NEWS RELEASE

CORESTAFF COMMENTARY:
CRAFTING THE MOST PRODUCTIVE
AND EFFICIENT WORKFORCE

By Steven Drexel,
CORESTAFF president and chief executive officer

This article is among a series of commentaries written by Steven Drexel discussing key issues and trends affecting today's labor market. Drexel is a member of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Business Research Advisory Council. An archive of past commentaries may be found at www.corestaff.com/press. Please attribute information to Steven Drexel, president and chief executive officer of CORESTAFF Services if you adapt all or part of this piece for articles. If you are interested in connecting with Drexel or receiving more information about CORESTAFF, please contact Sally DeVito Jozwiak at 713-438-1567 or sally.jozwiak@corestaff.com.

Special Edition - When the US economy was at its low point during previous economic cycles, companies seized every opportunity to reduce costs in an effort to hit their budgets. Running a lean workforce was paramount to keeping costs in line. This time, as you are painfully aware, the economic cycle is affected by factors unprecedented in recent history. That is why the concept of "stealth staffing" has become so relevant.

With such unpredictability facing today's businesses, a different approach to leveraging the use of temporaries in the workforce has emerged. Contingent workers are no longer used solely for budgetary or project-based reasons; this approach is based on a realization that temporary workers can be used as part of a firm-wide strategy to achieve a competitive advantage in a fast-changing world. The optimum recruitment strategy now has an eye to both the long-term and short-term nature of the business environment. The permanent workforce should have the skills and capabilities essential to achieving long-term goals. Stealth Staffing allows this core base of knowledge to be supplemented with skills and capabilities that meet a company's short-term challenges. The combined result: a more adaptable, more innovative and more flexible workforce. Temporary staffing firms have been familiar with this concept for decades and now they are able to share with mainstream corporate America on how to embrace this similar philosophy.

Stealth Staffing is becoming particularly pertinent in light of the demographic impact of an aging baby-boomer population and slower pace in workforce growth. According to Bruce Tulgan, author of Winning the Talent Wars, America is facing a staffing crisis. Consider that 11 percent of the active workforce is over 56 years old and, by 2006, two workers will retire for every new entrant into the workplace. An imaginative approach will be needed to marshal an impending generational shift in the workforce: forestalling the retirement of older workers, preparing Generation Xers for leadership roles, accelerating professional development of younger workers, and getting more work from fewer people.


Figure 1 above shows the generational mix found in today’s workforce.




There are a number of organizational consequences to developing a human resource strategy that is based on the Stealth Staffing philosophy. One important result is that a “one size fits all” premise for recruitment and retention is no longer appropriate. Different individuals in a workforce will have a diversity of contrasting expectations and needs, leading successful businesses to adapt and evolve the nature of the employment relationships in response.

Let me offer an example from my own experience. As a staffing firm, CORESTAFF works with candidates who are seeking temporary employment for a variety of reasons. In some cases, we find a close, long-term association with our candidates is mutually beneficial. The shared goal is an extended relationship, focused on the individual’s personal development, where we work together to identify career potential and new skills. In other cases, the most appropriate result will be a more casual, transactional relationship, where candidates will be more interested in convenience, efficient paperwork, and a good hourly pay rate. Figure 2 graphically represents the spectrum of relationships we encounter: casual, repeat, regular, and extended. All of these can work commercially. Leading staffing firms will be able to accommodate high quality candidates regardless of their career priorities; indeed, they will garner strength from diversity.

In summary, tomorrow’s winning companies will have a supply chain able to reach talent of all shapes and sizes and to get the right hire in place every time to meet short- and long-term goals. The time to start preparing for this transformation is now.

About CORESTAFF Services

CORESTAFF Services is one of the largest national staffing firms in America, with offices in 21 states. CORESTAFF also operates as TeleSec CORESTAFF in the Washington, DC area and Leafstone Staffing Services in the New York City and northern New Jersey metropolitan areas and southern Connecticut. CORESTAFF is not affiliated with Core Staffing Services, Inc. which operates in the New York Metro Area. CORESTAFF is headquartered in Houston, Texas; 713-438-1400.

Visit CORESTAFF Services on the Web at: www.corestaff.com, www.it.corestaff.com, www.careertrust.com, www.techresources.coretaff.com, www.infocurrent.com and www.employmentzone.org.

# # #