Hiring temporary workers is a popular way to help fill staffing gaps or keep up with the demand and take the pressure off existing workers during busy periods.

Other benefits include being able to hire specialist staff for certain occasions and projects but avoid being over staffed when business is slower. Hiring temporary staff is also in most cases a far quicker purpose and if you find someone who gels well with your team you can always discuss keeping them on a permanent basis.

But how do you go about it and what are the important things to bear in mind?

Legal Responsibilities

If you’re planning to go down the temp worker route, make sure you check out your legal responsibilities and understand the rules and requirements from you. Depending on your sector and the work involved certain contracts may be more suitable than others.
The three main ways to hire are fixed term contracts, zero hours contracts and agency workers.

Fixed Term Contracts

Fixed term contracts can be used when an employee has a contract of employment set to finish on a specific date or when the project they are hired for comes to an end. Temporary staff on fixed term contracts will still be entitled to holiday pay. Depending on how long the employee has worked for you they may also be entitled to a notice period, but this should be set out in the terms of their contract from the start.

Fixed term contracts tend to be the best route for maternity cover or bringing in specialist staff for a particular project which will run over several months.

Zero Hours Contract.

A zero hours contract means just that, it’s a type of employment where no number of hours is guaranteed to the employer. This gives you the flexibility to offer more hours doing busy periods and less during quieter times as the employees are only paid for the hours they do. The simplicity of a zero hours contract also means the employer and temporary worker can have a long term agreement where the worker is brought back in for busier periods over the year.

Agency Workers

While we at Nelson Recruitment Services can help with all the above you may choose to hire workers directly through us as agency workers.
Agency workers are hired through a recruitment agency and classed as workers rather than employees as they are effectively hired by us rather than you (although you have full say in the decision over which candidates to recruit for the role.)

Agency workers are still entitled to paid annual leave, breaks and national minimum wage. You will need to make sure they are given the appropriate health and safety at work and protection from unlawful wage deductions and discrimination as set out in the Equality Act 2010.

If an agency worker is with you for over 12 weeks, they are then entitled to all of the benefits of a full-time employee and you must treat them as if you have hired them directly.

Working With a Temp Agency

Hiring through an agency will help make the process smoother and take a lot of the stress involved in the hiring process away from you.

But it’s important to note that in the UK the cost of hiring through an agency falls on the employer. The amount you pay varies slightly by agency but also by sector and industry.

If you decide to take on an agency worker as a full-time member of staff, you may be charged a transfer fee but there are some exceptions. Your recruitment agency will be experts in this area, so your best port of call is to discuss with your preferred agency who will be able to guide you on the ins and outs and fees incurred in the hiring process.

We help make the process easy

The downsides of hiring temporary workers are that it can feel expensive to hire a number of staff at once and it can take extra time to train them and get them up to speed. But the process doesn’t have to be difficult or costly, a specialist recruitment agency like ourselves (we specialise in industries such as manufacturing, warehousing and production) will be able to advise you every step of the way to make hiring the right staff as simple as possible.

To speak to one of our expert staff at Nelson Recruitment Services give us a call on 0121 796 247 or drop us an email and one of our friendly team will be able to assess your needs and advise on how we can assist further.