For staffing firms, consulting services can be a critical resource for optimizing business practices. When you’re on the inside, it’s tough to identify the source of your team’s roadblocks. Is your team taking full advantage of the tools offered by your applicant tracking system (ATS)? Are they using consistent methods for completing tasks? Are there areas you can save time and resources while increasing your talent pool?

As in other industries, consulting involves an expert or team of experts working closely with your business to help you solve problems, improve operations, and maximize profits. 

Within the staffing industry, though, another crucial element is the technology available to you. A consultant who is an expert in staffing and the staffing software you utilize can help your business maximize your use of technology, follow best practices in the industry, and optimize your team’s operations to improve efficiency. That’s where the TempWorks Consulting Division comes in. 

Who is a good fit for consulting services? 

Companies of all sizes can benefit from working closely with expert staffing advisors, such as those on the TempWorks Consulting Division team. Every staffing agency benefits from regular assessment of their processes and tools. How are you using the tools available to you within your staffing software? Are all of your tasks being completed within your software? Is your team aligned in their work processes? 

In particular, clients who have been with TempWorks for at least 18 months may benefit from consulting services. According to TempWorks staffing consultant Darin Pasch, that’s around the time clients begin experiencing operational drift. “Staff receive formal training when they go through the implementation process. However, as time goes on, teams begin to move away from their formal training and best practices,” says Pasch. “This is more likely to happen when your organization experiences turnover or grows.” 

Consulting could be right for you if: 

• Your team is only utilizing a small percent of the technology available to you in your staffing software 
• You’re experiencing roadblocks or errors in back-office operations 
• Your staffing agency employees are working outside your staffing software to accomplish their tasks (e.g., an office whiteboard or series of Excel documents) 
• Your employees use a variety of methods across the organization to accomplish the same task, rather than sharing one process aligned with best practices 

Consulting services can benefit staffing companies in a number of areas. Pasch shares three common inefficiencies he sees when consulting within the staffing industry. 

1. Back office challenges

Is your team experiencing roadblocks or errors in payroll or other back office practices? Often, when staffing agencies report struggling with back office, the source is actually on the front end. “Front end problems flow back,” says Pasch. “For example, you might have a problem with your time capture, or your orders and assignments may not be entered correctly. What payroll needs is good, clean data with the information in the right places.” Working with a consulting team provides you with the outside eyes to evaluate current practices and identify where they can be made more efficient. 

2. Complex application and onboarding processes

Pasch notes that many staffing companies are asking for more applicant information than they need, which can result in more candidate drop-offs and a reduced talent pool for your firm. For example, if an employee is asked to list every job they’ve had for the past 5 years, they may not finish the application. Pasch states plainly, “When the talent experience isn’t positive, the candidate quits. And often, your competitor is there ready to hire them with a more streamlined application process.” Staffing consultants can help you evaluate your application processes and improve your talent experience to increase your talent pool. 

3. Tracking activity outside of the ATS 

“There’s an old adage in the staffing industry,” says Pasch. “It goes: ‘If it’s not in the system—it didn’t happen!” This means if you didn’t document your activity in the ATS, there is no way for anyone else to verify that it happened.” 

As critical as this notion is to a staffing firm’s success, Google Sheets and whiteboards can still become very popular when recruiting and sales teams aren’t proficient with the system. Often this means duplication of work, which results in major inefficiencies. It could also mean incomplete data capture and activity recording, or worse yet: it could mean activity goes undocumented altogether.  

If business activity is properly documented, your front office teams should be able to quickly retrieve data from the system that is accurate and real-time.  Which allows them to perform a thorough business review with your customers.  It also gives your team the tools they need to provide a higher level of service to your customers than your competitors. If your team needs to look outside of your ATS for data, or go to multiple places to gather the information, more than likely your processes around documentation and ATS utilization could use some help. By having our consulting team review current-state processes and then strategically help implement process improvement, our customers are winning the battle for talent in their market. 

Additionally, staffing agencies are increasingly turning to consulting services to help make smart business decisions in the face of inflation and ongoing economic uncertainty.  

How can consulting help staffing agencies during challenging economic times? 

The TempWorks Consulting Division can inform the strategic decisions your business makes to protect yourself while planting the right seeds for future growth. 

TempWorks Consultant Darin Pasch has been in the industry long enough to have seen staffing firms go through multiple eras of economic struggle, including the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and the challenges surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. In times of economic uncertainty, many businesses make pre-emptive cuts. 

“Those cuts can sometimes be necessary, but it’s important to make sure you’re cutting in the right places,” says Pasch. “Don’t make cuts where it’s going to make you no longer able to be visible in the marketplace. Consulting can help with that, help you put together plans for working through and coming out of difficult economic times.” 

The staffing industry saw first-hand how important these strategic decisions were for staffing firms during the COVID-19 pandemic. “2020 brought unprecedented challenges to the staffing industry,” says Pasch. “Some businesses took cover, laying off staff, pulling their sales initiatives, and hoping to keep their head down until the economy recovered. The result: many of those companies are no longer operating today.” 

In contrast, other businesses learned to adapt, investing in their future growth as they trudged forward. Pasch emphasizes how investing in sales and recruitment—even when the economy was struggling—prepared staffing firms for success. “The businesses that succeeded were the ones who doubled down on their sales efforts. By continuing to invest in sales and recruitment, they nurtured customer relationships,” says Pasch. “Maybe the customer they worked with only needed 30 instead of 100 employees for a length of time. But when the tide turned—and it always turns—those staffing agencies were there.” 

One staffing agency pivoted from event staffing to focus on janitorial roles when cleaning became a primary need for customers. Meanwhile, they continued to stay in touch with their event staffing businesses. “When their customers were ready to get back into staffing for events, they turned back to our client rather than going to a competitor,” says Pasch. “Our client was there through the thick of it, and businesses want to work with the staffing agencies they know and trust.” 

What does working with the TempWorks Consulting Division look like? 

When staffing agencies are looking for advice to improve their business practices, they turn to the industry experts they trust. The TempWorks Consulting Division emerged in response to the needs of our clients. Staffing agencies of all sizes want to know: How can they stay on top of—or ahead of—current staffing trends? How can they grow their business? How can they make their teams more efficient? How will they overcome the hurdles they are encountering? 

Because every company is unique, our consulting services are personalized to the needs of each client. We partner with staffing agencies to understand your current practices and determine where gaps and weaknesses exist. Then, we evaluate these processes and provide recommendations for improving business operations. These recommendations are based on industry best practices that align with your software. When applied, the solutions we suggest will help your staffing firm maximize efficiencies and reduced costs. 

Why partner with TempWorks for consulting? 

When you need support to improve your business practices, it helps to work with the people you know and trust. As an added bonus, the TempWorks Consulting Division is uniquely positioned to provide consulting services to your business because we know your software. While other consultants may be able to offer general business advice, we are experts in both staffing and the technology at your fingertips.  

When we help you build your best practices, we do so based on the tools you have available to you. Because we know your software, we can better understand your staffing firm’s needs. The TempWorks Consulting Division can help your team maximize your use of the tools available to you, helping your agency optimize your processes. With us, you get actionable, sustainable solutions that prepare you for long-term success. 

To learn more about how the TempWorks Consulting Division can help your staffing agency optimize your business practices, contact your account manager or reach out to us below.