Are you familiar with the Temporary Staffing industry lingo?

Temp Staffing Lingo

ASA
American Staffing Association

Boutique firms
Firms that specialize in placing candidates for a particular industry or job specialty. This is in contrast to generalist firms that will seek to meet any hiring need that arises.

NAPS
National Association of Personnel Services.

Temps
The word used for temporary employees provided by staffing services.

Long-Term and Contract Help
A staffing firm supplies employees to work on long-term, indefinite assignments. Employees are recruited, screened, and assigned by the staffing firm.

Managed Services
A staffing firm assumes full responsibility for operating a specific customer function (e.g., mail room) on an on-going basis.

Payrolling
The customer recruits workers but asks a staffing firm to hire and assign them to perform services. Or workers currently employed by the customer are placed on the payroll of a staffing firm. Payrolling is distinguished from PEO arrangements in that the workers generally are on temporary assignments and make up a small proportion of the customer's work force.

PEO (Employee Leasing)
A business places all or most of its work force onto the payroll of a staffing firm and the staffing firm assumes responsibility for payroll, benefits, and other human resource functions.

Placement
A staffing firm brings together job seekers and potential employers for the purpose of establishing a "permanent" employment relationship.

Temporary Help
A staffing firm hires its own employees and assigns them to support or supplement a customer's work force in situations involving employee absences, temporary skill shortages, seasonal workloads, and special projects.

Temporary to Hire
A staffing firm employee works for a customer during a trial period in which both the employee and the customer consider establishing a "permanent" employment relationship.

Health Care
Physicians, dentists, nurses, hygienists, medical technicians, therapists, home health aides, custodial care workers, etc.

Industrial
Manual laborers, food handlers, cleaners, assemblers, drivers, tradesmen, machine operators, maintenance workers, etc.

Information Technology
Consultants, analysts, programmers, designers, installers, and other occupations involving computer sciences (hardware or software) or communications technology (Internet, telephony, etc.)

Office–Clerical
Secretaries, general office clerks, receptionists, administrative assistants, word-processing and data entry operators, cashiers, etc.

Professional–Managerial
Accountants, bookkeepers, attorneys, paralegals, middle and senior managers, advertising and marketing executives, and other nontechnical occupations that require higher skill or education levels.

Technical
Engineers, scientists, laboratory technicians, architects, draftsmen, technical writers and illustrators, and other individuals with special skills or training in technical fields involving math or science (not including information technology).

From BuyerZone.com
http://businessweek.buyerzone.com/personnel/temp_staffing/buyers_guide1.html

Workforce Definitions

The vocabulary surrounding the outsourced workforce movement (and how outsourced workers are acquired) is evolving rapidly. Are you familiar with the following terms? If your company is utilizing an increased amount of continent workers (Based on the Staffing Industry Analysts Glossary)

Contingency Placement -- The practice of charging a fee to either the applicant or the employer only after a successful referral of the applicant to the employer for employment. (Compare: Retained Search)

Contingent Workforce -- The group ofconsultants, contractors, temps, and other project based workers that a company employs. Usually these contractors are employed through staffing firms, project-based consulting companies, or through outsourcing.

Just-In-Time Staffing (JIT Staffing) -- A loosely used term that equates "flexible staffing" arrangements with the concept of "just-in-time" inventory control or delivery of parts for a manufacturing process. Rather than carrying inventory (or permanent employees), arrangements are made with a supplier to deliver parts (or help supply workers) just at the time when they are needed in the work process.

Managed Services/Managed Staffing -- Term used to describe facilities support management and outsourcing services. Refers to the on-site supervision or management of a function or department at a client (customer) site on an ongoing, indefinite basis; often the staffing service has output responsibilities and accountability.

Off-Site -- Business services provided for a client (customer) at the service provider's location, not at the client premises.

On-Site -- Vendored or outsourced services provided to the client (customer) at the client site.

On-Site Management -- On-site management of a department or function by the supplier. (See also: Facilities Management, Managed Staffing.)

On-Site Supervision -- On-site supervision by the supplier. (See also: Facilities Staffing.)

Payroll Service -- A business service that provides payroll processing, paycheck writing, and payroll tax administration, for a fee. No co-employer or joint employer relationship exists; it is plainly an administrative function.

