Don’t overthink this.
We’re in very uncertain times. When that happens, we get very unsure. No one knows what is coming next month, next week, tomorrow and even the next hour.
Now, as a leader in your staffing agency, you can be that steady rock for your team, your employees and your former employees.
What can you do?
Tactics to Be There for Your Temporary Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Communicate
Strike that. It’s time to overcommunicate. Put together a COVID-19 resource center with the simplest of information for your current and former employees:
- CDC Guidelines – what to do if you have symptoms for COVID
- Unemployment – how to file in your state
- Safety – what is your company doing to protect its current workers
- Social Media – ensure they are following your company to get the latest information
- Email – stay top of mind by sending helpful information and letting them know when jobs open that match their skills and interests
Re-Skill or Re-Train
We don’t know what’s going to come out of this recession in terms of which jobs will bounce back. That’s a little scary for your staffing agency. The business you had before could be gone, but there could be something similar.
Do your employees have transferable skills? Can you take their customer service skills and get your employees into the ever-growing call center industry? What about hospitality employees? Can you find job orders and transfer them to open jobs?
Can you re-train your employees to jobs that are going to be popular? Think about the financial industry. A large amount of temporary workers will be needed to handle all of the paperwork coming from small businesses looking to get loans.
Be a Good Person
Look, it’s easy to stop talking to the temporary workers who are no longer on your payroll and are collecting unemployment. It’s frustrating. It’s not your fault they lost their jobs. (To be fair, it’s not their fault they lost their jobs either.) It’s putting a ridiculous amount of stress on your company’s health as well as on your personal life.
Why?
The staffing industry gets hit first during an economic recession, and this one came on as fast as any in history. The skyrocketing amount of unemployment (10 million in the first two weeks – two weeks!) confirms that claim.
But you know what? We know the staffing industry is one of the first industries to bounce back. Companies want temporary workers as they ramp back up their production and need employees quickly.
From the business side, that’s why you need to have a plan on how to survive the recession and be ready for when the economy comes back.
From the personal side, and this is more important, now is the time to be there for your team.
Be a good person to your employees, the people you laid off and the temporary workers your clients had no more jobs for.
Remember – don’t overthink it.
Stick to the basics of being a good person and people will remember that.