We’re all familiar with the Golden Rule: Treat people the way you want to be treated. In staffing (and all businesses for that matter) the Platinum Rule should be the standard for establishing all relationships. The Platinum Rule is about treating people the way they want to be treated and thus requires getting to know a person so you can better understand what’s important to them and treat them accordingly. In staffing, the Platinum Rule should be applied to clients and employees. Staffing agencies don’t hesitate to do this with clients, finding out the client’s needs and expectations before working on a project for them, yet they rarely do this with employees, which creates what we refer to as the commoditization of your workforce. Employees need the opportunity to share what is important to them with a recruiter, everything from type of job they prefer, their short- and long-term goals, location, and schedule, knowing these things enables the recruiter to offer opportunities that better align with an employee’s goals, greatly increasing the odds of a successful collaboration between employee and client.
Embracing the Platinum Rule by treating temporary employees as independent contractors is a strategy for success benefiting both employees and clients leading to more successful engagements and positive experiences for all parties – something everyone will be grateful for.
