Hybrid working isn’t new, but, as we all know, the practice has sky-rocketed to normal status in the last two years.
Workers are resisting a full-time return to the office. Applicants see working from home, at least occasionally, as an essential perk. If you hire temps, you may be wondering if you could incorporate this perk for your temps. Temping, of course, means hiring someone on a short-term basis and therefore, you might be concerned about what you would have to provide and whether the management of temps is practical and possible in a hybrid context.
The positives and negatives
There are positives to offering this sort of temping. By offering this popular perk, you will be expanding your candidate reach and attracting a wider range of people. In addition, not having to find full-time permanent space for your temp could be a huge advantage to your business. Potentially, they could desk share with another part-time employee.
However, on the minus side, not being fully immersed in office culture might cause someone to take longer to settle into the role. Only being in the role for a limited time means this is valuable time to lose. And you may have to provide tech and equipment investment on a short-term basis, and this could be costly.
In summary, you would need to consider –
- The type of role. Not all roles would be suited to hybrid temping. A search of various job boards seems to indicate that most hybrid temping jobs are for those jobs that last for a few months or cover one specific project (e.g., the management of the transition to new IT systems or short-term business analysis), rather than day-to-day cover for short-term staff shortages.
- Do you have the ability to provide the necessary IT facilities? Given the events of the last two years, it seems unlikely that any business wouldn’t have this capability, but small and new businesses would certainly need to take this into account. Most people have the basics at home, but you would, at the very least, need to consider remote access to your systems.
- Do you have the finances for more practical support? Is providing this on a short-term basis worth it? The specifics of what you would need to supply would be entirely dependent on your business and the type of work. You might, for example, need to consider printing costs and support or certain health and safety responsibilities (including the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Display Screen Equipment Regulations, and the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations).
- Do you have other roles working in a hybrid way? Are you used to the communication and management needs of this way of working? If not, this doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t do it, but you would need to consider the differences in style.
Making sure you take all these factors into account could be your recipe for success, and do give us a call if we can help or advise you on your recruitment needs.