Staffing Firms: Challenging the Challenges – Part 1

business people (2)The staffing industry today works in a very dynamic business environment, perhaps the most dynamic the industry has seen since its evolution. It no longer only plays the role of simply replacing absentee employees with temporary ones, but has now taken a more strategic role in providing their clients with a variety of employment solutions and services. The staffing industry impacts the economy through such solutions and services as contingency search, retained search, contract recruiting, permanent placement and human resource consulting.

Companies depend on staffing agencies for many reasons — though most frequently, they are called upon to deliver additional support during a given busy season and/or when taking on new clients, new projects or to meet goals set for business growth. Companies are given a competitive edge through tasking the staffing agencies in providing only the specified resources/personnel needed to meet their goals. Through such services, companies become both flexible and agile — a great way to be in today’s competitive workplace. It is not only the companies who benefit from staffing services, but the employees themselves, of course. Many of whom depend on such services to bridge the gap between unemployment and securing renewed full-time work. Nearly nine out of ten employees have said that temp or contract work makes them more employable.

The staffing industry has recently witnessed a steep incline toward recruiting professionals from such varied business lines as Engineering, Sales, Information Technology and Management. While this trend has brought in huge opportunities for overall growth, it has also established some unique challenges as well. These unique challenges should be addressed by a go-to-market solution that provides real-time visibility by identifying new talent resources and new placement opportunities. Such solutions will allow staffing agencies to secure and retain leading talent from across the globe while allowing a single source management structure for both clients and applicants — a seamless integration managing front/back-offices ensuring high quality delivery of services to customers while reducing cost and maximizing profitability.

PREMIUM CONTENT: Are temporary workers turning to online staffing services for employment?

Staffing issues will continue to grow in complexity over the next several years — as will their impact on many companies’ organizational structures.Several factors have been identified as driving the challenges in staffing and recruiting, as listed below.

Highly Fragmented Market Space

The HR market is highly fragmented within the competitive landscape; varying greatly from country to country, geo to geo. This fragmentation of the market prevents a single firm from attaining a leadership position.

On the other hand, the fragmented market space gives staffing firms an opportunity to grow progressively by consolidation, particularly by strategic acquisitions.The consolidation process is in full-swing between staffing firms as they compete for the upper-hand in providing complex services to a diversified clientele in diversified market spaces.

Attraction and Retention of Talent

The success of a staffing firm is dependent on their ability to attract and retain talent who possess the level of skill and experience as requested by their client. Attracting new talent is a steep task, further challenging is talent retention.Jonas Prising, CEO of ManpowerGroup, offered the following on the criticality of talent retention: “Effective employee retention should focus on strategies that prevent employees being lost to other organizations. This means going beyond simple monetary rewards and offering a competitive range of benefits, learning and development experiences, career development paths, opportunities to move around the organization and the flexibility to balance work and personal life — the things that matter most to today’s talent.”

Shift in Power

The power has shifted from the employers to the individuals — who are in high-demand with even higher expectations – the new generation demands more than simple monetary incentives. So much so, employee retention has become a key concern for employers who often find themselves treading water just to stay a step ahead of the competition.

In my next post, I’ll offer specific solutions in addressing common challenges in the highly fragmented and ever-evolving staffing marketplace of today.

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Gaurav Karki

Gaurav Karki
Gaurav Karki, senior executive, is a presales consultant with the services vertical at Wipro Limited.

Gaurav Karki

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