Why hire manpower agency workers?
Our factory has more than 200 regular workers. Our chief executive officer (CEO) believes that regular employment is key to sustainable labor productivity. He’s not a believer in hiring contractual workers due to their lack of motivation. As a new human resource (HR) manager, I’m planning to convince the CEO to use contractual workers, at least for limited periods. Please help. — Burning Light.
Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) said: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” So, the first thing that you should do is to challenge using diplomatic language the CEO’s claim that regular workers the key to labor productivity. It’s easy to do.
The formula is total output divided by total workers’ input as measured by their salaries and benefits. Get as much data as can, covering at least five years. So, what did you learn? Does it support the CEO’s argument? If not, take a different approach.
Establish a process improvement team to analyze your current work systems and procedures. The goal is to determine and eliminate (or reduce) visible and invisible waste in your operations.
Before assembling the process improvement team, start with 5S implementation. And make everything the responsibility of every department, section, or unit with the help of a monthly audit team composed of members rotated from other departments. This must be done swiftly and systematically using an audit form approved by everyone.
The process improvement team and 5S implementation must be done with the help of training.
But here’s another approach that is arguably better at ensuring sustainable labor productivity. All line executives must be properly trained by the HR department on how to engage their direct reports.
ADVANTAGES OF AGENCY WORKERS
The preceding statements are my top-of-mind solutions for ensuring that your organization gets what it wants in terms of sustainable labor productivity. There are a lot more, except that I don’t want you to be confused with so many details at this point. Do them simultaneously and let me know your challenges via e-mail.
Now that you have other options, let me explore the following benefits of using agency workers, even those who belong to a cooperative.
One, availability. Agencies can immediately send you their workers for interviews at short notice. This happens all the time as many manpower agencies skip a professional process, and don’t have the capacity to vet job applicants. Some don’t have a full-blown HR department that includes a registered psychometrician. Therefore, before signing a contract with an agency, ensure that you understand their recruitment system.
Two, flexibility in disciplining workers. The moment an agency worker displays habitual absences and tardiness or commits a major offense like theft or insubordination, you can immediately secure a replacement worker without the hassle of personally carrying out disciplinary action. This is important. Before signing a deal with an agency, check its integrity and the values of its owners. You’ll be surprised to find that many of them have pending cases at the labor department or in the courts.
Three, short-term benefits. Agency workers are the right solution to temporarily perform the work of regular employees on maternity leave, those with contagious diseases, and even those on prolonged leave of absence due to a foreign scholarship or the need to review for a government licensure examination.
While the agency would be happy to lend you their workers for the long term, they are not appropriate for such employment or assignments that require at least five years of engagement, during which they get to know the pay and benefits given to the principal workers.
Four, four-way employment test. Are you aware of the legal parameters used to determine the existence of an employer-employee relationship? These are selection, payment of wages, power of dismissal, and the power to control. All these requirements are difficult for the principal representative to do because of the very thin line of interpretation that separates its interests and the interests of a manpower agency. This has been the subject of many Supreme Court decisions in which management lost, including the case of Manggagawa sa Komunikasyon ng Pilipinas vs PLDT, G.R. Nos. 244695 and 244752 promulgated on Feb. 14, 2024.
The lesson from all these is that sooner or later, aggrieved employees will file a case against the principal client and its manpower agencies using labor jurisprudence. And so the big question: can you redefine the employer’s values and make them easy and practical for them?
Bring Rey Elbo’s program, Superior Subordinate Supervision, to your management team and reap the rewards of sustained labor productivity. Contact him on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or e-mail elbonomics@gmail.com or via https://reyelbo.com
