3 Alternatives to Hiring Full Time Staff

It's easy to buy more or less material each month to match the number of orders you have, but how do you quickly turn up and down the amount of labor you pay for when your employees are relying on you for their livelihood? You can't ethically just tell them to go home without pay whenever things slow down - or can you?

Here's a handy management tip for building a flexible, variable sized workforce. To understand your options for managing variable staffing levels you first need to understand the expected level of variability involved. In any production or service provision environment the level of orders varies from time to time. Some months are high, some are lower. It varies.

Despite apparently random variability, on examination you will normally see a minimum production level that you very rarely dip below. Everything above this level of activity is at high risk of varying from week to week. The work below your minimum production level is at low risk for variability.

When you look at it this way it quickly becomes apparent that only a portion of your production labor is subject to a high level of variability. The other portion is quite regular, and you don't run much risk of not requiring that minimum level of production.

Full Time Production & Service Delivery Staff

For the portion of production that is low risk or that we are confident we will need to deliver on constantly, it makes sense to hire full-time staff to handle that part. Full time positions provide security for both employees and employers. Employers benefit by having the consistency in quality and cost that comes with having the same people doing the same job for months or years at a time. Employees benefit from having job security and are generally willing to compromise on high wages for the security of knowing they will get a regular paycheck.

Casual Labor

Now let's look at the highly variable production portion of our workload. This work can come in or go away on short notice; hence the need for variable labor. This is where various types of variable labor come to the rescue.

Casual labor is a form of part time labor that is willing to fill in on short notice. There is no expectation of a full time position, and very often that's how the employees like it. There are many lifestyle reasons for choosing to work casually. One common situation is parents with young families where one parent wishes to spend the majority of their time with their children. These people don't want to work regular hours, but the offer of a few days work from time to time with no long term commitment is welcomed to help pay the bills and provide a different social situation for a short time. Maintaining a call list of casual workers can really help you out when you get higher than expected delivery demands that only last for a few days.

The secret to using casual labor successfully is to build a small army of workers that is larger than you will need at any one time. Only a percentage of your variable labor contacts will respond to each call. If you build a large enough call list, and cycle through it periodically you'll get the help you need, when you need it.

Temporary Labor

Temporary labor is similar to casual labor except that instead of a few days, the term is generally a few weeks or months. A big order that will take a few months to fill may be best completed with temporary labor. Keeping people on for a little longer decreases the amount and cost of training required compared to casual labor. It's a good compromise between casual labor and hiring a full time employee before you are sure the increase in business deliverables will last.

Like casual labor there are many lifestyle choices that make this type of employment attractive to the employees as well. Students and long term travelers often make ideal temporary labor candidates.

Piece Workers

Piece workers provide variable labor that is paid for in an entirely different way. Instead of paying people for their time, you pay them for each item they produce for you. This could be a physical piece, like assembling a product or planting a tree, or a service piece like making a tele-marketing call or delivering a flyer.

Piece work is good for things that can be easily verified and often this type of work can be done wherever and whenever the worker decides. People often do piecework from home, and at odd hours that accommodate their lifestyle. If it’s a nice day outside a piece worker often has the flexibility to go for a long walk, and then do their work that night instead. As long as the work gets done by the deadline it's all the same to the employer. If you find the right piece workers both sides get a winning proposition.

Summary

There are many ways to manage variable labor requirements that don't involve the repeated hiring and laying-off of employees. Once you understand what portion of your long-term workload is actually variable you can take steps to get the best mix of full-time, casual, temporary and per piece workers. Paying people only when you need them is good business. Providing opportunities that give people different lifestyle options is good for the community.