Single Source Supplier -- The provision of staffing services employees through a single supplier source.

Strategic Staffing -- The pre-planned use of alternative or flexible staffing strategies by the customer. May include the use of temp-to-perm hiring, or planned temporary staffing for work cycle peaks or projects, for example.

Supplemental Staffing -- The provision of temporary workers to a client company to supplement the current workforce for peak loads, special projects, or planned and unplanned worker absences.

Vendoring -- The provision of business services by an outside supplier (vendor), where the vendor brings its own employees on-site to perform a specific function, such as running a cafeteria or providing security services, or uses its own employees off-site to perform a specific function that was formerly done by the customer.

Vendor On Premises (VOP) -- On-site coordination of a customer's temporary help services through an exclusive, long-term general contractor relationship with a temporary help company. The designated Vendor On Premises may enter into subcontracting relationships with other temporary help suppliers, or the customer may specify such relationships.

Contingent Workforce Security Risks

The contingent workforce (consultants, contractors, temps, and other project based workers) is a rapidly expanding sectors of the U.S. workforce. Growing at 15% annually and comprising over $100 billion in total spend this group is also one of the most prone to security issues. Workplace security has emerged as one of the most serious challenges facing businesses.

70% of corporations carry out minimal background checks on full-time internal candidates and estimates indicate that far fewer companies do any background screening of their contingent workers according to the Society for HR Management.. Since almost 90% of businesses use temporary employees and two million people work each day in temporary positions, the potential threat to U.S. business is substantial.

These threats include:

• Workplace violence
• Workplace harassment
• Theft of or damage to company physical property
• Theft of proprietary or sensitive information and intellectual property
• Employee negligence, misconduct, or fraud

The results of these security risks are significant:

• 25% of workers report they have been attacked, harassed, or threatened in the workplace according to HR.com
• 43% of respondents describe exposed resume exaggerations and falsifications as “significant” to “extremely significant” according to a 1999 corsSurvey on HR issues.
• 6% of the annual revenue for the average company is lost to employee theft according to the ACFE.
• $400 billion annually is accrued in employee fraud costs companies
• Around 20% of U.S. workers have criminal records and 13% of applicants do not disclose their criminal history according to the Department of Justice.
• Another cost of inadequately screening potential employees is legal liability. In so-called “negligent hiring” cases, companies have been found responsible for problems that occur as a direct result of their failure to thoroughly investigate candidates before hiring them.

Work and the Y Generation

Generation Y (born between 1981 and 1995) looks at work differently than preceding generations:

• Half of them say they are ALWAYS looking for a better job, and that is of a group of more than 60 million (of course dont include those born in the '90s, that would be child labor)*
• Only 43% of them are currently satisfied in their job.**
• Only 36% of them hope to work for the same company in two years.**
• 60% believe that their workplace's internal training is important in their decision to stay but only 43% say that they are satisfied with what they are learning on the job.*

Compared to other generations those numbers are significant:

• Generation X (age 25-39) - 65% are currently satisfied with their job and 62% hope to work for the same company in two years.** 55% are satisfied with what they are learning on the job.*
• Baby Boomers (age 40-58) - 68% are currently satisfied with their job and 75% hope to work for the same company in two years.** 53% are satisfied with what they are learning on the job.*
• "Matures" (age 59+) - 77% are currently satisfied with their job and 78% hope to work for the same company in two years.** 56% are satisfied with what they are learning on the job.*

Why does Generation Y have such a different feeling about work? There are many explanations, here are some:

• Dissatisfaction with entry level positions (and all generations experience this one)
• Unfufilled expectations in the workforce
• Many saw their parents laid off from their jobs and have translated that into looking out for themselves
• They are tech saavy and have a strong need to continue to learn and grow, particularly with those skills
• They are the most educated American generation ever and look to their work as an engine to fuel their continuing education.

At any rate companies need to be prepared to attract and retain Generation Y works while planning around a workforce that will be more transient than ever.

* From the article 'Workplace Generation Gap Growing', 10-22-2004. http://www.us.randstad.com/webapp/internet/servlet/News?id=49

** From the Randstad 2004 Employee Review/RoperASW Survey