Super temps to the rescue.

• Author: Sommars, Jack
• Position: Includes related articles - Temporary employment agencies

TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES ARE ENRICHED. IF CHALLENGED.

Manager Lisa Sinclair envisions an elite team of downtown Denver Quik Temps file clerks, administrative assistants and receptionists akin to the U.S. Air Force's Rapid Deployment Force, "on call, dressed and ready to go at a moment's notice." Its proponents say the strategy could revolutionize the intensely competitive temp-worker industry - they just need a few good super workers.

Is such quick-strike capability possible?

"You don't understand," Sinclair said with the cockiness of a Navy fighter pilot. "We're superwomen."

While Sinclair's company, a division of the Denver office of Dallas-based Snelling and Snelling, hasn't yet developed the force, she's close, like many in the staffing industry.

With revenues growing 17% annually, worldwide, the $80 billion industry is looking for the temp creme de la creme to keep its customers stocked. A strong economy and low unemployment have agencies going to extraordinary lengths to attract and retain workers. Compounding the shortage is Corporate America. Businesses often see temp agencies as a "try-before-you-buy" source, snapping up seven of 10 workers within 90 days. This leaves temp agencies with the costly task of recruiting, screening, training and placing another group of workers.

"That's the biggest change I've seen in our industry," Sinclair said. "Ten years ago, most of our orders were for temporary placements. Today, 80 percent of our business is temporary-to-hire."

Employers use temp agencies in good times and bad, but in different ways, said Jan Haire, owner and president of Loveland-based Professional Resources Inc. and outgoing president of the 80-member Colorado Association of Staffing Services. In flush times, employers use every resource available to find workers, including staffing agencies, from which perhaps 70% to 80% of employees are hired away. In bad times, temporary staffers help during a company's busy times or on special contracts.

"New (agencies) are popping up all the time, all over Colorado," Haire said, with the possible exception of slower-growth regions, such as the Eastern Plains.

Temp workers now see their agencies as a tool for marketing themselves to permanent hire - to a degree. Hiring away an employee can be expensive. Agencies generally charge a fee to companies that hire away an employee in fewer than 90 days - the time agencies figure it takes to recoup the costs of recruiting and training. Those...