Why do companies only hire part-time?

Companies hire part-time to have more flexibility, save costs, and keep a company nimble and ready to staff up or down according to their needs.

The world of work continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with both companies and workers desiring more flexibility in terms of who does the work and how it gets done.

Some companies choose to hire only full-time employees, others only part-time, and the rest use a combination of both.

Hiring part-time employees can have multiple benefits for the company. Here are some of the most popular:

• Lower costs
• Flexibility
• Extra support
• Filling hard-to-fill roles
• Creating a talent pool for full-time positions
  

Lower costs

Hiring part-time employees can save a company a lot of costs. Companies can optimize for downtime, so they only pay for the actual hours when the work is done. Besides, companies don’t need to pay all the benefits, such as health care benefits, sick leave, vacations, and retirement programs. And finally, all the costs related to redundancy, such as severance packages or unemployment insurance, can be eliminated with part-time employees. Typically, these workers don’t qualify for benefits.

Flexibility

For companies in volatile industries, flexibility is extremely important. They hire part-time workers to be able to scale up or down without the need to go through a cumbersome process of hiring and firing full-time employees. Usually, these companies have a pool of part-timers, and they adjust their schedules according to the business needs. For example, a restaurant can have several part-time workers to be able to cover during busy hours on Friday evenings and Weekends. Another example would be when part-timers are feeling in when the full-time member of the team is sick or on vacation.

Extra support

Businesses with high seasonal demand can employ part-time workers to cover peak demand during this season. It can be additional F&B staff during the yearly festival/big event or accountants during yearly tax preparation. Usually, companies require extra support only during this period of time, so it doesn’t make sense for them to hire full-time employees and then fire them.

Filling hard-to-fill roles

When companies open their position for part-time employees as well, they open them for a bigger pool of talent. For roles in demand, it’s often harder to find a full-time employee, so some companies hire part-timers for these roles. In this case, employees who are currently working full-time might consider doing side work, or new mothers who want to go back to work but do not want a full-time job and need extra flexibility can apply as well.

Creating a talent pool for full-time positions

Part-time employees learn a lot about the company and the way it operates, which makes them suitable candidates for available full-time positions. They require less training as they already know the business, and they fit easily into the corporate culture as they usually know the full-time staff in the company. So hiring part-time staff when the workload is low could easily result in getting suitable candidates for full-time positions once the workload increases.

Conclusion

Hiring part-time employees have great benefits for the companies, that’s why more and more of them are offering part-time positions. It allows them to save costs, get extra support and create a talent pool for their full-time positions. At the same time, employees now are selecting flexibility more and more often, so in some cases, companies just don’t have another choice but to hire part-time.

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