You’ve Just Hired a Temp - Now What?

If you haven’t used temporary help before, here are a few tips to make the first day a bit easier. Adding someone new to your existing staff is always a bit disruptive and time consuming,  but if you want to get good results from their day with you, a little extra training and hand holding will go a long way.

The first thing I suggest to clients is to delegate someone to play “host” to the new hire. Introduce your temporary to fellow employees, show them the bathroom, break rooms, and give him/her the appropriate log in credentials to needed systems.

Have the list of job duties written down and give them some training time on your particular equipment. If you hired a receptionist, make sure to pronounce the tough names or write them out phonetically.

Stay present as they test the job themselves. Depending on the complexity of the job, work side-by-side with them to allow them to experience situations and ask for directions on how to handle issues in real-time. (The more training you invest in them in the short run the more successful they will be for you in the long term). Most temporaries are used to fitting in quickly and are good at grasping new procedures, but even the best need a little time.

If during the course of the day you need to change their job or hours, please let our service know.  We can then call our employee to see if the changes will work for them.

The best rule of thumb is to treat them with the same respect you would any other employee. If the position, for some reason, becomes full time and you’d like them to stay on, they are more likely to accept if they have been treated as part of the team from the get go.

If you have any other tips that have worked for your company and new temporaries, feel free to let me know. We love sharing your success stories.

Veronica Fernandez