- Sometimes it just makes more sense to hire a part-time workforce.
- As a business owner, a part-time workforce is less burdensome in regard to insurance and other benefits.
- The question is how do you approach a part-time workforce when all you may have previously hired as employees are full timers?
Is today’s full-time workforce fading away? Will there soon come a time when there will be no such thing as a full-time job?
There can be many reasons why a business might want to transition from full-time workers to part-timers.
For some businesses this transition may entail economics, in which a company may find it is no longer able or want to pay the benefits that go along with full-time workers.
For other businesses there might possibly be a slowdown in production which can render full-time employees as no longer feasible.
Then, of course, there is the dreaded new type of worker who is not necessarily a millennial – though this is a millennial thought process – that life is much more important than work, and given this, less hours spent at a desk is a requirement of the emerging workforce, i.e. part-time.
Sure, there can be other reasons such as:
- Work-to-worker proximity as far as where your business is located.
- The ability of a large portion of employees to work via online from home.
- The business itself being internet based which consequently means there is no brick and mortar storefront for employees to commute to each day.
To that point, such instances as those above leave employers and hiring managers with little choice other than to hire part-time workers.
The problem, however, with part-time workers is the stigma that businesses in the past have pinned on part-timers:
- That they’re generally too lazy or inept to work full time.
- They’re second raters that are better utilized for more menial tasks.
- They have no interest in working.
- They’re unqualified.
- They are disposable.
Of course, none of this is true. In fact, as an article published on ERE Recruiting Intelligence states, part-time workers can be a huge asset to any company of any size. First, you as a manager have to put your trust and faith into the part-time workforce using these 3 approaches.
- Isn’t Gig Economy Talent Just Low-Level Temp Labor?
Talent available through gig-economy models goes well beyond ride-sharing, freelancers, coders, and creatives.
Large pools of talent who have chosen to embrace the independent employment model are available on project, part-time, contract, and consulting through platforms such as Upwork, Freelancer, OnForce, or directly.
And like Uber and Lyft, the technology platforms and intermediaries that match organizations to the talent they need have resolved many of the challenges from the past regarding identification verification, payment, and compliance.
Expertise can be brought in to assist with troubleshooting, special projects, short-term medical leaves, and other gaps at all levels of the organization.
And from virtual assistants to technology professionals, marketing specialists, project managers, and even leadership levels including those who can operate among directors and in the C-suite, it’s possible today to send out a carefully crafted call for help and find the right match within a matter of days, not weeks.
This, of course, is dependent upon whether or not the prep work and the job requisition specifications are detailed enough and centered around skills, expectations, results, and outcomes that you want from your part-time workforce.
- Leasing vs. Buying Talent: Pay Less, Get More
Companies are more open to using independent talent compared to hiring full-time for a number of reasons. Those are:
- Part-time talent can be lean and flexible.
- Part-time talent can be faster in the production processes of your business.
- Hiring part-time employees will help improve your bottom line.
The option to “rent” or “lease” talent in the short-term is following a similar trajectory as the auto industry. The most recent statistics show that 28 percent of new cars on the roads in the United States today are leased. With the contingent workforce now accounting for approximately one-third (33 percent) of the U.S. workforce, it is not difficult to draw parallels between these two pools of short-term, non-owned, needs-based solutions.
The one area where the two situations differ is the total cost. Unlike a car lease, which ultimately ends up costing more than an outright purchase, organizations can actually afford to upgrade and get a higher caliber of talent for less money when they bring in high-level “gig economy” (interim) talent to a business on a part-time or temporary basis.
Rather than committing to a full-time, fixed salary, plus bonuses/profit sharing, benefits as well as allowances, interim staffing on a part-time or temporary basis only takes a comparatively small bite out of the total budget, since the enterprise uses these services for a shorter period of time.
- How to Create a Great Short-term Employer/Employee Experience
What information can you instill to help create a great short-term ride for both you and your part-time employees?
- A full, multidimensional candidate profile, including detailed information about types of work at which he or she excels (and the opposite — types of work that are not in the person’s primary areas of interest or competence).
- To which projects and activities has the individual already contributed inside the company?
- Feedback. In other words, how are your part-timers doing on the job? Be open and honest with them just as you would with full-time employees. Don’t dismiss them as “less than” which could cause your part timers to feel disposable and subsequently quit their jobs.
Using independent talent can also remove the frustration of the five-page job description and every item on the list being “required.”
Rather than searching endlessly for candidates who seemingly need split personalities to fulfill the job description, gig-talent hires are more activity- and outcome- based; “other duties as assigned” aren’t typically a part of a part-time job.
Conclusion
As the ERE article states, the “new millennium” is nearly 20 percent gone and with that, it’s time for recruiters to upgrade their hiring practices to reflect new realities.
As is the case with Uber, a person can order a car to meet them wherever they are, whenever they need it, and the experience is better, faster, cheaper, and more pleasant than cab rides.
The gig economy is not going to solve every business’s hiring issues. But it nonetheless is a solution to several problems within today’s workforce.
