Temporary Staffing Agencies

DoubleR

Does anyone have a list of specifics that they look for when reviewing a written agreement with a temporay staffing agency? Would you consider working with an agency that provides only a verbal agreement for accounts less than a certain size?
I am reviewing practices established by my employer prior to my arrival as the HR manager. In this particular case frontline supervisors have been the contact person for the temporary agencies and really only concerned themselves with finding help at a reasonable rate.

pork1

DoubleR: I have never run with a written agreement or contract with a temporary staffing agency. Several have pushed for same, however, I learned a long time ago that the best position in dealing with these types of temporary employees is from a "greater than arms length" position. Anything less may cause your company to become involved with litigation that you, otherwise, could defend your company as having no ownership to the "temp staff employee". If you are concerned for quality, don't be, if less than what you want on your job task then send the individual packing and have the staffing company send a replacement.

NLRB has a view that the closer you are to the actual daily activities of the temporary employee, the closer to your company as an employee of your company they may be.

Additionally, you need to have one requiremnet that they visit their employee on the floor on the job at least once a week!

May everyone have a Blessed day and a very Merry Christmas or Holiday season.

PORK

HRCalico

Pork has a LOT more experience with this than I do. That said, I do have a written agreement with my current temp agency, and we have had written agreements in the past with others we've used. I have some materials from a Nebraska law firm that recommended the following

1) Obtain an indemnification agreement with the agency.
2) Inquire whether they have been sued under a co-employment or joint employment theory and what the outcome was, and what remedial measures were taken.
3) Do not set pay rates of workers assigned to you.
4) Alter the engagement for temporary workers. Do not mandate identicial drug testing, credit check, etc. as employees.
5) Insist on regular visits by the agency to the workplace.
6) Limit the tenure of temp/leased workers.
7) Do not refer to them as being "hired" but assigned to your company.

I have found that even if I say I'd like someone in the $9-$9.50/hour range, they still want me to tell them what we'll pay. We still run them through a "preview" which is pretty much our standard interview process. I don't think we've had anyone visit since before we signed the contract. So I'm not very good at taking my own advice!

This isn't quite what you're looking for, I know. Some of this could easily be covered in the contract, though. I would DEFINITELY recommend all your staffing needs run through your department, with lots of input from the supervisors. However, we use temps only when we are really hurting to find some people to get us over a hump, or if we know we have a short-term burst of work for x weeks. I have hired a few temps directly to be our employees to save us that multiplier, and I know what I have on hand for applications far better than my supervisors. Good luck!

E Wart

You may want to find out if the "manager" wants your assistance with the Temp Staffing. Do they want you to find them, place the orders or do the supv. do it, negotiate on rates, etc. However, you do need to offer advice, even if don't help. (ie. I don't place the orders, but actually "set up the agency" by getting the certificate of insurance, talk with them about rates, and if they just payroll someone and it's rate, buy out time if we do decide to hire, who do we contact when problems or assignment is over, who do we place job orders with etc.) First and foremost, get a certificate of insurance from them to verify that they have their own worker's comp insurance.
Also, do everything you can to remove you further and further from the "employer' roll. (ie. let them hand their employee their check, let them tell their employee when the assignemnt is over, etc.
E Wart

pork1

I concurr with both of the above; if you go contract then make it as detailed as possible to make sure NLRB can not tie their actions to your companies actions. I really like the passing out of their pay checks, a phase I did not have when last attacked for a union drive and the NLRB allowed the temp staff to vote on whether they wanted a union in our plant. As much as we wanted to say "but they don't belong to us" and the union should be dealing with the temp staffing agency, we were speaking to deaf ears and no heart for the the poor employer. The company won, but we had to defeat the temp staff and the few disgruntle regular employees that disagreed with how we handle their training and first 90 days of employment. I lost my job over this issue and it pains me to see some other HR get slam dunked when it was my program, but one directed by the VP for Corporate HR and he crumbled under the pressure and put the blame on my back. The scars from my ego will never go away!

PORK

jitrbug

We follow all of the above as well but we want a contract for several other reasons....we get it in writing what percentage we are being billed at over the actual pay (very important since we negotiate so heavily on this), we document what must happen if we want to hire a temp to our payroll (work so many weeks or pay a fee), we document that we are not tied to this agency exclusively and that we have a 30 day out if we decide to go elsewhere (this also gets their temps out of here without having to go to the committed time period). We also are very careful not to include the temps in Thanksgiving turkey handouts (no puns), company functions such as picnics parties or anything else we give as a "perk" to our own employees.

pork1

jitrbug: A letter of understand with words that allow for an immediate conclusion of the understands is all that one needs. You could have one of these for any number of temp staffing agencies. We are working three such agencies and I refuse to give exclusive coverage to any one agencies and I have the exact monies and understands with all three. They want our business and because all three work under the same rules (my rules) they are always competitive and can not pull the wool over my eyes.

Contracts tend to keep a string tied to the company and that is where I went wrong before. The Union Labor Attorney that we had to pay $45,000.oo to help us win the UNION DRIVE was very happy to take our money and come weekly for a two or three day visit and assessment of the situation, told me flat out to rid our company of the previous contracted temp company and use nothing strong than words written in a letter of understanding which lays out all of the things you are concerned about. It is to late to do this when NLRB comes a knocking.

PORK

jitrbug

Thanks Pork...Good advise especially since it does the same thing without the ramifications of the contract although we have been lucky and not had any problems. I'll be discussing this with our legal to get in place.

HRinGA

something else to consider, is how the temp agency pays the temps for vacation and holidays. The agency I was using observed holidays that we didn't, and paid the temps for it even though they worked for us. (i.e. paid them for 8 hrs holiday pay on Good Friday, even though they got paid regular 8 hours for working that day.) Also, they wanted to give them a week vacation after six months. Tried to double bill us, because the temp just wanted the money, not the time off.
All that should be discussed up front. In my case, I switched companies as I did not care for the customer service and they were unwilling to back off the vacation pay.

POPEYE

>something else to consider, is how the temp
>agency pays the temps for vacation and holidays.
> The agency I was using observed holidays that
>we didn't, and paid the temps for it even though
>they worked for us. (i.e. paid them for 8 hrs
>holiday pay on Good Friday, even though they got
>paid regular 8 hours for working that day.)
>Also, they wanted to give them a week vacation
>after six months. Tried to double bill us,
>because the temp just wanted the money, not the
>time off.
>All that should be discussed up front. In my
>case, I switched companies as I did not care for
>the customer service and they were unwilling to
>back off the vacation pay.

I have never heard of a staffing company billing the client for vacation or for holidays. I spent 4 years as a manager for one and have utilized many companies services over the years and never once has that ever been a issue.

TN HR

Popeye is right on! I use about 150-180 at any given time in two states and have never been billed for PTO.

Union organization attempts have absolutely nothing to do with a contract or services agreement you may have with an agency. As a matter of fact, dealing with one in any capacity WITHOUT at least a services agreement, idemnification clause, etc is the most irresponsible thing anyone could do.

C'mon people, wake-up! You are going to allow a vendor to come on-site, deliver human beings who will be performing work using your resources and under your indirect control and you are not going to memorialize the details of your agreement? HA!

Foolish, foolish, foolish. Insist on one, iron clad, which addresses at minimum:

-Bill rates/mark-up (insist on getting O/T rates as well and refuse to pay a higher mark-up for O/T hours)

-Payroll tax resposnibility.

-Comp coverage.

Also, make sure you address things like excluded/prohibited duties. For example, a lot of agencies (or their comp carriers) only allow forklift operation at the client site under some very strict guidelines.

Good luck.

Gene