Welcome to the second in the series of Staffing Industry Trends and Impact blogs from Barton Staffing Solutions. Today’s topic is Unemployment Costs. These topics are the result of many RFP renewal requests we receive this time of year. As industry thought leaders, we share our observations to elevate the entire industry.
On to today’s topic – unemployment costs. My colleague and I were surprised the other day when a major manufacturer revealed they were unaware that staffing firms have the same state unemployment insurance costs and liabilities for unemployed workers that any company has for their employees that might experience a layoff.
Uncontrolled costs due to workforce fluctuation for a variety of reasons, both economic and performance-based, affect both staffing firms like Barton Staffing Solutions, and their clients. As a result, firms like ours have increased their focus on higher-skilled workers and retention of quality employees.
The perceived vestige of the undocumented worker and day-labor shops persist in many company’s management ranks where changing federal law has not been evangelized.
Reputable staffing firms, like Barton Staffing Solutions, E-Verifies every new hire it adds to its temporary workforce for its clients. And, in the eyes of the regulators, having workers ineligible for employment on client’s premises is a co-shared responsibility and when audited, both parties are held accountable.
Barton Staffing Solutions uses E-Verify because it is good for workers, good for staffing companies, and good for our clients.
In its simplest form, any employer with full-time employees and temporary employees in their operation must meet the same regulatory worker-eligibility requirements for both.
Back to unemployment.
Staffing firms that ensure they are providing eligible workers to your operation are responsible for unemployment insurance. this is a cost, but it also is a good thing.
This means that staffing firms like Barton Staffing Solutions is working lock-step with your operations managers for human resources requirements planning. If demand drops suddenly, it’s not good for either party.
A critical metric for the temporary staffing industry is turnover. Certainly agencies care about keeping this low, but so do clients who use temporary workforces. The better the retention rate, the more consistent and reliable are productivity rates, quality levels, and safety in the workplace.
It also means that temporary workforce employees are gaining longer-term relationships with their staffing company employer, making them a better worker for you because their skills are well known, and proven. Loyalty and long-term employment of temporary workers at reputable temporary staffing agencies is on the rise.
Firms like Barton Staffing Solutions have implemented full-scale comprehensive front-office and back-office ERP (Enterprise Requirements Planning) systems connected with an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to manage clients needs and the workforce to meet them.
As a result, and most important, reputable agencies like Barton Staffing Solutions put effort forth to qualify high-potential candidates for hiring which helps to avoid unchecked unemployment costs in the first place. We’re happy to discuss our systems and processes more with you as your needs evolve – give us a call today.
