In the big picture, and since the late 1990s, the traditional version of staffing, focused on growing internal employee headcounts, has shifted to include more forms of what is referred to as flexible staffing models. Most but not all employers have fully embraced this shift.

An Historical Perspective – Post Covid

During COVID, many Northwest employers were forced to downsize their core employee groups and braced themselves for a what they thought would be a volatile period of recovery. During this period, staffing needs were as difficult to predict as business performance.

Those of us in the staffing business wondered if the build would look like a prolonged U with a slow and painful recovery, or a V with a quick and permanent rebound back to the robust growth pre COVID (a V). Some wondered if, God forbid, the recover would look like an elongated hockey stick with a quick rebound, followed by a long term stall. 

No one knew for sure, which we think set the stage for all employers to rethink their investments in all areas of their business – staffing included. As you already know if you are a regular reader of PACE blogs, that our team predicted, even advocated for, a strategic approach that straddled all options and would embrace what we refer to as the tactics of FLEXIBLE STAFFING.

As it turns out, the build back period for many companies had challenges. Some openly downsized.  Others elected to grow.  But unlike what PACE had predicted, only a few made a strategic commitments to “flexibility” as an operating mantra.

Here’s Why….

As the Northwest business community started to build back, many companies didn’t perceive flexible staffing models as a legitimate option. As the competition for talent increased and fewer employees elected to go back to work, the appetite for employees to consider temporary roles decreased, making the direct hire option the only way employers intent on growing could compete for the talent they needed.

Walking into 2025 a good share of the unknowns (ex. tax and interest rates,  tariffs etc.) are now knowns, and most of the people in the pre covid workforce no longer believe they have the luxury of not working.  We think it might be the just right time to rethink ways to build more flexibility into your staffing decisions.

In fact, we’ve prepared a set of questions you can ask yourself to see if you’ve given the flexibility option a fair review:   

#1. Has your company established a clear set of principles to describe how you intend to staff up your company over the next 6-12 months?  Have you actually explored all options?

Are you talking about the choices you will have to staff back so that your employees will know under what circumstances you will add to your core workforce and what circumstances will make a “temp” or contract employee the better option?  Do they know why?

Clear statements of strategy can relieve the worries of core employees (are we next?) plus provide guidance to your hiring managers as to how to best staff up or down in response to business needs.

# 2. Have you included the use of temporary or contract staffing in your operating budgets so as to prepare for the possibility that flexible staffing models might become the better option for getting work done without expanding your fixed commitments?

We also encourage our clients not to bury the costs of their temporary and contract workers into administrative overhead but instead make it easy to identify the totality of what your company is actually spending on the people it needs to get work done.    Making the total cost of people become more makes it easier to compare alternative ways to pay for the people side of your business.

#3  Have you done the work to integrate how you find, screen, and onboard your core employees with how you find, screen and onboard employees who you’ve categorized as interim?   

Do these two components of your staffing operation tend to work together or are they seen as two different staffing processes with little to no overlap?  Does your temporary staffing vendor know your hiring standards – what qualities you look for in the employees you hire so that when they fill a temporary role, they are filling it with a potential future hire?  Have you  created and/or re-structured  a temp-to-hire auditioning process to reduce your costs of hire, and/or minimize turnover?  How carefully have you thought through the auditioning process to make sure the best talent is easily identified during the audition? Have you removed all obstacles to making quick conversions between “temp and perm?”

#4.  Have you partnered up with a temporary staffing provider who has the mindset to help you with your bigger picture staffing or talent development strategies? 

What counsel is your current staffing provider offering to make sure your flexible staffing strategies work in direct alignment with your bigger picture staffing or business needs?  Does your temporary staffing provider also do direct hire recruiting?  The trend is to have one vendor who you invest in to get to your company inside out – is your current staffing vendor ready for that challenge?

Bottom-line is your current staffing vendor acting more like an order taker or a strategic advisor?

#5.   When was the last time you did an analysis of the relative costs of an internal vs. internal employer solution – hiring direct as opposed to “hiring” a temp? 

Do your hiring managers fully understand the costs associated with an employee you hire direct?  Have you updated those costs analysis to include current administration requirements and benefit costs?

To make good staffing decisions, your hiring managers need to understand the real costs of each option.  (Feel free to share our blog on that topic here) 

The PACE Staffing Network has been helping clients design and optimize flexible staffing models for over four decades. As a provider of both temporary and direct hire services we’ve been privileged to help companies integrate their use of non core employees inside their larger talent acquisition strategies. We’ve seen how the best practices in flexible workforce solutions can create a significant and competitive advantage.