What is the Difference Between a Staffing Agency and a Recruitment Agency?

The modern world is full of opportunities and challenges for human resources and hiring managers, which can be utilized to achieve an overall more productive and satisfying workplace. While global issues have caused a labor shortage in recent years, there are also technological solutions to this problem that can give companies willing to try them out a leg up over the competition. One of these solutions is using the services of staffing and recruitment agencies, but it’s important to understand the differences between the two.  

Both recruitment and a staffing agency serve critical and indispensable functions for businesses, especially in fields like healthcare with high turnover rates and employee retention issues. For businesses looking to retain and keep the highest quality employees for a long period of time, using these services is an excellent way to bypass traditional methods, and recruit from a larger pool of potential employees with more room for long-term growth and company stability. 

What Does a Staffing Agency Do?

A staffing agency is primarily concerned with temporary workers, who can fill in gaps in schedules as needed. In healthcare, this is usually realized as travel nurses or CNAs, who can work or cover while the company finds permanent workers to fill these spots.  

For example, if a healthcare company has a desperate need for workers that can quickly come perform the job, a staffing agency provides them the means to quickly and easily fill these spots, without expending the capital and resources necessary to hire full-time workers. In some locations, the staffing agency may be the most economical and practical solution to filling out schedules temporarily. 

There are many benefits to utilizing a staffing agency, such as:

• The agency will take care of vetting and interviewing the candidates for you.
• You can select applicants from a much larger pool than traditional methods of finding workers like posting ads on Craigslist.
• Staffing agencies can advertise with a much larger reach than most companies.
• Staffing agencies can provide highly specialized workers that are difficult to find
• Working with staffing agencies gives you a way to see the employees in action, on the job, before committing to hiring them full-time.
• Staffing agencies work quickly, saving valuable time when employees are needed desperately. 

It’s easy to see why many healthcare companies, along with those in other fields, rely on staffing agencies to keep things running. It’s an excellent way to save time, money, and effort, along with getting a valuable chance to see potential long-term employees in action.

What Does a Recruitment Agency Do?

On the other hand, a recruitment agency is more like the traditional “head-hunter” type of job. Recruitment agencies typically look for those who are willing and looking to commit to long-term jobs. This will usually take the form of management or administration staffing, although this isn’t a rule.  

Usually, those who are hired through recruitment agencies are looking for somewhere to look for a substantial period of time, or indefinitely. This is because, for these jobs, turnover is something that can have catastrophic effects over time for a business. A skilled nursing facility can survive a high CNA turnover rate for a period of time, but if management or administration is constantly changing, it is hard to keep things running smoothly. 

Recruitment agencies typically provide what is called Retained Recruitment, in which the agency will charge a percentage or portion of the workers’ salary as a retainment fee. This helps ensure that the agreement will be upheld by both parties, and that stability and commitments are the primary focus of the worker.

While the agency is in charge of vetting, interviewing, and hiring potential workers, the company will be responsible for all benefits and salaries once the process is complete. This leads to higher retention rates and overall job satisfaction for both the worker and the company that is involved.  

Recruitment or Staffing?

If you’re a hiring manager or HR professional, you may be wondering which of the two options is the superior choice. The answer is neither one, they both perform important and indispensable services to businesses. Which one you should use just depends on what type of worker you are looking for.

If you need to simply fill in the gaps in your schedule to keep the business running until you can hire a full-time staff, a staffing agency is an excellent choice to buy yourself some time to hire. However, if you’re looking for upper-level management or people to fill positions that need consistency or long-term workers, a recruitment agency is the way to go.

Either way, the important thing is that the agency will provide professional and reliable workers that show up on time and can alleviate stress for you. Contact the right one today and watch your business grow and succeed, now that the agency can help with the stressful work of vetting, interviewing, and hiring workers.