Temporary Help Services Business Guide
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We documented 8 challenges in Temporary Help Services. Now get the actionable solutions — vendor recommendations, process fixes, and cost-saving strategies that actually work.
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All 8 Documented Cases
Prolonged Time-to-Cash Due to Slow Client Payments in Temp Staffing Invoicing
$40-$1500+ per invoice cycle in fees, postage, and opportunity costs; up to 87-day payment delays industry-wideTemporary help services agencies invoice clients for staffed workers but face payment delays of 30-60 days or more, while paying temp workers weekly, creating cash flow gaps. Agencies resort to invoice factoring at discounts (e.g., 80-90% advance) to bridge this, incurring fees for processing and outstanding invoices. This recurring drag affects operations as agencies wait weeks or months for full payment.
Administrative Bottlenecks from Manual Markup and Invoicing Calculations
$40 per invoice labor; 87% processing cost savings post-automationClient invoicing with markup calculation in temp services involves time-consuming manual tasks like timesheet verification and custom setups, tying up staff for 38 minutes per invoice on average. This creates idle capacity in billing teams and diverts resources from core staffing activities. Automation via VMS reduces processing to 30 minutes weekly, highlighting recurring capacity waste.
Citations to both staffing agency and host employer for shared safety failures with temps
$20,000–$150,000 per incident across both employers, depending on number and severity of violations (repeat/willful status can push totals higher)OSHA treats staffing agencies and host employers as joint employers of temporary workers and can cite both for the same safety violation, multiplying penalty exposure. Failures in hazard training, supervision, or protective equipment for temps can therefore generate two sets of citations for a single underlying condition.
Surge in workers’ compensation and insurance costs from severe injuries to temporary workers
$50,000–$150,000+ per severe injury when combining medical costs, indemnity, legal fees, lost productivity, and premium impact; for larger temporary staffing portfolios, this scales to hundreds of thousands per yearTemporary workers experience severe injuries (amputations, fractures, hospitalizations) at roughly three times the rate of permanent workers. This drives higher claim counts and severity on the staffing firm’s workers’ compensation program and can also create liability for host employers, inflating premiums, deductibles, and uninsured costs (overtime, replacement workers, productivity loss).