When writing meticulous (and impressive, if I say so myself) copy about staffing agencies, I often find myself piling on an array of different terminology. Direct Hire, Outsourced, Temp-To-Hire, Temporary, High Volume Staffing and Seasonal Staffing get brought up often. In a way, I understand if there is a bit of confusion.
At the end of the day, isn’t staffing always just staffing? You find the best candidates, interview them, and hire them?
Kinda.
The aforementioned list of staffing terms is not just fluff used to fill out word counts. There are differences between them. In fact, we have broken them down throughout the site.
High volume staffing may be the most difficult of the entire bunch, and in return, requires the most effort from both the hiring company and the staffing agency. But what is it and how should it be used?
Let’s get into it.
What Is High Volume Staffing?
When a company strikes a goldmine of success, they often branch out into multiple storefronts, a larger office building, or a completely new branch. Ultimately, it’s the way expansion works. When there’s a plethora of success, growth is needed. The concept of hiring a wide number of new staff members for your business or organization is called high volume staffing (or mass recruiting).
Yes, it’s exactly what the name implies.
Unfortunately, this process doesn’t always come easily. For example, let’s say increasing market trends have given a small business a colossal opportunity in growth. The company may be growing larger than its predetermined boots, causing a bit of disarray. There may not already be a solid human resources department, onboarding procedure, or interview process in place. This can make high volume staffing problematic.
Regardless of the issues that large staffing may involve, it still needs to be done. The company still needs to grow. We will get to all of this later, though.
Ultimately, high volume staffing is when a company hires a large amount of new employees for expansion, new additions, or seasonal help.
Why Choose High Volume Staffing?
The advantages of high volume staffing surround the concept itself. If a company is in need of multiple new employees, they are obviously dealing with an influx of success. If you are looking into high volume staffing, you are probably in a great place.
Furthermore, there are benefits to picking high volume staffing as a recruitment technique, even if not entirely necessary. Firstly, hiring multiple employees in one timeframe can both expedite and reduce the costs of onboarding. If you train and onboard every hire within the same sitting, you avoid the resources and time that go into onboarding them all individually.
You bring in an entire wave at the same time. This creates efficiency in the training process. Your training department can then go on to other duties, not having to work through new hires continuously.
Secondly, mass recruiting can allow an efficient and cost-effective way to bring in employees during rush periods. If you need labor help in the summer, but not the rest of the year, you can bring an array of temporary workers in. Once the season is over, you part ways. This saves you from having to find a place for them during the offseasons, wasting precious labor costs.
Efficiency Is Key
On paper, mass recruiting may seem as if a natural benefit for your inclining company. Your process must be efficient to see positive returns.
If you do not have an efficient hiring process (or work with a staffing agency), you can find yourself wasting too many resources, making the whole concept contradicting. For example, if your mass hiring process takes too much time, you may end up wasting hiring manger or human resource employees on the action. If your mass hiring process isn’t effective, you may end up hiring a plethora of workers that don’t fit your culture or position.
If you are going to employ high volume recruitment, you have to have a strong hiring process in place. Otherwise, you may end up worse off. Therefore, it’s important to follow crucial tips before instilling a high recruitment procedure.
Fortunately, we have decades of experience with high volume hiring. Let’s get into the necessities.
What to Consider When Choosing High Volume Recruiting
Recruiting is an art that takes time and experience to get right. Moreover, the process of advertising and sourcing for multiple positions can take considerable time, resources and money.
When hiring for a large number of roles, it’s important to look at a few factors.
What is Your Company Culture?
Before building a whole new team, it’s crucial to know what company culture you are trying to instill. Not only does this help you find the right candidates, but it helps you expedite the process. Interview questions can be more precise and finding the right candidates can be more clear.
Furthermore, this allows you to bring in quality candidates easier. You know exactly what you are looking for in your future employees, especially those hired for long-term positions.
What is the culture you are trying to build? What are your values as a company?
Need More Info About Company Culture?
Check out our article: Corporate Culture is Crucial – How to Establish an Ideal Work Environment
Save on Resources
The fact of the matter is, countless applicants apply to a vacant position, let alone multiple positions. As a result, it takes a lot of resources to review hundreds of resumes that provide only a handful of qualified candidates. Staffing firms conduct this meticulous work and identify top talent ready to interview.
What Are the Roles?
What positions is your company trying to fill?
High volume staffing can be hard to keep track of. What exactly do you need to get your team fleshed out? What are the roles and number of candidates you are looking for?
Recruitment Strategy Tips
So, you have decided that high volume staffing is right for your business. Fantastic!
If you have decided that you want to follow through with the process without the help of a staffing company, then there are a plethora of tips you should follow. Henceforth, it can be a tough and taxing operation. Luckily, there are a few guidelines that are necessary for bringing on a host of new employees.
Make Sure Job Description and Requirements Are Clear
Before bringing in a multitude of applicants, make sure that everyone is on the same page.
The vetting and hiring process can be as simple as you make it. If both the hiring managers and candidates are well aware of the job, culture and other necessities, the hiring procedure can reach full efficiency. Henceforth, it’s significant to make sure all of these factors are laid out beforehand.
When describing the job on job postings, make sure to be extremely clear about what you are looking for. What requirements do you have and what type of worker should be applying? Make sure that all parties involved in the hiring process are aware of these requirements, too. Don’t waste your time interviewing someone not fit for the job because one party didn’t understand the attributes required.
