Best Practices for Managing Temporary Employees

Adding new people to your workforce for a short space of time could make you worry about rocking the boat and changing the status quo. However if you manage them correctly then temporary employees could bring lots of positives to both your team and the business.

Treat them the same as regular employees

Treating temporary workers as equal to your regular employees in day-to-day management is important to make sure you keep everyone happy. They should get the same benefits during their time with you and be offered clear management support and training where necessary. Including them in your employee schedule is one way to do this and with Findmyshift you can add as many employees as you wish to your schedule without any extra cost. Inclusion will help improve productivity and morale across the team.

Set clear goals

Remember they are only with you for a short space of time, so being clear on what they are there to do can help you get the most out of their time. There is often no need for them to get bogged down with the details of ongoing or longer-term projects as they may not be around to see these to completion. However, they don't want to feel left out! So be sensitive to how you keep them focused on their own goals, rather than actively excluding them from other projects.

Be a mentor

Your temporary workers could be regular seasonal employees or they could be looking to gain new skills as part of a career transition. Understanding their purpose for taking this temporary job and seeing how you can help them while they're working with you, will make their time with you profitable for you both.

Highlight possibility of a permanent job

Just because someone is hired as a temporary worker it doesn’t mean they have to stay temporary. It's possible some of your temporary workers would really like to transition into permanent employees, so if this is a possibility then it's a great idea to let them know early in their temporary employment. Then they have something to really stay motivated for.

Say thank you, and get feedback

When a temporary employee's time with you has come to an end, why not have a quick one-on-one meeting with them. This should be both an opportunity to thank them for all their hard work and a time to ask them some questions about their experience and opinions. A fresh pair of eyes may help you see some areas of your business that could be improved upon.

Stay in touch

Recruiting temporary workers may be something you do every busy season or for new projects, so keeping in touch with people can make it easy for future recruitments. Give them a call or drop them occasional emails to check in and see how they are doing as you never know when you might want to hire them again. Recruiting someone who has already worked for you means they are more able to get stuck in straight away without spending time on training or onboarding.

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