In 2022, at least 175,000 people in Ireland classified themselves as ‘temporary employees’ a significant increase since 2002’s number of 134,000.
Temporary workers are employees hired for a specific time for specific projects or tasks. There are many benefits to hiring temporarily including, for example, the ability to hire for specialised skills. Skills-based hiring is one of the defining talent market trends of 2024, and we predict it will only grow in importance over time.
What does temporary employment mean?
A temporary employee's role is usually for a specific, short-term period, addressing immediate needs, such as covering for absent employees, handling seasonal workloads, or completing short-term projects.
How do employers benefit from temporary employees?
Hiring temporary employees can be hugely beneficial for an organisation, as they are cost-effective, versatile and time-effective. We’ve taken six key benefits and explore them in detail below:
Temporary workers are cost-effective – Employee benefits can account for over 31% of employee compensation costs. Temporary workers typically receive fixed rates without requiring benefits such as health insurance. They are also not part of the organisation’s head count. Allowing further financial flexibility and allows them to optimise spending across the year, by scaling their temporary workforce numbers, up and down, depending on demand.
Temporary workers can have more specialised skills - Some temporary workers can have specialised skills, these include soft skills such as customer service, organisation, communication, and problem-solving. For Office Support roles, hard skills such as proficiency in Microsoft packages including Excel and Word, alongside data entry expertise are a necessity. These abilities can help the temporary worker hit the ground running upon their start date in any organisation.
Temporary workers are versatile – An employer can assign a temporary employee a variety of tasks or ask them to specifically focus on the mission-critical tasks that are needed most urgently. Either way, there’s flexibility to select how you will use skilled temporary workers.
Option to hire the temporary worker full-time – Hiring temporarily is also a method of seeing how someone performs and aligns with the company’s culture and values. The team member also has the chance to test the waters with the employer to see if they feel they are a good fit for the role assigned to them.
Hiring temporary workers is time effective – Employers can quickly fill roles and take advantage of growth opportunities by hiring temporary workers. The candidate journey can be streamlined, and the temporary employee brought on board much quicker than the process for permanent staff.
Temporary workers allow workforces to scale up or down to meet demand – Hiring temporary staff provides businesses with fluctuating workloads the flexibility to adjust their workforce size based on real-time needs. An example of this would be retail stores hiring temporary employees at Christmas time to deal with the higher footfall and demand. This approach not only helps maintain operational efficiency but also enables companies to manage labour costs.
Conclusion
As the trend towards skills-based hiring gains momentum, and the number of employees is on the rise, temporary employees allow companies to tap into a diverse pool of candidates. By embracing this approach, organisations can not only fill critical gaps but also foster a more dynamic and adaptable workforce.
Cpl temporary and contract recruitment solutions
With over 30 years of experience in temporary and contract hiring, Cpl is one of the largest providers of temporary and contract workers throughout Europe. We recruit for 20+ sectors including technology, office support, life sciences and financial services. Contact our specialist temporary recruitment team to learn more about Cpl’s temporary recruitment solutions.
Sources:
Labour Market Dynamics and the Rising Incidence of People Working Multiple Jobs in Ireland, Gov.ie, June 2023
Soft Skills vs Hard Skills: The Importance of Both in the Workplace, Workhuman, July 2024