What Is a Managed Service Provider in the Staffing Industry? (2024)
Business can be inconsistent throughout the year. Your staffing needs are liable to change with the seasons. So how do you navigate these difficult areas of time when you need to scale back your labor cost?
Contingent workforce programs can have a wide range of benefits for a company. The main aspect in which it can help is that it frees up your management team to focus on more urgent and pressing matters. Additionally, a contingent workforce will let companies meet high demands for flexible scheduling and part-time hours without sacrificing business needs for human capital.
A Managed Service Provider takes these important tasks, as well as others, and streamlines them. They take these tasks off of your hands so you can focus on running a profitable business.
However, a lot of people aren’t aware of their services. So what is a Managed Service Provider in the staffing industry?
What Are Managed Service Providers?
Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are specialized agencies that companies can use to procure workers and facilitate other tasks. These agencies are experts in the processes of interviewing and onboarding new workers to best fulfill the needs of their clients.
An MSP can play a wide range of roles for their clients. Procurement of employees is one of their main services, but far from their only service. Human resources services are incredibly important to the experience of these employees once they are placed in a position. Managed Service Providers can perform these human resources services for their clients as well. This includes conflict resolution, performance reviews, and much more.
Companies that use Managed Service Providers are ones that find themselves with a particular set of needs. First, these companies already make use of staffing agencies to find their workers, have in the past, or are interested in starting to use a staffing service.
Cost and risk are the two main factors that need attention. And MSPs are experts at controlling these factors. Contingent workers need to be vetted to make the risk of hiring them as low as possible. And the processes by which these hires take place need to be streamlined in order to minimize cost.
Any hiring program that lacks oversight, thorough procedures, and minimal cost are liable to benefit from Managed Service Providers.
Visit Hamilton-Ryker to learn more about our industrial staffing options.
What Are the Benefits?
The first thing an MSP can provide is greater access to talented prospects for employment. They will have a long list of workers they have either used on other projects or previously vetted and are confident in their reliability and capabilities. Immediate access to quality workers is a great asset.
One of the most visible advantages a client sees from working with a Managed Service Provider is that it simply makes the process easier. They are not tasked with overseeing these staffing issues or keeping track of what their staffing agency is doing. They have a dedicated team which they can hand the tasks off to and be confident they will be completed.
Documentation and ability to track expenses is also provided by an MSP. This is incredibly important for a company to have a realistic view of their profit margins and what they are gaining from MSP services.
These metrics and reports will show the company that the money they spend on labor through an MSP is generally much lower than they would spend with a full-time employee. The services of these employees are often not needed on a long-term basis so it helps the company to be able to fulfill the role with a talented worker throughout the period they are needed.
How Does It Work?
An MSP works in conjunction with their client as part of their contingent workforce program. It will generally be responsible for aspects of temporary staffing, freelance workers, independent contractors, and payroll employees. The client will generally have a contingent workforce team and the MSP will work along with them.
Managed Service Providers generally interact with their clients as a team. A project manager oversees a group of specialists assigned to particular tasks. They work to streamline the processes and keep an eye on the details to ensure nothing slips between the cracks.
This can take the form of each specialist paying attention to specific roles that need to be filled for their clients. They oversee the process of finding and interviewing potential employees. They then follow up with administrative personnel to ensure all paperwork is filed accordingly. Payment of contract employees is generally done through a staffing agency, which is overseen by the Managed Service Providers.