The agency
temp model has been the tried and true
mainstay of the staffing industry for many decades. The client needs a contingent worker, the
staffing firm finds and supplies the right one while serving as employer of
record. The machinery for executing this
process has not changed that much—automation has been introduced to optimize
here and there—but all the basic steps have remained the same, like an old
dance that everyone knows and loves to do.
Or maybe not
everyone is loving it: dances change
over time—for example, from a minuet to a hot cha-cha-cha.
And staffing
firms may be starting to feel the heat these days. BLS data suggest that a cyclical peak may
have been reached heading into 2015, perhaps signaling an end to the “post-recession
recovery temp staffing party.”
But deeper
changes may also be at work. Staffing
Industry Analysts recently published these staffing firm survey results,
indicating that even some large percent
of staffing firms were expecting to generate less revenue from
conventional temporary help services and more from SOW and online staffing.
Other
studies, including one by Ardent Partners, basically mirror these findings--except
they anticipate changes occurring within a shorter time frame (in coming years,
not over the next ten years).
Most
staffing firms and analysts have been mesmerized by one new, fast-growing services
model called SOW. But SOW is just the first visible signal of
changing models—it is not the end-all.
At the same time, SOW is showing many staffing firms how difficult it is
to adopt and perform new service processes and delivery successfully to
customers with new business models (e.g., for fee by completed project vs. a %
of ongoing temp billings).
More changes
are coming, including “workers on-demand” and “specialized, short-burst
talent-as-a-service.” Customers and
candidates want to engage in processes that offer them control, visibility, and
speed (patience is waning for the service time frames and practices of
traditional middlemen).
Staffing
firms that are fully locked into their traditional temporary help business
models, processes, and technology may not be able to change and adapt to new
processes and models as demand for temporary help services begins to recede in
favor of other workforce services and solutions. For
firms like these, the flames may not be visible and there may not be any smell
of smoke, but their businesses may be turning into “burning platforms.”
The way to
avoid becoming a “burning platform” is to start making small changes and to start
innovating NOW—begin to introduce new digitized processes and service
offerings. This does not mean that you
should shift your focus away from your core business and try to substitute a
new innovative one. It means that on a
small scale you should start making changes, getting accustomed to changes,
trying to make changes work (some will, some won’t).
NextCrew is
the ideal platform for pursuing this process—complete with capabilities that
can be used to digitize and start to transform the way you engage with clients
and candidates and how you deliver your staffing services to them. It is economical and easy to deploy,
complementing and integrating with your existing technology. Moreover, you control how much and what
change you want to try, and the NextCrew platform will support your doing
so. NextCrew even offers pre-developed
service processes and models for you to try out (like Talent Showcase, Private
Talent Pools, et al).
Closing questions: Are you and your staffing firm going to be
doing the same things you've done for years when the music starts and there is
smoke rising in the air? Or are you and
your business going to face the music now and start to dance?
Guest Blogger, Andrew Karpie, is Principal Analyst at The Research Platform and a recognized expert on emerging online work intermediation platforms as well as their impact on the staffing industry. Over the past three years, he has produced and published numerous research reports and articles on these subjects with Staffing Industry Analysts. He has also produced research and published content for a number of major staffing firms and online staffing platform businesses, and he serves on the Advisory Board of The Rise of the Platform Economy research program, a joint initiative of Stanford University Business School and The Center for the Global Enterprise. Andrew holds an MS in Policy Analysis from Carnegie Mellon University, and he lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.
