Hoping to find reliable temp staff for your warehouse, logistics, manufacturing or technical teams? There’s a few things you’ll need to think about.
Rushing the temp recruitment process might get the job done faster, but it can lead to the onboarding of poor-fit candidates who don’t know what they’re doing, or just don’t ‘vibe’ with your people. Either way, it means you risk going back to square one looking for replacements.
Instead, let’s do things differently. Here are five tips for improving your industrial temp recruitment process to find reliable people first try.
1. Get clear on your needs
You can’t find success unless you define it, so that’s the place to start.
Before you create any job ads or post on social media, write down every detail you can think of to do with the role and its requirements. This process is to help you articulate who you’re looking for, what will make them suitable for the role, what they’ll be doing in their role and whether or not they’ll fit your company.
Here’s a list of things to note down:
- Assignable tasks: What will they be doing in their role?
- Length of assignment: How long do you want to keep them on staff for?
- Shift requirements: When will they be working, and for how long each day?
- Qualifications/certifications: What certifications do you need them to hold? Think about training courses, qualifications or a certain educational background.
- Skills and experience: What are the other skills that this person needs, and your preferred experience level? Don’t forget soft skills too.
- Cultural fit requirements: What is the company culture you’re trying to build? A temp might not be with you for long, but things will go a lot more smoothly if they mesh with your existing people.
With all of this written down, you’ll have determined precisely who is ideal for your available temp role, and created a checklist of requirements a candidate must meet to get to the interview stage. You can then transfer all of this to the job description.
Learn more: The Four C’s of Happy Workplaces
2. Improve your candidate interviews
A thorough interview process is crucial for sorting right-fit temps from unsuitable candidates.
You won’t have endless amounts of time to seriously vet each applicant, but you can still ask specific, pointed questions during the interview and, where appropriate, request certain skills tests in order to create a more manageable shortlist.
So what should you be doing?
Asking pointed interview questions
If you only have a limited time to interview each temp candidate, focus on asking questions which identify someone’s experience and reliability. The aim here is to check that they actually have the experience necessary for your role, and that you can trust them to turn up and give you 100% effort.
Example questions:
- What does effective communication look like to you?
- Do you consider yourself a team player?
- Has there ever been a time where you left a role without giving the required notice?
- Can you describe a time where you missed a deadline, or were late to a shift, and how you handled it?
- Can you provide examples of your previous experience with [relevant equipment]?
- Can you describe a time where you had to work under pressure, and how you went about it?
- Can you describe a time where you faced a new or surprising challenge at work, and how you solved it?
- Can you remember a time where you were wrong, or made a poor decision, and what you did next?
Pro tip: Always ask for examples. It’ll make it easier to sort fact from fiction.
Skills assessment
For certain roles, a skills assessment may help you better qualify candidates – especially where machinery is concerned. For example, you might ask a forklift operator a few questions about equipment maintenance, or give packers a short quiz on basic packing problems. Better still if you have time to get them on the floor to test them in a real-life scenario.
Check references
Most candidates will come to you with a list of referees, and it really does pay to give them a ring. References will help you determine the accuracy of the stories someone told you during the interview stage, and give you an opportunity to ask more questions about their cultural fit.
Learn more: How to Check References: A Comprehensive Guide for Employers
3. Optimise your onboarding
Good onboarding sets your temps up for success. A poor onboarding experience could lead a good worker to become unreliable simply because they don’t know what they’re meant to be doing.
For any temp who is going to be with you for more than a very short while, give them the full staff orientation. That means:
- Introduce them to key team members, and ensure they know who to turn to for questions.
- Give them the full shop floor tour.
- Ensure they’ve received all appropriate job and safety training.
- Get them kitted out with relevant PPE.
- Reiterate the requirements and expectations of the job.
- Establish clear KPIs. Give them goals to achieve.
- Ensure they’ve read all relevant company policies and know how to behave in the workplace.
- Check in regularly to see how they’re getting on.
You might also consider inviting temps to social events. Sure, they won’t be here forever, but offering a warm and friendly environment can help get the best out of your people – even the temporary ones.
4. Monitor performance and offer feedback
Even good workers can get off track without realising.
One of the reasons to set clear KPIs in the previous step is to give your new temps a series of goals to work towards. For you as their manager, these are also benchmarks to measure performance against.
As you check in with your temp team on a regular basis, use these meetings as an opportunity to check performance, evaluate any issues and offer actionable feedback. That way, even if someone doesn’t quite get things right the first time, you’ll be able to steer them on track to improve their performance.
5. Partner with local temp recruitment specialists
Of course, if you really want to get this process right, consider outsourcing it to a team of local specialists who can handle it for you.
Here at Ryan, we’re experts at sourcing, vetting and placing reliable, experienced industrial temps. We offer a range of temporary roles in Manufacturing & Technical Operations and Warehousing & Logistics, and our consultants have access to an extensive talent pool in and around the Canterbury region. Many of our best people have worked with us for a long time, so they come pre-vetted and highly experienced – making the recruitment and onboarding experience even easier.
Want to learn more about how we could help you? Contact our temp recruitment team today and let’s chat.
