Working conditions, pay benefits & convertible skills are key concerns of employees
Flexi staffing is growing at a fast clip in India debuting in traditional laggard sectors like manufacturing, reveals a study by leading flexi staffing and recruitment firm, Kelly Services and SHRM. In the report titled, ‘Landscape of Temp & Contract Staffing in India’, 42 per cent of the organizations surveyed indicated that they are very likely to employ temporary (or temp) and contract staff in the next three to six months. Interestingly, 68 per cent of organizations reported that they hire temp staff for a period of six months to one year on short-term projects.
In the flexi staffing model, employees are recruited on a temporary or contract basis from staffing companies who facilitate hiring, on-boarding, documentation, pay rolling, employee benefits and exit management.
The study found that healthcare, manufacturing, FMCG sectors have the highest percentage of flexi workers and thus their budget allocation is also higher compared to other industries. The percentage of budget allocation for flexi staff hiring is higher in the private sector at 20 per cent while public sector enterprises are allocating 10 per cent of their hiring budgets. The skills in demand for flexi workers are niche technologies, administration, HR, sales and marketing, logistics, legal, finance and accounts.
“Flexi staffing bridges the divide between organized and unorganized sectors and plugs the resource gaps efficiently. The share of flexi staffing in overall workforce is predicted to rise to 10 per cent by 2025. The reason for its ascent is simple – it provides agility which is what large organizations need the most in this age. From an employee perspective, flexing staffing provides easy access to their first job,” said Thammaiah BN, Managing Director, Kelly Services India.
As per the report, the top five motivators for employers to hire flexi staff are – cost savings and statutory compliance, quick fix to short-term talent needs, the flexibility to try out potential hires, back-up for permanent employees on a break or sabbatical and ease of hiring. However, the lack of proper background verification documents of candidates is the top most concern, as reported by 31 per cent of the participating organizations. The other challenges from employer perspective are quality of the flexi staff and concerns that they would be less engaged and less reliable than the permanent staff. From employees’ perspective, in the private sector, the primary expectation is good working conditions, followed by other parameters like decent pay benefits and convertible skills. In the public sector, decent pay, parity in treatment, convertible skills and job security are the top priorities of employees. A worrying factor is that flexi workers suffer from job insecurity and role ambiguity at their workplace.
“Flexi staffing is here to stay and it will only increase further in the future. However, identifying and training the talent for required skills and making them available for the market is the keyask for staffing firms. While the onus of providing equal opportunities and clarity on job functions rests with both employers and staffing firms,” concluded Thammaiah.
