| 2015 Q4 | story by EMILY MULLIGAN | photos by STEVEN HERTZOG |
Temporary work is not just about maternity leave anymore. Staffing firms are more relevant than ever to the Lawrence employment scene, and although they do help local companies fill in for someone who is on leave, their scope of recruiting is much wider.
Shirley Martin-Smith, of Adecco Staffing Agency, has been in the business since 1977 in Lawrence. Barry Kingery and Kate Blocker, owners of Express Professional Services, have been in the business in Lawrence since 2005 and 2007, respectively, and have lived in Lawrence for more than 20 years.
Both agencies recruit employees for jobs at local businesses and must obtain businesses as clients where they can send their employees, so the staffing agencies’ workload is a continuous cycle of recruiting on both sides of the job spectrum.
Staffing agencies are much more versatile than both employers and potential employees realize, and the agencies appreciate the opportunity to educate others about all of the ways they have an impact on business in Lawrence.
“All we do every day is interview, hire and select people for businesses. So, our foundation of success is how well we do that,” Martin-Smith says. “It is a constant education of the workforce every day.”
Staffing agencies employ four main categories of associate recruiting: traditional temporary work, contract work, evaluation to hire and direct hire.
Both Express and Adecco hire associates for the stereotypical temporary work assignments, when someone will be gone on vacation, medical leave or family leave for a defined amount of time. The staffing agencies have databases of employees who have experience in a variety of fields and are accustomed to entering a new workplace and quickly learning the ropes. However, for both firms, those temporary fill-in assignments are not where their capabilities begin and end.
They hire for and fill contract work positions, as well. These positions have a start and end date but differ from typical temporary work in that they are usually the result of a boost in business because of a seasonal cycle or a change in, or expansion of, a business. “More often than not, our associates can generate a permanent position from that,” Kingery says.
“Evaluation to hire” is the staff agencies’ term for positions that function as a “test drive” for companies to fill permanent positions. The staffing agencies recruit, evaluate and interview qualified applicants who they provide to the employer for an evaluation period to make sure the employee is a good fit for the company. If so, the company hires the employee permanently, away from the staffing agency.
Direct hire, or professional placement, is a staffing agency function that is increasingly in demand. Martin-Smith says staffing agencies take the heavy lifting of sifting through resumes, doing interviews and checking references off of the workload of already-overburdened human resources offices—often with a quicker turnaround.
The past year or so has been a particularly interesting time for local staffing agencies. As the economy has expanded—both nationally and locally—there are more jobs open than there are associates to fill them.
“It’s an applicant market now—they can pick and choose what they want to do and how they want to do it,” Martin-Smith says.
The current market presents both a victory and a challenge for the staffing agencies. On the associate side, there likely is a viable opportunity for almost every applicant who comes seeking employment in any category. But on the client side, the agencies must appease the companies that have these openings and are anxiously awaiting associates to fill them.
There are a couple of reasons for this imbalance, Kingery and Blocker say. One is that nationwide, there is a reduced labor participation rate, meaning more people are choosing not to work even though they could. Many people who were downsized in the recent recession spent some time looking for work but then either did not find it or decided to retire early.
“We’re trying to figure out how to get them back to work. We are selling the avenue of temporary work as a way to get back to permanent work,” Martin-Smith says.
Baby boomers are still an important part of the current and future workforce, but they don’t seem to realize that, she says.
“They say they’re too old? No, they’re not. What companies want are people who are reliable, know how to get along at work and can learn. They can take their skills and apply them differently—that’s where our industry adds value,” Martin-Smith says.
Another reason for the lingering job openings is that there are fewer workers who have trade skills. Blocker says after baby boomers, there was a stronger emphasis placed on attending college and a lack of emphasis on pursuing traditional trades. So there actually is a gap in the workforce as the baby boomers retire. Plumbing, HVAC, electrical work and even welding are in high demand.
“For example, we have clients that, the minute we come across someone with HVAC experience, we are to call them,” Blocker says. “And those jobs pay some good money.”
Lawrence’s new Dwayne Peaslee Technical Training Center eventually will help bridge that gap, the staffing agencies agree. But until more people can work toward that training, for the foreseeable future, the gap will exist.
Local staffing agencies and employers must compete with opportunities in Kansas City and Topeka, as well, because commuting from Lawrence is relatively simple.
“We’ve been encouraging our clients for a couple of years to increase their wages, and now, they’re starting to see the light,” Kingery says. “In the past, jobs that paid $10 an hour here paid $14 to $15 an hour in Johnson County.”
Blocker also says that in many jobs, paying about $3 more per hour attracts a different caliber of candidate, one who is more likely to stay in the job longer.
As with any business trying to reach its audience, staffing firms must contend with the general “noise” of electronic advertising and communications when trying to reach potential employees. It helps that both businesses are well-established in Lawrence, so they have made good connections with their client base. But, constantly keeping job opportunities in front of potential associates is a challenge.
“We’ve moved back into the tried-and-true methods of outreach. We have to try to sell to people what our jobs are and why they want to work for us,” Martin-Smith says.
Adecco attends job fairs, plays host to open houses in its offices, distributes fliers and signs, and uses traditional advertising media, such as newspaper ads, Martin-Smith says.
The company also recently has started using a new technology called Fetch that allows them to select potential employees from their robust database and send a text message directly to each person about a specific job opening for which he or she qualifies.
“Various generations have different ways of looking for work, so we have to do all the ways we can,” Martin-Smith explains.
Express also tries to combine new technology with the traditional approach.
“Social media in the last year has gone gangbusters for us, people sharing and reposting our job openings,” Blocker says. “The other key factor has been offering a referral bonus when an associate working for us refers a friend and gets a cash bonus. If you do a good job for us, likely people you know will also.”
In the staffing business, the job is never done—there are always people who need work and jobs that need to be filled. Staffing specialists must pace themselves and take each match as a small victory, because the game they are playing is a career-long event.
“Our industry is always a pendulum. Now, we are heavy on recruiting associates. At some time, it will swing back again, but that is a few years away,” Kingery says.