Temporary Help— A Progressive Management Tool
| Published date | 01 September 1985 |
| Pages | 18-19 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057416 |
| Date | 01 September 1985 |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Temporary
Help—
A Progressive
Management
Tool
A new breed of managers determined to optimise staffing
levels as Britain emerges from the recession is leading to
much greater utilisation of temporary help.
Traditionally, temporary help has been called upon mainly
to replace permanent staff during times of holiday or
sickness. It is now being recognised increasingly that with
a more flexible workforce, greater control can be exercised
over one of the largest of the variable cost overheads which
companies carry. For the first time, temporary help is being
utilised as a management tool and the demands being
placed upon the temporary help industry are changing
accordingly.
Companies are not only expecting higher standards, across
a broader range of skill areas, but also a service which pro-
vides a solution to a staffing problem.
This is the view of Paul Francis, General Manager of Kelly
Girl,
the world's largest temporary help organisation, who
in a recent interview with Industrial Management & Data
Systems explained how the temporary help industry has
been changing to meet the new demands. He
said:
It's no longer a case of ringing up the local agency and asking
for a clerk or secretary, but rather of discussing a job descrip-
tion — the skills, experience and even personality attributes re-
quired for the proposed temporary position. A more managed
service is required which allows not only the desired flexibility
of temporary employment, but also the necessary control.
Broader Range of Skills
So confident are Kelly Girl of the growth of this flexible
workforce concept that they have announced plans to
dou-
ble their number of branches in 1985, opening up offices
in all the major cities in the UK, and have also expanded
their activities away from the traditional stronghold of
secretaries and office workers. They believe there is an in-
creasing demand for industrial workers like assemblers and
packers and also for skilled factory workers as computer
technology continues to impact on the factory floor.
Explains Francis:
The idea of having temporary workers in a wide band of in-
dustrial and commercial skill areas — from cleaners to word
processor trainers — is a very attractive proposition for com-
panies wishing to run leaner and fitter organisations. Equally,
a new breed of temp is finding work variety and the chance
to meet different people more appealing.
Explosive Growth
There are several pointers to a potentially explosive growth
in the temp market. In America, where flexible working is
a way of life, President Reagan was recently reported to be
urging the US Civil Service to make even greater use of
tem-
porary help, in order to be able to respond quickly to chang-
ing workloads.
A report published recently by the Confederation of British
lndustry[1] showed that workers in the UK are being forced
to become more flexible as firms contract out more work
or take on part-time staff to remain competitive.
Said Sir Terence Beckett, CBI director general:
More flexible work patterns are
vital.
To have continued in the
same old rut would have been industrial suicide. We are learn-
ing at last to handle the peaks and troughs of the business cycle.
A survey conducted by the British Institute of Manage-
ment[2] found that the number of part-time workers has
doubled in the past 20 years to 4.5 million, with the result
that one in five British workers is now "part-time". This
number is expected to increase still further and the govern-
ment is being urged to introduce more flexible policies for
tax and benefits. The institute also believes part-time work-
ing should be a standard part of the company employment
policy, because it offers the employers the advantages of
flexibility and low costs, while giving the employees a
chance to supplement household incomes.
A recent report by the Institute of Manpower Studies
(IMS)[3] also confirmed that Britain's employers are now
seeking greater flexibility from their labour forces. The IMS
is presently initiating a project, financed from its co-operative
research programme, to explore a range of issues concern-
ing the existing and potential use of temporary staff.
"Permanent" Temps Reduce Costs
According to Kelly
Girl,
who are unique in that they actual-
ly employ their temporary staff, and are therefore classified
as an employment business and not as an agency, there
is a shift of emphasis towards more "permanent"
temporaries—those people who choose temping as a
full-
time career, as opposed to those who use temporary work
to fill a gap for a few weeks in the year.
Francis explains:
Being a highly trained and skilled temporary secretary can be
a most rewarding career for the right type of person, and we
at Kelly Girl have been instrumental in the industry in encourag-
ing this form of work by being the first to offer our staff holiday
pay and sickness benefit, just like employers of permanent staff.
It is not difficult to appreciate the advantages of using temps.
Company manning levels can be maintained at
an
optimum level
at all times, and companies can react more quickly to workload
peaks caused by unanticipated demand and a sudden influx
of business. Normally, one telephone call to a temporary help
company will produce people the following day, whereas
18 IMDS • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER • 1985
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