Small businesses are the backbone of the United States workforce. According to LinkedIn, small companies create an average of 3 million jobs each year. Finding workers to fill all these open positions can be difficult, especially when you are trying to find the best candidates with the right mix of technical, personal, and soft skills.
Partnering with a staffing agency can help take much of the hassle out of small business owners’ hiring and onboarding process. A staffing agency will create the job description, sort through resumes, screen, vet, and train candidates to ensure the new hires are qualified and equipped to work in your business. They are saving you heaps of time in the process.
Benefits Of Working With a Staffing Agency
Small business owners can benefit from using staffing agencies to fill their vacancies in the following ways:
Staffing agencies reduce the risk of hiring the wrong people. Hiring a new employee always carries a little bit of risk that the candidate will not be a good fit for your company, and they leave after a few days, leaving you scrambling to replace them. A candidate sent by an agency is usually of higher quality and less likely to leave prematurely because they already have been appropriately screened and skill tested.
Staffing agencies reduce the time it takes to hire a new employee. Recruiting can be a lengthy process, and according to Capterra.com, 47% of candidates decline their offers because they have already accepted a position in another company. As a small business, you must compete for job seekers with big companies who are hiring almost twice as fast as small companies. A qualified employee is more likely to start working at one of those companies rather than wait for you. One way to shorten the recruiting process is to work with a staffing agency that can help you find competent employees much faster and streamline your hiring process.
Staffing agencies improve employee retention rate. Staffing agencies are experts at finding the right people for the job. The candidates they send are motivated, productive, and fit into the company culture, which increases employee satisfaction. When people like their workplace, they are more likely to stay longer at that business. Employee stimulation and higher job satisfaction increase staff retention rates and lower the need to hire new employees, thus reducing the need to hire new people constantly and reducing costs to the company.
Finding the Right Freelancers
Sometimes, business owners do not need to hire permanent workers. They need people temporarily to fill in an extra volume of work or substitute a permanent employee who cannot work for a period of time. Hiring freelancers can be attractive if you need someone quickly without spending a fortune. For one, they will do the same job as permanent employees without the cost of the benefits expected by full-time employees.
The number of freelance workers has been rising steadily, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic when people got the taste of working from home, and it is projected that freelance workers will make up the majority of the American workforce by 2027. So, the main challenge would be finding them when you need them.
Staffing agencies can access a far bigger pool of freelancers than the business HR department. Rather than spending time and energy looking for suitable freelancers, you can let the staffing agency find them for you.
As a small business owner, you are better off hiring a staffing agency to fill your existing vacancies than trying to fill them yourself. For one, the agency will take the hassle out of the process. They are more likely to find the best candidates for your positions and reduce costs while improving your employee retention rate.
