Why Direct Hire Staffing Saves You Time, Effort, and Money

At first glance, starting out new employees on a temporary basis seems like an obvious good choice. You get time to test out each employee’s skills and culture fit, and the employees get time to see whether they’re truly interested in the job. Once you’ve gotten to know the employees, you can decide to bring them on full-time.

But in the meantime, you pay ongoing fees to the temp agency that found the candidate. And there’s a question that might nag at you: Is this really the best way to find your next star employee?

In this article, we’ll address why it often makes more sense to do direct hiring through a staffing agency rather than temp or temp-to-hire staffing.

1. You Can Attract More Skilled and Experienced Candidates

While there are definitely exceptions, most job seekers in most industries would rather have a guaranteed, long-term position than a temporary role. Knowing that a temp job has the potential to become permanent doesn’t change the fact that it’s less secure than a direct-hire, long-term role. That means many of the top performers in your industry will never bother applying to a temp job if they think they can get a long-term position.

This general rule is especially true of skilled, experienced mid-career job seekers who have families to support. These individuals want a secure paycheck and good health insurance so they can provide a stable home. An insecure temp or temp-to-hire role, even if it pays well, likely won’t appeal to them.

Even if you do get a stellar candidate for a temp role, there’s a much greater chance they’ll leave quickly. Employees are less likely to feel loyal or committed to a company that hasn’t committed to them. Those who prioritize stability will continue looking for a better opportunity, and if one comes up, they’re gone. You’ll have to spend even more to recruit another candidate, who may leave just as quickly.

2. You Get More Engaged Employees

Research shows that employee engagement is linked to customer loyalty, profitability, productivity, and many other desired outcomes. Business units in the top quarter for employee engagement levels have 81% less absenteeism and 23% more profitability than units in the bottom quarter.

As we said before, employees tend to feel less loyal toward companies that haven’t committed to them, which may mean they’re less engaged. While temp employees may be motivated to prove themselves if they’re hired on a trial basis, many aren’t going to put their fullest effort forward for a company that hasn’t offered them security.

Companies with highly engaged workforces tend to have a few strategies in common:

• Support for employee wellness.
• Ensuring employees know they and their work matter.
• Communications about how employees’ work fits into the organization’s larger mission or trajectory.
• Opportunities for growth and learning.
• Management that provides meaningful feedback.
• A culture of mutual respect.
• Ongoing measurement of and attention to improving employee engagement.
• Encouragement of personal projects.

As you might have noticed from that list, it’s hard to implement many of those strategies with temp or temp-to-hire employees. You can certainly provide opportunities for job-specific learning, offer feedback, and encourage a culture of mutual respect, but the other strategies are more likely to fall flat.

Your temps likely don’t have access to most of your wellness benefits. Even if you offer them some wellness-related perks, they might prefer having access to your health insurance plan. Employees often feel less valued by organizations that hasn’t committed to them, and knowing how their work fits into the larger mission might not motivate them much if they don’t feel like a true part of your org.

Similarly, managers are less likely to encourage personal projects from someone with an end date on the calendar. Employees might not see much point in planning or investing time in significant personal projects for a short-term role anyway.

3. There Are Fewer Fees

This reason for choosing direct hiring is pretty simple: Temp-to-hire staffing comes with contract fees that can add to the cost of hiring, especially if you have a long trial period. With direct hiring, you only have to pay recruitment fees. 

The main benefit of working with a staffing agency is our ability to build a large candidate pool and then do most of the candidate-sorting and hiring work. We can conduct the candidate search process far more efficiently than an understaffed internal team, and we have the experience to find the best candidates from a large pool. Meanwhile, your internal team can focus on keeping the business running.

With direct hiring, you get the benefits of a staffing agency without all the extra fees that come with a temp-to-hire arrangement. Even if you spend more time examining each candidate, it’s often the most efficient and cost-effective method of hiring in the long run.

Need a Direct Hire Employee?

LG Resources matches high-caliber candidates for a wide range of roles with employers throughout the lower 48 states. We can help you find your next star software engineer, C-level executive, electrician, or nurse.

Looking to directly hire the best possible employee? Get in touch with us today.