The success of any business depends on the quality of its staff and how well it can recruit and retain that staff.

Sir Richard Branson, a billionaire entrepreneur and founder of the Virgin empire of business, agrees. “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients.”

When it comes to staffing, there are many ways your business can go about it — writing job descriptions, posting on online job boards or using temp agencies, recruiting agencies, or other ‘headhunters’ are all commonly used tactics to fill an employee roster. Traditional staffing agencies are a mainstay in the labor marketplace, but they quickly lose ground to an online, digital staffing agency that leverages technology and a proprietary staffing platform.

This article will cover how a staffing platform run by a digital staffing agency trumps a traditional staffing agency and how you can benefit from the digitalization of the recruitment process. 

1. Cost Efficiency

Traditional staffing agencies that are typically behind the technology curve are very costly. Staffing costs are often the most expensive overhead item for businesses, and traditional staffing firms only bloat that cost even higher. According to Business News Daily, traditional staffing agencies charge a markup that typically ranges from 25% to 100% of the hired employee’s wages.

Finding the right candidates for your business is critical to success, but paying too much to source them can drain your bottom line before they’ve even worked a single day. This is where a staffing platform can offer a more affordable solution. 

Digital staffing agencies use state-of-the-art technology to efficiently and inexpensively screen potential candidates. The digital staffing platform approach offers more capabilities and control over your staffing that will cut recruiting time in half and cut costs.

2. Localized Candidate Pools 

Commuting has implications for employee satisfaction and how much you will have to pay them. According to a poll by The Zebra, 35 percent of Americans would take a pay cut in exchange for a shorter commute.

Traditional staffing agencies often struggle to tap into local candidates. By casting a wide net to fill their candidate pools, traditional staffing firms often miss out on potential workers who live in the immediate area of your business. Talent is talent, but local talent is happier talent — longer commutes for workers add to the stress, resulting in increased absences, reduced motivation, and ultimately employee churn… and higher costs for the employer.

Online staffing platforms offer your business a localized candidate pool of pre-screened individuals from which to source new hires. Hiring managers can not only see any candidate’s qualifications, but with Google Maps integration, you can see your candidate’s commute distance and shift availability.

3. Digitized Staffing Processes

The hiring process used by the traditional staffing industry is outdated. Filling out paperwork, making phone calls, and in-person interviews are not only no longer necessary, they needlessly delay the process. Online staffing platforms are more nimble than temporary agencies and other old-school approaches using today’s digital tools.

Digital staffing agency, Jombone, leverages its proprietary staffing platform to digitize all aspects of the staffing process in an automated, easily-to-navigate interface. These new recruitment features include facial recognition time-entry systems, intelligent search and matching, video introductions, digital background, and reference checks, payroll processing, and shift scheduling and management seamlessly within a single staffing technology solution.

4. 24/7 Customer Support

Staffing agency employees clock out at the end of the work day. What happens when there’s an issue at midnight or on the weekend, and you have no staffing agency to get a hold of? Many companies are conducting business outside the typical nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday work week.

Robust staffing solutions must meet your business needs, keeping your business moving regardless of the time of day. A traditional agency doesn’t do that — if you have an employee no-show on the weekend, you’re on your own until Monday morning.

An online staffing platform can offer unlimited access to support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Simply put, you can get support when your workers are working, not just when the traditional staffing agency is.

Leverage Digital to your Advantage in an Evolving world

The labor marketplace is evolving rapidly, and organizations must change with it or risk falling into irrelevance. Workers have access to opportunities that did not exist in the past. They can find work through social media and other non-traditional channels. They are increasingly choosing to work as independent contractors and as gig workers in the gig economy. Hiring managers and recruiters must prove that their organization is a lucrative option for job seekers and a good fit for their lifestyle.

Digital staffing agencies offer clients new ways to attract these new mobile job seekers with the required work experience businesses. You can affordably build a contingent workforce of temporary workers that can grow and retract flexibly with your organization’s business needs. Jombone offers staffing solutions tailored to the needs of companies, and they do it for far less than traditional recruitment agencies.

Traditional recruiting firms and staffing agencies had a good run. But job seekers have changed, and the recruitment process must change to meet job seekers where they are. Workers are online, and your recruitment agency should be, too. Online platforms are no longer the way of the future, they’re disrupting the staffing industry now.

Take it from Sir Richard Branson and put your staffing first by reaching out to Jombone today.