Staff Leasing: What to Look For When Hiring a Support Staff
A support staff can be assigned to different departments within a company and can multitask depending on his responsibilities. The main goal of a support employee is to provide clerical, secretarial and over-all administrative support.
Through a staff leasing firm, hiring a support staff has become more affordable in terms of salary, employee benefits and the need for additional office space has been eliminated. That is why many businesses today are opting for staff leasing services.
If you already have outsourced other services or just planning to outsource your support staff, here are three (3) simple ways to look for so you can guarantee effectiveness and efficiency of your leased employee.
Right Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
Your support staff should possess the necessary skills to ensure efficiency and effectiveness within your company. Some business owners prefer support workers who have multiple skills so they can gain more strategic advantage like having their support employee work in various departments or have them work on multiple tasks at the same time.
Generally, your support staff should posses:
- Basic computer skills including web navigation
- Analytical and problem-solving skills
- Time management and organizational skills
- Clear understanding if the company’s policies and mission
In staff leasing firms, since they are very competitive with each other, support staffs normally possess two (2) or more skills. For example:
- Virtual Assistant (VA) – general VA skills, plus basic internet marketing and writing skills
- Data Entry Specialist (DES) – general DES skills, plus basic graphics and HTML skills
- Quality Assurance (QA) – general QA skills, plus basic internet marketing and some DES skills
- Help Desk Agent (HDA) – general HDA skills, plus basic internet marketing and some DES skills
With a staff leasing firm, you can come up with various marketing campaigns and business strategies with multi-skilled support staffs.
Strong Communication Skills
An average to excellent communication skills is a must, but a support staff also needs to communicate effectively, both verbal and written. This means that your support worker should be good in listening, can provide clear information, and can process a situation without being too emotional. Strong communication skills enhance all kinds of relationships in the work place.
For a staff leasing firm, good communications skills of their support staffs can either be a acquired through experience or by attending trainings and seminars. So you are never getting a support worker from them that do not know how to communicate well with a client, customer and company executives.
How to know if the support staff you are going to hire from a staff leasing firm can communicate well?
- Conduct a face-to-face interview or a Skype interview
- Have the candidate write a short description of anything you want or a sample report
Good Work Ethic and Personal Attributes
All types of skills can be learned and developed through time, but a good work ethic can be unlearnable for some support staffs. While employees with a good set of personal attributes can sometimes be hard to find, because they are mostly already employed by someone else. So you should always be aware of work ethics and personal attributes when hiring a support worker from a staff leasing firm.
Aside from respect and integrity, your support staff should also:
- Possess cultural awareness and sensitivity
- Has strong sense of responsibility
- Flexible to changes and ability to adapt
- Demonstrates good morale and teamwork
A good work ethic is vital to any business in achieving its goal, from support staffs up to the CEO and the owner of the company. That is also what makes a staff leasing firm effective in help you achieve your goal, because they always make sure that the employees they lease are not just skilled on their respective fields but also possess good personal attributes.