Furthermore, having a strong work culture makes the mass hiring process easier. We touched on this before, but we will note it again. If you have well-established ideals amongst your team, you can expedite the hiring process and continue to build a solid workforce. Your mission should be clear to both hirers and applicants.
Use the Correct Job Board Sites
When posting a job opening on a public domain, you can expect to receive a vast amount of applicants. Fortunately, that’s the main goal of volume hiring, after all.
On the other hand, not using the correct site can lead to a messy situation. When dealing with that many applicants, messy is the worst state of being.
Make sure to use the correct job board (or related site) when posting your job description. Take the time to see if the specific site accommodates all of your needs. Does it keep track of applicants? Does it reach the right people in your industry? Is your post getting recognized?
Furthermore, you can make the mass hiring process more efficient by using pre-employment assessments. For example, if you are placing your job on Indeed, you can include industry-specific tests for applicants. The applicants have to finish these tests before fully applying. With this information, you can weed out a ton of the overwhelming candidates before looking at resumes.
Use Programmatic Job Advertising When Necessary
If you need an exponential amount of workers for a new branch, business, or production site, simple job postings may not be enough.
Luckily, Programmatic Job Advertising (PJA) is available for all companies through a variety of services. These companies will work to advertise your job openings to the correct people. Through complex algorithms and analysis (I won’t even begin to get into), they work to make sure that your ads hit the right group of candidates.
With advertising, you can reach exponentially more candidates than just job boards or personal websites. Ultimately, not all professionals check the same places. Let someone else do it for you.
Side Note: Staffing agencies like Tier2Tek will also make sure that your job listings are spread across a wide array of locations. But, we will get into that later.
Keep Track of Time
As we’ve continuously noted, efficiency is the key to high volume staffing as a beneficial way to handle your recruitment process. If the process is proving to be less efficient than your normal position-by-position hiring, then you are wasting time and resources. If there are no benefits, then there are no reasons to do it.
Therefore, take the time (get it?) to keep track of time. Keep a well-oiled schedule and process in place.
Firstly, keeping a strict schedule will help you keep tabs on every applicant. If you are dealing with the numerous applications of high volume staffing, it can be difficult to remember responses. Keeping a tight timeline of when you reach out, interview and hire can help keep everything in line. It can also keep all participating parties on the same page, helping improve team efficiency.
Secondly, keeping an overview of the time used can help you decide whether the mass recruitment process is really beneficial for your business. If you realize you are taking an ample amount of time, it may be better to try a different process or a staffing agency.
Use Referral Bonuses When Applicable
If you already have a strong team in place and have built a company culture you are proud of, why not build your future team off the current one? If you like your current employees, why not bring in like-minded acquaintances?
Instilling a referral program for your established employees can help you build your Rolodex or high-volume recruits.
While we won’t take the time to break down the finances of what a referral bonus should look like, it should go something like this: pick a bonus amount. Allow current employees to refer professionals they know. If that professional is hired, the referring employee receives the bonus.
Ultimately, when you are vetting a large number of employees, benefits only begin if time is not wasted. Having employees recruit candidates they know will fit the job will save you time, and therefore money. No one knows who will fit the position more than the ones already working it.
Onboarding Is Crucial
We spoke earlier about the overall efficiency of hiring multiple workers at once. Onboarding a group at once is more beneficial than training one by one.
There’s a catch here. If your onboarding process is not established and efficient, you are wasting time and resources, ultimately making high volume staffing wasteful.
There’s a common thread throughout all of these tips. Large recruitment can only be beneficial if all processes in place are established and well-thought. There is no in-between with high volume staffing. You are either receiving the benefits or wasting precious resources.
What’s the importance of a great onboarding process? We’ll break down a quote from our article
What’s the importance of a great onboarding process? We’ll break down a quote from our article
Employee Retention Strategies – 10 Successful Tips
They (not sure who) say that first impressions are the most important. Potential candidates spruce up their suits and ties when turning in their applications. Workers practice interview questions relentlessly before meeting with hiring managers. That same level of effort should come from the employer, too.
The onboarding experience is crucial for setting a standard. Not only does it provide a great first impression for your new hires, but it allows for questions to be smoothed before things get too far.
How many times have you seen an employee quit shortly after the introductory period? This action may not solely be the employee’s fault. Maybe the intention and job were not clear from the onset.
Henceforth, the onboarding process should be clear, concise and inclusive. You should take the time to ease the employees into the role. This is the opportunity to turn an outsider into an insider. Be prepared to answer any question, be clear about roles and objectives and introduce the candidate to the rest of the team. The worker should leave the onboarding experience feeling positive and knowledgeable about the position ahead.
Being tossed directly into the fire can cause a lot of workers to burn out quickly. The training and tone you set from the beginning can dictate the entirety of a worker’s tenure.
When in Doubt, Work With a Staffing Agency
Does all of this seem too complicated or time-consuming? We totally get it. We’d be foolish not to mention the option of using an employment agency for your high volume staffing needs.
Of course, there may be a scenario where you cannot keep up with your company’s growth. It’s possible and it’s common. Bringing in a plethora of workers (whether permanent or seasonal) can be excruciating and arduous. There is nothing wrong with asking for help.
Luckily, companies like Tier2Tek Staffing know the ins and outs of hiring a great team, regardless of the volume. We broke down the benefits of working with a staffing agency here.
If you need help bringing in a stellar team, reach out to an employment company. Not only can they bring you great candidates, but they can save you resources. As we said (and many have said before), time is money!