Has Anyone Had Luck With Staffing Agencies?

[TeachMePlease]

. How would they crash in this scenario aside from misloading the part?

Brother.... I could tell you stories....
You gonna probe to make sure they didn't leave the torque wrench on the vise? Or on the table where it can fall and crunch up your way covers? You gonna probe to make sure they scoop chips and your chip pan doesn't overflow coolant everywhere?

 

[F35Machinist]

The Biggest issue is really looking for a good employee that only wants part time low pay employment< by good I'm not meaning trained machinist I'm meaning shows up, can follow basic directions, can repeat those directions.

you reference your cleaning lady that works cheep and does a good job, she likely does the same work for multiple people and that makes for full time employment. I think its super unlikely you will find a agency that has someone with mechanical aptitude, because if they are good enough to make you happy 2 days a week they are good enough to make every other employer happy 5 days a week, and that's better for both of them. Now if you tell them to send whoever 2 days a week your likely to be starting from scratch every week or likely day, also if you are counting on the labor to get projects done you will find that the % of no shows for temp jobs is surprisingly high.


easy,
Put part in but didn't tighten it enough, just enough to let the probe work but flies out when the mill starts cutting, or put blank in wrong orientation so its too tall and your probe crashes into the blank that shouldn't be there, or left the torq wrench on the vise and the spindle crashes into it, or 30 other things you can't imagine would be a problem because you wouldn't do them yourself.

Yes, there are a lot of ways to crash for sure. I think tying the torque wrench with a rope to the outside of the machine so that the door won't close if it is left inside is a quick fix for some of those problems. The rest require solutions of increasing complexity.

Sometimes I wonder if humans couldn't have trained some of the smarter primate species like orangutans or chimps to do these tasks. Crows solving complex puzzles for birdfeed comes to mind...

 

[jccaclimber]

My neighbor beat me to the punch years ago. She works full time next door and cleans all of our units on the weekends.

Does she have friends/family she's willing to recommend that need some part time work?

 

[DPM]

I gave up on staffing agencies. In my experience the folks that come through are not the caliber to be working in a machine shop. I find that I'm better off hiring people who can look for a job on their own. Just that fact alone is a differentiator.

 

[Hebrewhammer8]

I gave up on staffing agencies. In my experience the folks that come through are not the caliber to be working in a machine shop. I find that I'm better off hiring people who can look for a job on their own. Just that fact alone is a differentiator.

Exactly. If you need to go to a staffing agency to find a job you already disqualified yourself from working in my shop!

 

[Maintenance guy]

We hire out from staffing agencies here and when I say bottom of the barrel quality workers I mean the absolute BOTTOM. Most of them don't even last a week but the agencies make hiring and firing easy and its just a constant rotation. Sometimes we get lucky and have been able to "buy out" the employee from the agency and they've stayed for years after. Given, most are button pushers or even shipping/ receiving department.

 

[604Pook]

We hire out from staffing agencies here and when I say bottom of the barrel quality workers I mean the absolute BOTTOM. Most of them don't even last a week but the agencies make hiring and firing easy and its just a constant rotation. Sometimes we get lucky and have been able to "buy out" the employee from the agency and they've stayed for years after. Given, most are button pushers or even shipping/ receiving department.

When I was a teenager, my dad's shop had a guy come in from a staffing agency. He managed to cut his thumb off pushing in a cart with a bundle of 20' lengths of 3" I beams into the shop. He sat the bundle down on 2, 2x4's sitting vertical, then proceeded to put his hand down low on the cart it self under the bundle to push it into the shop. hit a rock and toppled the 2x4's over, shearing his thumb off with a dull I beam. There was plenty of 4x4 dunnage he had to walk past to find some 2x4's

I had the fun of driving him to the hospital.

My brother-in-law worked higher up onsite for a large construction company, they had labor ready people on constant rotation. The horror stories and things wrecked by these people was never ending. Putting gas in diesel generators, breaking tools on purpose so they didn't need to work etc...

 

[Covenant MFG]

Never underestimate the creativity of an incompetent employee

 

[Maintenance guy]

When I was a teenager, my dad's shop had a guy come in from a staffing agency. He managed to cut his thumb off pushing in a cart with a bundle of 20' lengths of 3" I beams into the shop. He sat the bundle down on 2, 2x4's sitting vertical, then proceeded to put his hand down low on the cart it self under the bundle to push it into the shop. hit a rock and toppled the 2x4's over, shearing his thumb off with a dull I beam. There was plenty of 4x4 dunnage he had to walk past to find some 2x4's

I had the fun of driving him to the hospital.

My brother-in-law worked higher up onsite for a large construction company, they had labor ready people on constant rotation. The horror stories and things wrecked by these people was never ending. Putting gas in diesel generators, breaking tools on purpose so they didn't need to work etc...

We've had several good stories of agency employees aside from crashes over and over and over...

I think my favorite one so far was a lathe operator who just got back from break and checked a part (he had a couple of screws loose to begin with) I'm not sure if his dimensions were off or what but he lost his MIND. A burrito got thrown against the wall, personal laptop crashing and exploding on the floor material rolling down the hallway etc. He was promptly escorted off the property. It was only 9 AM and his second day.

 

[Stoney83]

The new guy in my shop came from a staffing agency and he’s doing well. He's been working a week so it’s still real early but I’m optimistic.

It’s about what you’re saying… pay them $20 and the staffing around $28. Which isn’t all that bad because they take care of payroll and workers comp. Plus it’s only for 90 days.

If you try a staffing agency have them send you a number of candidates. You’ll be able to tell pretty quickly if there a good candidate or not. And they’ll be able to send you 2-3 interviews a day whereas you would have a hard time doing that yourself.