Made for this
Personnel Partners secured the rights to this cartoon in the days after 9/11. Who knew that we would be pulling it out again after the stretch of years we’ve lived since 2020?! As we hosted the South Bend Chamber’s Coffee & Conversations event several weeks ago, one of the most frequent questions we were asked was the infamous, “What are you seeing out there in the business world?” To which we must answer, “A little of everything.”
Staffing employment has traditionally been the indicator of trends in the economy, so it’s fair for you to ask a staffing agency team to talk about what is happening in the job market and business world. To some extent the trend setter reputation may still be true, but now more than ever staffing has begun to find its place as the very definition of flexibility in employment.
A new meaning to flexibility
The word “flexibility” has been given a variety of meanings by both job seekers and employers over the past few years, with the trendiest meaning being attached to remote work situations. However, as the youngest generation enters the workforce and the oldest generation currently in it gives signs of being willing to stay on; and as businesses find that today’s economic trends are unlike any cycles previously seen, it’s becoming clear that “flexibility” in employment is going to mean more of an overall shift to a new way of viewing the world of work.
There are two pillars of benefit to staffing employment that have been around for a long time. While they have always been true of the value of using staffing, think about how these old truths sound new today:
Expanded Access to Talent. It’s been a challenge for employers to find the talent they want to hire, and for job seekers it’s been a challenge to find an employer who offers the setting where they feel they can thrive. While AI has offered the option to save time by creating a resume for you, it is also working both ends of the spectrum by scanning and sorting resumes for hiring managers to save them time. Meanwhile, the value of a personal referral is as high as it has ever been. That leaves a staffing agency filling an increasingly unique role, attracting more job seekers and clients to the human touch offered.
Flexibility. Temporary work has never meant “only show up to the job if you feel like it today.” It began by filling a need for project work, for vacation coverage, or for an extra hand around the office (and those needs still exist). It always meant that you made a commitment to a length of time that matched the client’s workload, and you knew it would end at some point. Over time, this grew to also become the incredibly popular option to intentionally bring in a candidate through a staffing agency when the opening was permanent and the temporary period was simply the probationary period for a new hire. As economic times became uncertain, many job seekers gravitated toward this option as a way to get to know a new employer.
What today’s worker wants
Two of the largest segments of the workforce today are GenZ and Baby Boomers considering retirement. In the middle is a significant population of workers (including many working mothers) who bowed out of the workplace during the pandemic, realized they did not need to or did not want to work full time, and are only now considering returning to work in some fashion. For each of these demographics, some type of flexibility in working arrangements is a draw.
In our northern Indiana area, we don’t see a strong demand for remote work. Candidates who come through Personnel Partners’ offices in the GenZ population often want a position where everyone will spend time on community projects; where they can ask for unique time off work arrangements (but not necessarily more time off than anyone else); or to work in a setting that is casual and flexible about interaction with the team or cross-training in duties. Retirees returning to the workplace want the kind of flexibility that offers less than a 40-hour workweek, or time off for travel - but they are committed to showing up and reliable in the agreed-upon schedule. Working mothers need flexibility for unexpected family care without penalty; something that previously wasn’t offered freely by many employers.
What today’s client wants
Our clients need the ability to define a staffing need and say that it might not be a long-term one. Circumstances might mean that responsibilities will shift for any given employee, or the workload might increase or decrease unexpectedly.
Hiring managers also need the ability to navigate the overwhelming internet traffic of job applicants and find the real people behind the resumes who are suited to their job openings. When those openings are a moving target, hiring managers need a candidate who will move with them, understanding and appreciating how things work and making exactly the commitment needed.
Made for this
Staffing has been preparing for today for a long time. At Personnel Partners, that’s 30 years of talking to job seekers and clients, watching the local job markets, recruiting, screening, hiring, and monitoring thousands of employees in a wide variety of scenarios for a wide variety of businesses. If “everything old is new again”, then our line of work has reinvented itself as one of the preferred ways of doing work in today’s world.
If you have moved away from staffing to hiring on your own because you thought the labor market was easing, come back! It’s more efficient here when the screening is already done; and job seekers often do come to us first.
If you were unsure about staffing as an option for employment, come in! It’s more personal here when a live human gets to know your skills and experience and might refer you for an opening you wouldn’t have known about otherwise.