Once you’ve identified the needs of your staffing agency and started working on your staffing plan, one of the most important things to consider is whether you should introduce any new positions to your company or client company. As you assess your company or your client company’s mission and needs, you may find that the current employee setup does not fully address these needs, and that certain positions may need to be created or filled. You might not think you need it, but it’s a necessity. Any good staffing agency needs a good staffing plan behind it. A staffing plan is the outline that makes it known what roles and positions need to be filled within the company.
We’ve found how to both formally and informally identify staffing needs in the previous blog; this blog focuses on the development of the staffing plan itself, and how to effectively design new positions.
Who Should Draft The Plan?
Input can be gathered from current staff, board members, and key stakeholders. A small team should draft the plan, and representatives from the human resources and operations departments should be part of this team. Any employees who have performed similar duties to the new position should also have input, particularly in drafting the job description.
What if These Positions Can’t Be Filled?
Not all of the positions you want to fill need full time commitment. If you’re stressed about filling positions, bundle together some key job functions. In a perfect world, your staffing plan should predict the moves of your agency for at least a few years. Don’t only think of it in terms of full-time positions, either: you can create part-time positions, contract positions, or intern positions as well to account for temporary influxes of work.
How to Start
Start with the mission, always. By knowing what business you are in and who you serve, you will know what kind of staff you need on board. Also consider the main things that keep your agency functioning.
Things to Add
Be sure to include these key tips when developing a new position:
- Function – Include any task category that is necessary to your organization’s operations. Think about what this role will need to accomplish in a broad sense as well as their specific day-to-day duties.
- Hours/week – An approximate range of the hours the task requires should be included, as well as a range for some tasks. If a task is pertinent to a specific time of the year, it’s important to keep track of the hours over that period of time. As we said above, not all roles need to be full-time.
- Primary person – Who is the most responsible person for this task? What characteristics would they have?
- Importance of task – Keep track of how important the task is to the mission. You can separate these tasks by (C) – tasks the organization exists to do; (OS) – organization support, which includes tasks that must be done for the agency to function (accounting, fundraising, etc.); (I) – Important includes other types of tasks not covered in other categories.
- Job Description – This is the most important part of any position. A job description must provide an accurate glimpse of what the job requires, from its duties to what type of person it would suit. It’s always better to be specific than general; an inaccurate job description could easily lead to staffing insurance claims.
As you continue to work on your staffing plan, make sure that your agency is protected with Staffing Insurance.
About World Wide Specialty Programs
For the last 50 years, World Wide Specialty Programs has dedicated itself to providing the optimal products and solutions for the staffing industry. As the only insurance firm to be an ASA commercial liability partner, we are committed to that partnership and committed to using our knowledge of the industry to provide staffing firms with the best possible coverage. For more information about Staffing Professional Liability Insurance or any other coverage, we have available to protect your staffing business, give us a call at (800) 245-9653 to speak with one of our representatives.