Is Flexi Staffing the Future of Indian Staffing Industry?
The concept of flexi staffing is catching up in India quite fast even though most of us don’t exactly know the full meaning of this term. More often than not, this term is used as an umbrella term to define complex employment scenarios.
The fact that India is one of the top five nations with flexi staffing base and the fact that we already have 1.3 million flexi employees in India right now, means that companies need to understand the full potential of this type of employment.
Flexi staffing originated as a direct consequence of rising costs of labor and the associated costs like medical benefits, insurance, and workers’ compensation. As a staffing arrangement, one can associate flexi staffing in multiple situations.
Temporary Workers – Workers provided by a staffing agency for a limited period of time for a short term project or a finite project. This is usually less than a year, and the work is directed by the company.
Leased Employees – Workforce (part/full) leased by a staffing firm to a company on an almost permanent basis. In this situation, the work is directed by the company, and employees are on the payroll of the staffing firm.
Contract Workers – These workers are hired by a company that contracts out the services of the workers to a client company. They usually work for one client at a time and work at the client’s workplace.
Apart from the aforementioned categories, there are others like independent contractors who may be self employed but work for the company. They are more like freelancers who may or may not work at the client’s workspace. Other categories include directly hired temporary staff, and on-call employees.
Why is Flexi staffing picking up in India?
As companies try to grapple with seasonal and structural changes in the labor market, many organizations are trying to adapt themselves with innovative solutions. The success of the Flexi staffing model is validated by a study conducted by Indian Staffing Federation. It stated that 60% of the companies who engaged employees in the flexible staffing model wriggle out of downturns faster.
In India, the flexi staffing model is preferred by the employees for the reason that the pay package is on par with the permanent employees and have the same perks. However, one has to say that there is still apprehension among Indian job seekers as their mindset clings to an older value that believes in security of a permanent job.
The notion of permanency is fast losing its ground among the younger employees and not so surprisingly, the percentage of flexi staff in India under the age of 30 yrs is more than 80%. Moreover, major layoffs in large companies are drivers for employees to consider the option of flexi employment. The phenomenon of flexi staffing is seen more in the IT sector where employees prefer to work on projects to enhance their skills.
In a recent survey conducted in India, it was found that sectors like IT, Retail, Telecom, Pharma, Hospitality, Manufacturing, and Agro-based sectors are preferring flexible employees. It was also found that most of the employees are fresh graduates, and first time job seekers.
With more and more companies preferring flexi employees, it was found that they prefer these employees coming from staffing firms, which takes care of certain legalities. The Indian Staffing Federation is consistently working with Govt. of India to ensure the interests of all the stakeholders.
The role of staffing agencies in providing solutions to Flexi staffing for both companies and employees is vital. This is the reason for the emergence of many staffing firms. Some of them are adopting innovative means to reach out to both prospective employees and companies. One such innovation is to go mobile. The advent of smartphones has revolutionized the entire country, and with mobile applications like IT staffing apps and staffing apps have made the process of finding jobs, sending resumes, and scheduling interviews very easy.
Changes in the industry and technologies have created some opportunities and downturns, but the industry has bounced back with newer innovations. Flexi staffing is there to stay and might be the perfect answer to many employment issues.
