When it comes to industrial and manufacturing environments, one thing is certain: Workloads increase and decrease many times throughout the year. Navigating those ebbs and flows can often be a challenge, especially when those periods arrive with little or no warning. Increased demand often means mandatory overtime for your existing staff, but too much overtime can lead to more staffing problems down the road. Utilizing temporary workers can benefit your existing workforce in a number of ways.
Temporary Employees Reduce Overtime
Periods of high demand lead to overtime, which is often necessary, but can be a major expense. Not only that, too much overtime leads to lower productivity. It has been shown over time that a worker who clocks 60 hours per week for eight weeks achieves less output than they do working 40 hours per week for eight weeks. When you’re tired, you can’t move as quickly and your brain doesn’t function as well, which can lead to errors. Fatigue can also increase the chances for accidents or injuries.
Strategically deploying skilled temporary employees helps eliminate the need for overtime and keeps everyone working their regularly scheduled hours. Over the long term, it is usually cheaper to pay temporary workers than to pay overtime, and you get the added benefit of a focused, productive team.
Temporary Employees Can Keep Morale High
When employees are forced into excessive amounts of overtime, or if they are continually pressured to cover unfilled positions, stress is sure to follow. Overworked employees are stressed employees and stressed employees are unhappy. Burnout is a major factor which drives people to seek out new opportunities that provide better work-life balance. Skilled temporary workers can help managers distribute workloads to manage stress and prevent burnout, keeping morale high, even in periods of great demand.
Temporary Workers Keep You Fully Staffed
Even at companies where every employee reports high levels of job satisfaction, people will resign. A single unfilled position leads to additional stress on your team, even if you aren’t experiencing a period of higher demand. In today’s market, it can take an employer weeks or even months to fill a position with the right new employee. Skilled temporary workers allow you to keep things moving forward while you seek out a new employee. In fact, you may even find your ideal permanent candidate in one of the short-term workers assigned to that position.
If you are looking for temporary workers to augment your existing industrial team, work with a staffing agency that has a reputation for success. Southern Point Staffing in the Albany, Georgia can match you with temporary staff who are skilled, trained and fully vetted. Contact the recruiting experts at Southern Point Staffing today to get started.
