Small nonprofit professionals must often be jacks of all trades, filling many roles when resources are tight. However, this isn’t sustainable, especially if you’re looking to scale up significantly in the coming years.  If you need a convenient solution that allows you to grow without breaking the bank, leveraging the help of temporary (temp) employees from a staffing agency is a great place to start.

There are nuances between hiring temp and permanent employees, so you’ll need to take a different approach. Here are a few ideas on how to cultivate relationships with temp employees so you can build a thriving talent pool. 

1. Cultivate a Diverse Temp Pool

Just as candidate diversity is crucial for driving innovation for long-term positions, you’ll want to cultivate a diverse team of temp employees. Use these essential tips to make your temp hiring process inclusive:

  • Understand and reduce unconscious bias. Even well-intentioned recruiters can fall victim to implicit biases that can cloud judgments and lead to bad hiring calls. Proactively mitigate bias by using software that removes any identifying information, such as candidates’ demographics. This ensures you hire based on qualifications and performance data alone. 
  • Communicate expectations with the staffing agency. When choosing a staffing agency, ensure you touch base with them about temp employee diversity expectations. That way, if they don’t have personnel that meets your needs, you can work with an agency that provides you with temp employees who have different backgrounds and experiences. 
  • Offer comprehensive diversity training. Making your nonprofit’s workplace atmosphere welcoming helps instill inclusion as a core value. That way, you can achieve the same hiring results no matter who’s handling hiring or interfacing with the staffing agency.

2. Maintain a Temp Talent Database

While the staffing agency will handle the nitty-gritty details, such as payroll and other HR concerns, your nonprofit should still keep track of temp details so you can reengage high-performers again down the line. Similarly to a hiring platform or applicant tracking system for long-term hiring efforts, a temp employee database stores comprehensive data in a centralized location. 

In your temp talent database, track the following information:

  • Demographic information (name, age, etc.)
  • Experience outside of working with your nonprofit
  • Experience working with your nonprofit
  • Special skills and certifications
  • Job preferences/strengths/weaknesses
  • Availability
  • Notes about future full-time potential with your nonprofit

As with any other nonprofit software solution, you should keep up with data entry and maintenance to always have the freshest information. Build regular schedules and tasks into your routine to prevent or correct errors.

3. Design a Strategic Engagement Pipeline

Once this data is in your new system, make it simple to act on it and drive long-term results for your nonprofit. Developing a pipeline that accounts for transitioning temp employees into full-time team members allows you to build relationships naturally without diluting work quality and deprioritizing your mission. Once completed, this pipeline adds nuance to your talent pool and simplifies engaging qualified team members. 

First, gather the data you’ve already collected using your temp talent database. Hopefully, you have a separate field to note anything about the temp employee’s potential employment with your nonprofit, but if not, look at other data recruitment metrics that can indicate their potential. For instance, look into their satisfaction rating for your nonprofit or their performance in completing tasks for you.

Then, you can create a pipeline dictating different strategic touchpoints and engagement strategies that align with your talent pool. This might include regular check-ins with a manager, performance reviews, or open houses where temp employees can inquire about full-time employment.

Just ensure your talent pipeline aligns with your temp talent pool’s logistical restraints; for instance, you shouldn’t develop a pipeline that takes a year to complete if temp employees will only work with your nonprofit for six months. 

4. Strengthen Your Temp Employer Brand

Your employer brand is the foundation of your recruiting success. In fact, recent studies show that 88% of job seekers consider a workplace’s employer brand when applying and deciding to work there. The same applies to re-engaging temp talent or onboarding them as full-time employees. An optimal employer brand helps attract great fits to your organization, making your talent pool more effective. 

Follow these steps to assess and revamp your employer brand with temp talent in mind:

  • Assess public perception of your nonprofit. Read reviews on sites like Glassdoor or LinkedIn, where potential hires typically form their first impressions of your employer brand. Note any recurring critiques—they’re likely a point of improvement for your brand going forward. 
  • Ask people involved with your nonprofit. Whether it’s temp talent, full-time employees, or candidates currently in your recruitment pipeline, gather their firsthand feedback about you as an employer. Be sure to gather unique perspectives so you can optimize your brand with different audiences in mind,
  • Prioritize addressing trends in your data. Once you’ve gathered data, use it to form a plan for improving your employer brand. Handling issues employees bring to your attention instead of trying to cover them up with misleading branding helps cultivate a healthier work environment. 
  • Openly speak to brand changes or improvements. Now that you’ve put in the work and further improved your employer brand, you can discuss how you value your employees’ opinions in your recruitment marketing materials. This helps you come across as authentic and empathetic towards your employees, no matter if they’re temp workers or full-time staff.

Though you represent a small nonprofit with unique needs and assets, you can learn a lot from larger organizations with more established temp talent pools. Leverage your community connections to gather insight from more experienced recruiting operations, including staffing agencies and other nonprofits. By drawing on diverse perspectives, your nonprofit can build a stronger, more effective team of temp employees with less effort.