Reference no: EM133006514

Case study: AgencyCo is the leading supplier of labour-hire work also known as 'on-hire', 'temp' or 'agency' work. Their labour-hire staff can be employees who are then on-hire to a client firm (but are not employees of that firm) or self-employed contractors. Initially providing supplementary trades, AgencyCo developed a white-collar sector providing customer contact services, health-care and general office placement staff in a diverse range of industries.

AcencyCo argues that to attract and keep talented workers the work needs to be not only about opportunity and variety but also about quality training, development and career progression. They provide human resource development opportunities as a means of increasing employee labour-hire employees through developing each employee's skills base. The variety of jobs with different client firms is also an important learning feature of working for AgencyCo. Management at AgencyCo identifies working with different clients as a training and development opportunity.

AgencyCo aims to become an employer of choice by giving employees and potential employees 'a sense of belonging but not a sense of being owned' by providing a range of benefits and doing all the things a normal employer would do. AgencyCo treats both their temporary and permanent staff as if they are committed to the organisation. This has led to turnover in employees being significantly lower than the industry average because of the way they manage people.

Becoming an employer of choice in the labour-hire industry does raise the issue of talented staff being poached by client organisations. AgencyCo claims to be able to compete with any permanent employer. This is supported by the fact that they do not see themselves as a provider of peripheral workers but rather as working within a partnership to manage these key employees. AgencyCo sees their competitive advantage as working in areas where they have acknowledged expertise that also corresponds with areas of labour shortage. Since labour-hire workers may be subject to conflicting policies and procedures on clients' sites, in many cases there will be an AgencyCo supervisor on site who looks after the AgencyCo employee under every circumstance even if there is a client supervisor present.

Questions and activities

1- What characteristics does AgencyCo exhibit with regard to being successful at talent management?

2- Why do you think this approach will or won't work in the long term?