STAFFING FIRMS
Staffing firms place skilled and experienced IT staff in a client business on a temporary or contract basis. Such staff is paid on a daily or hourly rate basis by the staffing firm which employs them, and the staffing firm will similarly onward bill the client business on an hourly or daily rate, plus their “mark up”, to cover their administrative expenses and profit margins.Such staff can include the whole range of IT professionals – from senior IT management (IT managers, project managers), to programmers, to analysts, to computer technical specialists, to VDU input staff or key operators, and staff may be contracted to work for short periods of only a week or so, or for longer periods which can last for months or even years.
It is not unusual for large IT departments in major companies to be entirely or partially staffed by people from staffing firms on a long term or an indefinite contract basis. This gives the company the flexibility to expand or contract their IT departments, as required by the business or projects currently in hand, without having to undertake the long and expensive process of permanent recruitment, with it’s attendant legal obligations and also facilitates the reduction of staff, without the need to become involved in laying off permanent employees and associated redundancy issues.
Many IT professionals prefer to work indefinitely for staffing firms, as it provides them with flexibility to take long holidays on completion of assignments, and effectively to work their own hours. Although they will not receive many of the benefits that a permanent employee would enjoy, they are usually compensated by receiving a higher daily rate than a permanent staff member.