Best On-Demand Staffing Services

When you bring in freelancers to fill a temporary role, they will work alongside your full-time employees and serve as equal contributors to the team for as long as you need them. When creating profiles or offering their information to these providers, these gig-based candidates are ensuring a certain degree of expertise with the topic at hand, and many of these providers will do background checks to confirm they are qualified. When you hire someone for these short-term opportunities, they can immediately meet with your trained staff to go over the tasks and get up to speed.

Small businesses and startups will often have random needs that arise, creating a demand that is just above the current level of staffing. These situations can include full-time employees calling out sick, sudden surges in business traffic, and complications that create urgency in certain areas. On-demand staffing enables team leaders to distribute these assignments and get the work done on time without the need for full-time hires and the laborious process involved—not to mention the budget. The traditional recruiting process can cost a business thousands of dollars when all is said and done, due to the length of the process and the resources required. Bringing in a temp worker using on-demand staffing will, comparatively, cost your business next to nothing.

If you run a business that can benefit from some form of temporary labor, such as a restaurant, retail store, construction company, or traditional office, these gig economy marketplaces are a modern solution to the problem. For example, if you manage a restaurant and a cook calls in sick, you can find a suitable local replacement to perform these duties for whatever period of time that the sick employee must miss work. Even if your particular industry does not typically work with freelancers or temps, you might benefit from the increasing popularity and normalization of the on-demand workforce. More people than ever are choosing gig-based work as a source of income, and the level of talent available on these platforms increases each day.

The flexible nature of on-demand platforms allows for a wide range of use cases. While some products in this category are focused on the needs of those working in certain industries, others are more broad in scope, using filters and keywords to guide the process for users in any industry. There are select lines of work where demand staffing capabilities may be more practical on a regular basis, such as the service industry or jobs with manual labor.

Below are a few key user groups who leverage on-demand staffing for their hiring needs.

Managers — Whether you run a tech startup or a bustling coffee shop, managerial roles are a cornerstone of your workforce. Staff managers and team leads are the closest to the action and should have their fingers on the pulse of day-to-day staffing in relation to what work has to be done. These individuals also tend to have an understanding of team dynamics, scheduling practices, and how temporary hires can best fit into the picture.

Managers may be the ideal use case for on-demand staffing. They can jump onto these platforms upon learning of a new demand or an incident that will create a staffing shortage and quickly find a person whose skills, personality, and availability meet the criteria. Once an agreement is sent out and signed off on, the manager can then update the information on their employee scheduling software so it reflects the contribution of this temporary staff. Beyond simply finding and booking temp workers through these services, managers can be directly involved with any necessary onboarding or training once the contract employees arrive or assign the task to other employees.

Human resources — The human resources (HR) department within a traditional organization is often a liaison between teams and new recruits. They will frequently assist with posting jobs, screening applicants, scheduling interviews, and organizing paperwork when it comes to filling new roles. They are also usually a direct link between the staff and the accounting team, helping to ensure employees receive the proper compensation and benefits and addressing any issues as they arise.

Your HR department can make use of on-demand staffing platforms to facilitate the scouting, onboarding, and placement of a contingent workforce. If a manager identifies a need for temp workers but would prefer assistance with the staffing process, they can request help for the internal HR department, who can then leverage these platforms. Used alongside more traditional HR software, the solutions in this category can enable HR specialists to jump in and fill roles that keep the company moving forward and tackling its various projects without gaps in labor.

Recruiters — Recruitment specialists, whether part of an office staff or an external agency, can leverage these systems as part of a larger recruiting software stack. These individuals are experts in navigating various pools of talent and selectively picking the best possible candidates for different roles. This can often involve social networks software, job boards software, and other digital resources. On-demand staffing tools can be a well of qualified, motivated people with a wide range of backgrounds and specializations. Even if these platforms are mostly meant for short-term hires, the employees discovered through these channels can easily transition into more complete positions if there is a perfect fit and a mutual desire to continue the work. Recruiters can help place the right people into growing brands and jumpstart a reliable, ad hoc relationship or plant the seeds for a career.

Staffing agencies — Traditional staffing agencies are still thriving even as the gig economy and on-demand staffing grow in popularity. These firms can help you and your business find well-rounded, driven individuals who are in the market for full-time or temporary positions within your industry. When you reach out to a staffing agency, they will conduct an in-depth interview to understand your company culture, your product or service, and the specific position you are hoping to fill. Once this relationship is established, recruiters will contact you with potential candidate information as they discover qualified candidates and help set up interviews with those who seem like the best match. If there is a successful hire, the staffing agency will collect a commission based on the agreed-upon compensation.

It is not uncommon to seek full-time, career-minded employees with the help of staffing agencies or job boards and still leverage on-demand platforms to fill those timely contract roles as the need arises. As your business grows, you may find hires through various channels, finding unique benefits in each. It is impossible to predict where you will discover the right person for a particular job, and thanks to the diverse options in staffing, there is more talent to choose from than ever before—and more ways to connect with them.

Freelance platforms — Like on-demand staffing platforms, freelance platforms are a technology-based solution for finding talented professionals in line with your hiring needs. While on-demand staffing is geared toward in-person positions completing timely work alongside your staff, freelance platforms are designed for remote work agreements. The most common use cases for these applications are digital, creative-focused jobs such as writing and graphic design.

If your company is considering a new logo or you have a client in need of website content, you can search the extensive listings of freelancers on these platforms and send job offers directly to candidates regardless of where they are in the world. Using helpful integrations such as accounting software, you can pay these contractors for their contributions over the web. This allows for convenient, seamless interactions with your freelance workforce.

Staffing software — Staffing software includes tools that are beneficial to the staffing process as a whole. It is used by HR and recruiting teams to oversee a company’s hiring program and ensure staffing needs are being addressed with job postings and thorough applicant selection. These tools can be used for both full-time staffing and temporary positions. They can also be ideal for filling those types of positions that on-demand staffing does not, including those that will involve more training and onboarding or involve more niche expertise. Your company may find benefits in using both types of software for different staffing situations that may arise.