Rent to own: looking to grow, companies weigh pros and cons of temp workers.

• Author: Palmer, Rebecca
• Position: EntrepreneurEdge

Five years ago, IntegraCore in West Jordan ran its logistics and transportation operation with 12 employees. Half a decade later, the booming company staffs about 180 full-time workers and employs between 150 and 350 temporary workers every day.

Hiring the right people--and choosing when not to hire--was imperative for the company s success, explains David Maughan, director of business development for IntegraCore.

While IntegraCore experienced meteoric growth, hundreds of other Utah companies floundered in industries from construction to commercial real estate to retail. As the national economy crawls toward recovery, many of these companies are finally in a position to grow their workforce.

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Adding staff, however, is an expensive proposition, and many companies are stuck deciding whether to bring on temporary workers to facilitate their growth, or to make the commitment and hire permanent staff.

Filling the Slots

For IntegraCore, bringing on new staffers--both temporary and permanent--has been well worth the time and money.

The company focused on hiring team members who tit IntegraCores vision, even if management didn't yet have a place for them. In fact, when Maughan started, he was among those who didn't yet have a job description.

"You get the right people on the bus and then you get them in the right seat," Maughan says with a nod to best-selling business writer Jim Collins' book Good to Great.

Maughan believes businesses of all sizes can learn from IntegraCores corporate hiring philosophy: Only hire permanently for core business functions, and hire either contractors or temporary workers to fill in the cracks. Then contract with firms who specialize in the services you need.

For example, IntegraCore has full-time managers and quality assurance staffers in its warehouse, but temporary workers perform almost all the manual labor such as stacking boxes and palettes.

Intermountain Staffing Resources has found its niche in connecting the unemployed with companies, such as IntegraCore, that can give them steady work. Intermountain employs hundreds of temporary workers in five states. In doing so, it lets companies experiment with different employees, says company representative Joe Barnard.

"For a small business with 20 - 30...