Submitted by TempWorks Software

There is no perfect formula to grow your staffing agency. From start-ups to small or medium-sized firms, each staffing agency’s growth initiatives are unique to their business model, geography and market sector. Here are a few tips on how to align your business plan to support growth at your staffing agency.

1. UNDERSTAND YOUR MARKET.

The first step towards growing your staffing agency is understanding the current market trends and characteristics. First, keep an eye on what’s going on in the staffing industry. Is the staffing industry growing or shrinking in the next couple of years? Generally, the staffing industry will grow in correlation with the trend line of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). You can keep an eye on this data through the American Staffing Association’s website.

The second piece of market research is to understand what’s going in your customers’ industries. If your primary customers are light industrial, what are the market factors affecting their growth? Are they expected to have a good year and grow? Or are the trends indicating that they might have to downsize or shift business priorities? By keeping an eye on these marketplace trends, you can more accurately predict the size and frequency of your job orders from your top customers to help you create a more strategic business plan for your staffing agency. To help you monitor these trends, you can check out the Economic News Releases from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

2. FOCUS ON IMPROVING EFFICIENCY.

A staffing agency is never too small to start improving its operational processes. Efficiency is especially critical for smaller staffing agencies since resources and time are often more limited than larger agencies. There are two questions to ask when you’re looking at improving your processes. First, what process will work for the business right now? Second, what will work for the business in the future? It’s beneficial to understand the answer to both questions. A solid understanding of process scalability can help you to implement processes that will best align with your staffing agency’s future growth.

3. MAKE SMART INVESTMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY.

Making a significant investment in technology can often be a challenge for smaller staffing agencies. There’s a delicate balance between being small enough that manual processes or a bunch of different software systems is the best way to maximize profitability and when your staffing firm is simply too large for this to be a cost-effective solution. If you think that your staffing agency is experiencing some growing pains, do your research and due diligence to find a staffing software system that will work for your current business model (and budget) as well as scale for future growth.

These are just a few simple tips to help your staffing agency get on the right path for growth. If you want to learn more about staffing tools to help your small or medium staffing agency achieve more growth and efficiency, contact us for more information on our latest addition to the TempWorks Software product suite for firms with as few as one or two users, TempWorks Core.

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