The Pros And Cons Of Temporary Workers Shortage

Hiring temporary workers is very quick to overcome a worker shortage when the people you are hiring are only going to perform general tasks. However, a con is that if you are looking for employees who have a specific high-level skill set, it can take a very long time to find that particular temporary worker. A pro of a temporary workforce is that it can overcome short-term shortage. Another con of temporary workers is that they can have little or no loyalty to the organization or to the owner. They could also be working for your competitor and could leak out company information or secrets to the competitor. This means, that in the end, they could harm you and end up helping your competitors. Furthermore, the temporary worker may not be as familiar with the company compared to a permanent worker. Since they know they won’t be staying with the company, they won’t be motivated to
do work
An advantage of using a temporary worker is that once you don’t need a temporary worker, you can release him/her back to the temp agency.
On the other hand, a disadvantage is that there could be a clash between temporary and permanent employees. The permanent employees may think that the temp is trying to take his/her job or that the person is trying to take the position of a friend. Temporary workers can also create legal problems. For instance, as mentioned in the textbook, if an organization classified a worker as an independent worker and then exerts a significant amount of control then the organization can be judged as guilty of misclassifying a worker as an outside contractor. Furthermore, the government “can penalize the organization for not withholding employment taxes on the worker and not paying for required benefits such as Social Security and worker’s compensation” (149). Temporary workers don’t receive benefits such as health insurance, paid leave or retirement benefits, which is a downside for the workers. This could also cause problems between permanent and temporary
employees.
Honestly, after looking at the pros and cons of a temporary workforce, it doesn’t seem like this employment status supports Logistics’ business strategy. Why? Well, the company uses a differentiation strategy, whose goal is to meet customer needs by providing unique and innovate products/services to its customers. When temporary workers are not working at Logistics, they could be working at its competitors and since they do not have any loyalty towards the organization they work in, they can possibly reveal the secrets of Logistics. This can have a negative impact on Logistics because if the competitors find out what new product the company is going to launch, it can try to launch something similar and possibly earlier so profits can be maximized. Also, in a differentiation strategy it is important that people are able to work in teams. With temporary workers working in the organization, they have no motivation to work since they know that they will probably not stay there for long since permanent employment is not always guaranteed. When motivation is low, people will not accomplish anything and the other people in the group will become frustrated if people aren’t doing their share of work. Thus, productivity is reduced. The use of temporary workers can damage the firm’s ability to “differentiate themselves through superior production” (Glasgow, 2001). They may not also have the certain skills that are needed to make the differentiation strategy work.