How Do I Trust a Staffing Agency Will Provide High-Quality, Dependable Employees?

Recruiting and hiring are common, recurring challenges for businesses. You want to find the best workers, but it’s difficult to identify high-quality candidates when you are sifting through impressive resumes. 

Partnering with a trustworthy staffing agency can be one of the best ways of turning a lengthy and costly undertaking into a much more manageable and efficient process. However, some leaders may still wonder if they can trust their staffing partners to get the job done well.

As with most challenging situations, it can be helpful to better understand the stakes at play. Steve McNamara, Director of Talent Delivery at nTech Workforce, talks about the green flags and assurances to look for in your next staffing partnership.

Where Can I Find Trustworthy Staffing Agencies?

The best place to start when looking to find quality workers through a hiring service is by doing your research. McNamara suggests seeking out “referrals from other companies, online research, and industry associations.”

Look for signs of dependable workers, strong hires, and successful relationships through an evidence-based search. As McNamara notes, “Some green flags to look for include agencies with a solid reputation, positive client testimonials, a transparent and thorough screening process, and a track record of successfully matching qualified candidates with suitable positions.”

How Do Staffing Agencies Find the Best Workers?

Staffing agencies are experts in the field of hiring and recruiting. However, they may not be experts in the role they are hiring for like engineering or other technical jobs but that is why a strong bilateral partnership between a staffing agency and the client is crucial from the start.

“Staffing agencies find the best workers through a combination of rigorous screening processes, comprehensive qualifying calls, and skill assessments,” says McNamara. “This is all accomplished during the recruiting process by leveraging personal and professional networks, reputable job boards, an internal database of candidates, social media sites, and skills assessment software.”

The hard skills of certain jobs can often be quickly qualified through accreditation and experience. It is the locating, assessing, and managing that hiring services can excel at.

Having concern over talent quality and dependability oftentimes comes down to an issue of control. Quality can be more or less assured through the vetting process. But dependability can be a wild card where the unexpected is always a possibility, and trying to control workers is more likely than not to yield an unhappy result.

Nevertheless, “staffing agencies strive to ensure the quality of workers they provide to clients,” says McNamara. What is the quality assurance process? Staffing agencies implement quality control “by implementing stringent screening and selection processes to identify top talent, verifying qualifications and experience, conducting thorough interviews and assessments and checking references.”

Are Contingent Workers Dependable?

The quality of the workers will depend on the quality of the staffing agency. As McNamara reports, “Contingent workers, when sourced through reputable staffing agencies, can be highly dependable. Staffing agencies have processes in place to carefully vet candidates, assess their skills and qualifications and match them with appropriate job opportunities.”

Specifically with contingent workers, McNamara says, “agencies often maintain ongoing relationships with the workers, providing support and guidance to ensure their reliability and job performance.” Companies can look forward to ongoing support and employee assessment too, as staffing agencies can also help with the management of employees.

How Will Staffing Agencies Ensure the Quality of Workers?

As McNamara notes, staffing agencies often provide a value-add of “additional support, training, and supervision to contingent workers to ensure they meet the client’s expectations.”

Here are some common practices and services offered by staffing agencies:

1. Screening and Selection: Staffing agencies thoroughly screen and select candidates to ensure they possess the necessary skills and qualifications required by the client. This initial vetting process helps match the right candidate to the client's specific needs.
2. Onboarding and Orientation: When a contingent worker is placed with a client, the staffing agency typically facilitates the onboarding process. This may involve providing orientation sessions to familiarize workers with the client's workplace, culture, policies, and procedures.
3. Training and Skill Development: Staffing agencies may offer training programs or access to online learning platforms to enhance the skills and knowledge of contingent workers. This can include industry-specific training, technical skills development, or soft skills training to improve communication, teamwork, and problem-solving abilities.
4. Performance Monitoring: Staffing agencies often maintain regular contact with both the client and the contingent worker to monitor performance. They may conduct performance reviews, gather feedback from the client, and provide constructive suggestions to the worker for improvement.
5. Ongoing Support: Staffing agencies act as a point of contact for contingent workers throughout their assignment. They address any concerns, provide guidance, and offer assistance in resolving work-related issues. This support ensures that workers feel supported and can perform effectively.
6. Compliance and Legal Responsibilities: Staffing agencies are responsible for ensuring that contingent workers comply with labor laws, regulations, and client-specific requirements. They may handle payroll, taxes, benefits, and other administrative tasks to ensure legal compliance.
7. Conflict Resolution: In cases where conflicts arise between the contingent worker and the client, staffing agencies can mediate and help resolve the issues. They act as neutral parties and facilitate communication to reach a satisfactory resolution.
8. Performance Feedback Loop: Staffing agencies actively seek feedback from clients regarding the performance of contingent workers. This feedback loop helps identify areas for improvement and allows the agency to provide targeted support and training.

It's important to note that the specific support, training, and supervision provided by staffing agencies can vary depending on the agency's policies, the industry, and the nature of the contingent work. Different agencies may have different approaches and levels of involvement in managing and supporting contingent workers.

Do Staffing Agencies Warranty Hiring Services?

A staffing agency warranty is not entirely out of the question either. McNamara says that “while specific warranties may vary between agencies, many staffing agencies offer guarantees or warranties on their hiring services.”

This means that any leaders unsure about a staffing agency partnership can rest assured that there may be contingencies in place. McNamara says, “These guarantees may include provisions such as replacement of a worker within a certain timeframe if they do not meet the client’s requirements or a refund of fees in case of unsatisfactory service.”

It is important to get a good understanding of expectations and provisions during those initial conversations so leaders can “discuss and clarify the terms of any warranty or guarantee with the staffing agency before engaging their services.”

If you are interested in hiring staff or bringing on contingent high-quality workers, partnering with a staffing agency is the way to go. Reach out to nTech Workforce for a free consultation today.