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Prevent employee burnout by hiring temporary employees

Posted on April 22nd, 2015 Read time: 2 minutes

Employee burnout, which according to the Association for Psychological Science is characterized by fatigue and cynicism accompanied by work-related stress, is a serious issue faced by employers across the U.S. According to a 2013 survey by Statista, 62 percent of people living in North America report high levels of stress at work. Of those, 41 percent report that workload is the main cause of their anxieties. The APS names three types of employee burnout: overload; boredom and lack of personal development; and a worn-out kind of lack of motivation. It can be difficult to know how to deal with the burnout issue on the rise in the U.S.

One solution is to hire temporary employees. Sean Hastings, who leads Sikich's executive firm and staffing practice {explain that this info is from an article contributed to Accounting Today}, recently touted a strategy for accounting firms to hire temp workers to prevent burnout further down the road.

Benefits to full-time staff
According to Hastings, one benefit is the fresh perspectives the temporary employees can bring to an organization, which can lead to a higher level of employee engagement and new solutions to old problems. Temporary employees also demonstrate high work ethic. They are going to give it their all, since they will only have a certain amount of time to make a good impression on the company.

Strategic hiring practices like employing temporary employees help keep the full-time staff from experiencing burnout.

"By hiring temporary workers, employers can keep work hours for their full-time staff reasonable and maintain positive employee morale by demonstrating that they care about staff well-being," Hastings said.

Decreasing turnover rates
Hiring temporary employees, and thus taking some of the pressure off other employees, can also lead to a decrease in turnover rates. A 2012 study by the Center for American Progress found that the median cost of turnover was 21 percent of an employee's annual salary. By hiring temporary employees, according to Hastings, companies can avoid these high costs by effectively "test-driving" employees before hiring them on full-time.

"Temporary employment is the new normal," Paul McDonald, senior executive director for staffing firm Robert Half International, said in an article on Workforce Week. "What we're seeing is that many companies need temporary labor to meet their day-to-day goals. They don't want to burn out the full-time staff. It's an augmentation to the full-time staff that really is a strategic staffing play as the economy improves."

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