With the rise in remote work and remote employment, there has been a rise in remote staffing agencies. A remote staffing agency will help you recruit staff from anywhere in the world to work full-time and remotely for your company. It is a great option for companies that do not want to limit themselves to only local talent. The companies treat the remote staff as regular employees, where the only difference is that they work remotely.
In this article, you will learn what a remote staffing agency is and how it works in general. We will discuss the essential details in this section. Apart from that, you will also learn about how to choose such an agency for your company. Finally, you will learn about the major pros and cons of choosing a staffing agency remotely for your business. Hence, to learn more about this agency, read on through to the end of the article.
What Is A Remote Staffing Agency?
According to an article on LinkedIn.com,
“Remote staffing, also referred to as outstaffing, is hiring a team of remote employees that works solely for a company. The remote staff is basically an extension of in-house employees. They are integrated into the company’s business operations, culture, and policies. The company directly hires and manages the remote staff to perform certain functions.”
If you work with those remote staff, you will have to offer all the resources to them to carry out their jobs properly. They are just treated as regular employees of the company as if someone is working from home. You have to pay their salary for overtime work, and also ensure other benefits as every employee gets in the company.
What a remote staffing agency does is that they offer potential employees for your companies. They already have talent pools and well-trained candidates. All you have to do is mention a job role to them, and they will share with you an already-trained candidate who is suitable for the role and who is able to work for your organization from a remote location.
You should not confuse remote staffing with outsourcing, which is mostly the case. According to DistantJob.com,
“With remote staffing, you’ll be looking for a single person to bolster your ranks and that you can manage directly through your team leads and managers, while with outsourcing you’ll be hiring a team of experts that manage themselves and report back to a project manager within your company.”
How Do Remote Staffing Agencies Work?
While you are working with a remote staffing agency, once you share with them the demand to fill a position, they will send you a candidate fully suitable for the role. The agency will handle all the processes related to the recruitment of the candidate. Hence, you will not have to spend a lot of time hiring a candidate and going through hundreds of resumes for the same.
Apart from that, you also cannot afford to lose time reviewing, interviewing, and negotiating salaries with potential candidates. Hiring a remote candidate for any position can take more than a month. Working with a remote staffing agency will allow you to fully share the responsibility for hiring a candidate for the new role.
In return for providing a suitable candidate for your company, the remote staffing agency will charge 25% to 100% of the wages of the employee. For example, if you pay the employee a wage of $10 per hour, you will pay a total of $15 to the remote staffing agency if they want a 50% markup on the wage of each employee they send to you.
Apart from that, if you like an employee and want to give permanent remote employment to the individual, then you will need to pay a contract buyout fee to the remote staffing agency.
How To Choose The Best Remote Staffing Agencies?
According to Boldly.com,
“Hiring remote staff is different than hiring someone for your in-house team, and you have a few options. The key to knowing which remote staffing option to use is to be aware of what you are looking for. Is it temporary access to talent for a specific project? Or do you want to supplement your team with a true new staff member?”
Here are some of the major things you need to consider before choosing a remote staffing agency for your company:
- Make sure that the agency has enough market experience in staffing. Ensure they are well-reviewed.
- Ask how long the talent pool has been with the agency. This will further help you to get an idea of their ability to retain talents.
- Check whether the remote staff you are about to hire is a W2 employee or a 1099 contractor.
- Make sure you meet and interview your remote staff before you hire.
- Evaluate the remote staffing agency and make sure that they have the ability to hire more remote staff down the line.
Pros And Cons Of Working With Remote Staffing Agencies
The following are some of the major pros and cons of remote staffing agencies that you must know:
What Are The Pros Of Working With Such Agencies?
Here are the pros of hiring a staffing agency remotely, which are sure to benefit you:
- Less cost of hiring
- Time-saving
- No worries about finding the whereabouts of the candidate
- Better evaluation of the candidate
- You can expand your search for qualified candidates
What Are The Cons Of Working With Such Agencies?
Here are a few cons of hiring a staffing agency remotely, which you must be aware of:
- There can be a culture gap
- The employee might take time time to associate
- There are additional hiring costs
Wrapping Up
Hiring a remote employee for the business is a serious task that takes a lot of time away from the regular obligations of the business owner. This can end up hurting the company in the long run.
That’s why many companies start hiring remote staffing agencies so that they take responsibility for the entire HR process. Hence, if you are looking to hire a remote staffing agency, consider checking their ability and experience by going through the points mentioned above.
Continue Reading:
