By SARA WIDNESS

While some companies struggle to keep staff employed during this economic downturn, firms that screen and offer employee candidates for temporary work or engagements of longer duration are experiencing their own need to stay flexible.

On the bright side, upticks in requests for staffing services can be one of the first indicators that the economy is turning around, according to the American Staffing Association (ASA).

As of midsummer, some staffing services were already seeing signs of an upturn.

Trend spotting

David Kanal is an independent recruiting consultant and a proprietor of the Deerbrook Inn in West Woodstock. His client roster includes Dean & Delucca, Polo, Ralph Lauren, Bloomingdales, Nike and Levi Strauss. He’s been through the downturn cycle before, most recently after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

But, when business came back, it was “with a vengeance,” he said.

One issue of the current downturn is that employers will be looking for fresh talent outside their own companies, he said, noting that a “retained recruiter or contingency recruiter will be going on a fast and furious basis to get the talent that they need.”

Several trends could affect the staffing industry, said Kanal. For one thing, fewer companies use external recruiting services, thus avoiding paying recruiter fees.

Also, companies are cutting overhead by downsizing office space and internal expenses such as a receptionist or secretary, with more staff working from home. Those employed are working longer hours with expanded job descriptions.

Companies are hiring temporary or freelance help to save money. A manufacturer can pocket up to 50 percent of base salary by not paying benefits, unemployment insurance and other costs associated with a full-time staff. The consultant, meanwhile, can deduct a home office, transportation and other out-of-pocket costs.

Flexibility is imperative

Jane Seibel is chief executive officer and founder of Employmoms, LLC, with a team of four and offices in Hanover and Portsmouth, NH. Her company began in 2007 to meet the needs of what she calls “very capable women looking for positions that worked.”

“There was nothing out there,” said Seibel. “I knew I could get hundreds of candidates.” She said response in the Upper Valley has been “great.”

Her talent pool now includes dads, moms and graduate students. Her cadre of candidates range from administrators to Wall Street traders. During the summer, she announced Employmoms is officially partnering with Tory Johnson, a workplace correspondent for the television show Good Morning America Workplace and chief executive officer of Women for Hire.

She has a bank of flex-friendly employers such as King Arthur Flour in Norwich, VT and Hypertherm in Hanover, NH – companies that understand being flex-friendly helps them recruit and retain top talent. Seibel is creating a Flex-Friendly Employer certification logo for use on Web sites, and hopes to have it ready by early fall.

Although Seibel saw an uptick in requests for contract work in May and June with July getting “a little bit busier,” she said there’s increased emphasis on ramping up corporate Web sites as recruiting and hiring tools.

Clients, she said, are more willing to be flexible in what they are looking for, but bigger candidate pools don’t always equate to more qualified candidates.

“This simply means that instead of reviewing 100 candidates, you now have to review 300 to find the top candidates,” she said.

Downturn and the work ethic

Staffing Solutions of Vermont (SSV) of Woodstock, VT, serves Vermont and New Hampshire. Kelly Smithson, staffing director and spokesperson, oversees a team of 550 who provide nursing services to hospitals and nursing homes.

She said business is off 15 percent to 20 percent over 2008 because, among other factors, hospitals have restructured and eliminated some positions; nursing homes have downsized; and more people are using home health care instead of nursing homes.

Companies are using these economic times to review and tweak their staffs. “If they aren’t the best employee, they will get terminated,” Smithson said. “When a company is ready to hire, they are more selective about who comes on board and they have more talent to choose from.

“But, the good thing out of this is that it is making the employee be a better employee,” Smithson said. “They need to be doing a very good job, be the best nurse that they can possibly be. Let’s face it. The work ethic today is not what it was. I think this (downturn might be) a good thing.”

Numbers and wisdom

Jason Kroll is a founding partner of KBW Financial Staffing & Recruiting, with a 13-member staff in offices in Bedford, NH, and Woburn, MA serving the Upper Valley, much of New Hampshire and southern Vermont.

The finance and accounting niches he targets have remained steady in terms of numbers of placements during the downturn, he said, but his team is working harder for the same results.

The trends he sees include an increase in requests for temporary staff and a leveling off of permanent placements.

The temporary-to-hire segment grew, he noted. ”The time period for collections started to get longer, so they added more collections and AR (accounts receivable) candidates at the end of last year,” Kroll said. “Companies want to make sure their cash flow was good; there were a lot more collections openings.”

This arrangement allows employers who may have a large backlog of work to get caught up without overstaffing, he said. It also allows the client and candidate to see if the relationship is mutually agreeable. However, in a slower market, a temporary-to-hire candidate may retain a position, but at the same time look for a permanent job.

He said that loyalty – or not – is a two-way street, especially at mid to lower levels.

“People do not go into a job and plan to stay there for 20 years,” he said. But, given this trend, companies need to be prepared to ramp up quickly on demand and review whether they look at human resources as a cost center or as a value, he added.

“We are very bullish and optimistic regarding the way the economy is going for us right now,” he said, noting 80 percent of his company’s business comes from companies with annual revenues ranging from $20 million to $250 million.

Know when to hold them

Tri-State Professionals Inc. has offices in Claremont and Keene, NH, Brattleboro, VT and Milford, MA. Scott Ryan, vice president, underscored the importance of getting registered with a staffing service, because when the economy turns back around and jobs become available, “we’ll be the first people to know about it,” he said.

It can be more cost effective for a company to use an agency than to hire on their own, he said. Hot jobs change rapidly, and good candidates get snapped up quickly.

He said he is a fan of the temporary-to-permanent hiring arrangement, which allows a candidate to remain on the agency payroll during a “probation” period, which helps companies during uncertain times.

“We are optimistic about the upturn in the economy,” he said, noting his business was up 35 percent to 40 percent between January and June, as compared to last year.

“People aren’t hiring; relationships are being built right now,” he said. “There’s a more positive response to that than in the past. People can see the value in the cost and time savings that we can provide for them. They’re getting jumpy to test drive.”