On a short circuit

Companies are discovering the benefits of hiring temporary staff for short-term projects.

It was the perfect compromise for company secretary V Shankar. He had just left a highly paid job in a broking firm and was hunting for a new job that would leave him time to spend with his children.

Finally, he signed on with a placement firm called Teamlease which found him a temporary job with a large multinational bank for six months.

Mind you, this wasn't any old job "" Shankar filled a temporary vacancy as the bank's chief legal officer. Now that he has finished the highly paid assignment he's back at home spending time with his kids.

Says Shankar: "One assignment fetches me enough to last a while. I completed my last assignment a few months ago, and am chilling out with my kids now. I'll be picking up another short-duration assignment when the time comes."

Or, look at Major Derek Justine who has been working for six months as a "loss prevention manager" with a top infotech company. Justine's job, which gives him a six-figure salary, involves looking after the valuable equipment in the infotech company's offices.

He was placed in the job by placement firm Ma Foi Consultants and will soon move on to another temporary assignment. Since security experts are in heavy demand nowadays Ma Foi reckons he will be snapped by any one of a dozen companies in double quick time.

It's a phenomenon that would have been greeted with shock in old-style Indian business houses. But this is, after all, the 21st century and a time when the rules of the workplace are being turned upside down. Enter the temporary executive or the temp.

Temping isn't an entirely unknown phenomenon. But in the old days it was only secretaries and other lower level staff who picked up temporary assignments "" usually filling leave vacancies.

But now companies are starting to take on temporary staff at all levels "" sometimes from the CEO downwards. "There is a steady increase in temp jobs, and we are recruiting 1,200 temps every month," says E Balaji, executive director-Staffing Solution, Ma Foi Consultants. Ma Foi recently got into the temping business but believes it could soon be a big moneyspinner.

Similarly, take a look at how Teamlease is expanding its temp team. At present, the company has 8,500 full-time associates and by year-end, Managing Director Ashok Reddy says he'd like to have around 15,000 on his rolls.

Teamlease operates across four industry verticals "" manufacturing, FMCG, BPOs and the financial services sector. Reddy says temping is expanding rapidly in the financial services sector.

"We have 122 clients across seven offices and are expanding to four locations," says Reddy.

One thing's for sure. Temping is here to stay because new age industries like IT often need staff for short-term assignments. So, it's growing exponentially and even smaller placement companies are quickly jumping on the bandwagon. That's why Arvind Swami, CEO,

ProLease India, a Chennai-based placement company, is collecting staff for his temp team. "We do senior management staffing for IT and telecom companies for short durations," says Swami, who in an earlier incarnation was the hero of the hit film Roja.

Why are temps suddenly gaining favour? That's because companies are discovering that in a modern industrial environment it's often better to hire temporary staff for short-term projects.

LG India, for instance, has always outsourced some of its functions. In the near future the company plans to hire temp staff for its R&D team.

Inevitably, it's the newer industries that have taken on temps in a big way. Says Balaji: "Both telecom and IT are new-age economies, and people in these verticals come with very specific roles and jobs that are deadline-driven."

One telecom company that uses temps is the Indian arm of Alcatel. Surajit Bannerjee, Alcatel's HR chief, says temps are generally used for what he calls "project rollout assignments."

The temps are picked up from agencies and placed on a project either with other temps, or on an existing team of full-time employees.

Says Bannerjee: "When there are scaleability issues, managing becomes easier on an outsourcing model. When our requirement is of a short-term nature, we can ramp up much faster when we hire a temp."

Most temp jobs are at the middle levels and India is yet to see a short-term chief executive. However, Balaji says that quite a few top managers are being hired on a temporary basis, particularly in telecom and IT.

What type of person gets into temping? The answer is that it depends on varying personal circumstances. Take the case of the Bangalore-based quality pro Lucy Anderson who came to India with her husband in 2003. Anderson is American and a 6 Sigma pro.

She signed up as an associate with Teamlease, which immediately got her a seven-month contract with a leading IT firm. She earned about Rs 1 lakh a month at the job.

Anderson doesn't need to work full-time but she doesn't want to become rusty.

"I'm not bound by a fixed job. When I feel like it, I approach temp agencies like Teamlease, and they sign me up depending on the availability of positions with their clients," she says.

There are other reasons why people get into temping. For one thing, the salary can be quite good. People like Justine and Hyderabad-based infotech professional R Mahesh found they could earn more by temping than in a regular job.

Then, there's the fact that some people would simply like time off. "As the market evolves, people make a conscious lifestyle choice to become temps. It creates an element of flexibility to their work life and provides them the space and time for other activities, says Teamlease's Reddy.

Also, some people get more excitement from their jobs this way. Says Dr Monica Chib, senior consultant, Psychiatry, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital: "Lots of people who don't like a regular job, pick up temp assignments. These are people who want new stimulus, excitement and something challenging with each passing day."

For companies too, there can be advantages taking on temps. They often bring with them varied experience of different companies and situations. Says Atul Vohra, managing partner, Transearch India, "In India, interim management is slowly gaining ground since here, people can bring in valuable perspectives in business situations."

Temping is, of course, very different from a normal employment contract. What happens is that there's a three-way agreement between the placement company, the person being hired and the company that needs a temp.

The temps "" or associates as they are called "" stay on the rolls of the placement company. The placement company takes its cut of anywhere between 10 per cent and 20 per cent and pays its associate.

Balaji reckons that about 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the temps on its rolls are senior-level executives. Others are a mix of middle-level executives and even some youngsters with very limited experience.

Inevitably, executives often get poached by the company they are temping with. The placement companies reckon that happens to about 10 per cent to 15 per cent of their temps.

There can, of course, be a downside to temping "" as R Mahesh, a Secunderabad-based senior-level IT programmer quickly discovered. Mahesh was given a six-month contract with a Hyderabad-based IT firm but found after some time that he was ostracised by the permanent employees.

Mahesh decided that he would search out a new placement firm. "Nobody spoke with me there, as I was the only temp worker."

Will temping spread in a big way to old economy businesses? That could take time, says Y V Verma, Vice President, HR, LG India. "Old economy businesses take time to adjust. It's difficult to understand their culture and systems. So effectively, delivery takes a back seat."

In the old days, executives joined a company and stayed with it for life. That's a world away from the evolving scenario where nothing is forever and a temp can look forward to a new job every other month.