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Are You Hiring A Twerker? Is Your Staffing Company?

First let me apologize if you got to this blog post by searching on twerker or twerking. If you did, you’re probably already disappointed by the picture to the right, but just in case you’re curious, the rest is about how temporary workers are screened when coming into a company.

Why is this particularly important today? Because many more people are taking contract or temporary jobs and more people are changing jobs (either by choice or by necessity). Most of these will get hired through a staffing company.

Now before your start writing that complaint comment, let me say that just because you have a twerking video online, doesn’t make you a bad or un-hirable person. You might be great at it and also a killer game developer (if so, please post link). I’m simply using this as an example of what an employer might find online when researching a candidate – and something not everyone would find desirable in their next hire. It speaks to cultural fit as well as a skills fit.

It may not be fair to be judged on something like that or have anything to do with your mad programming skills, but, hey, that’s the way the world works. I don’t make the rules. If you take offense to my use of twerking as an example, substitute a drunken rant (or worse).

The real question here is: How much do you know about the temporary employees you hire vs. your direct hires?

When hiring contract or temporary workers, many will get hired on the strength of their resume. In addition, many times a hiring manager will have an interview with them, and if they appear to be appropriately skilled and qualified, they get the job and start. But that’s usually all you know about them.

I’m not advocating some overly complicated and restrictive screening process (some already do drug and background screens), but I am trying to point out that a client typically TRUSTS that a staffing company has done a good job screening candidates or knows more about the candidate than the client.

If you are in HR, this should scare you to death. If you have multiple staffing vendors in multiple areas (geographic or otherwise) placing temporary workers with multiple hiring managers, there is going to be increased risk. This is one very strong argument for centralizing a contingent labor program.

Centralizing all temporary hires, or even payrolled hires that you have already identified, can help to standardize the process and ensure consistency and compliance among all suppliers.

It’s no guarantee, but it’s better than not knowing and places another layer of diligence to the process. And more importantly, it can help reduce risk.

This is just some food for thought. By the time you read this twerking may already be over as a fad (hopefully). But your use of temporary employees will go on. Make sure you know enough about how they are screened before they start at your company.

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