As reported at Forbes.com, A recent report by the Harvard Business Review reporting that 58% of companies plan to use temporary staffing at all levels over the next few years really does not surprise me.  This is up from the 38% that are using temporary staff now.  Through this last recession businesses have learned how to get more done with fewer resources and have begun using more and more temps to fill in their needs rather than hiring a full time employee.  And, yes, as noted in this article, you can even find temps now at the executive level.

Forbes article on “Temps: 3 Reasons to Hire Them Now” made a great point that a temporary workforce should be considered proactively as part of your ongoing Human Capital strategy and not just for reactive reasons.  These proactive reasons were 1) specialized expertise, quick ramp-up, 2) fresh perspectives and 3) temps make great full-time staff.  All great reasons but they left out one more just as important if not more so.

That 4^th reason is their ability to help your company mitigate risk.  Ever wanted to pursue an initiative that you have never attempted before?  It can be a cutting edge initiative or an initiative taking you into a brand new area for your company.  With both of these situations comes risk.  Most companies do not have the kind of expertise needed for this to succeed.  Even if you do have the expertise in your company now, can you afford the resources that will need to be solely focused on just that one initiative so as to increase the odds of success?