keeps them motivated at work.

Research shows that on average, temps with more autonomy and better compensation are more motivated and connected to their organizations. If you want to keep employee engagement high, fair compensation is the way to do it.

At LG Resources, our staffing agency pays competitive wages based on the job requirements, your budget, and local industry norms. We believe good pay leads to quality work, and quality work keeps our clients happy. Qualifying temps also enjoy a Minimum Essential Care health plan that meets all ACA requirements. 

Need Help Finding Temps?

LG Resources has experience recruiting and screening temps for a wide range of roles, including many in the warehouse and HR fields. We have a large pool of contacts to pull from with different skills, experience levels, and other suitability factors. The time required to find the right employee for any job varies depending on the job type, pay restrictions, and working conditions, but we are often able to hire on the same day.

If you’re looking for qualified temps who can start work quickly and make your company more productive, LG Resources can help. Request a temp employee from LG Resources today.