Day labor hiring? (come mister tally man, tally me bananas)
July 5, 2011 11:03 AM Subscribe
What is the experience like to hire from day labor agencies like Labor Ready / Labor Finders / Command Staffing / etc?
How "good" are the people you're sent?
How well does the process work? Love it or hate it?
How much do the agencies pay the workers compared with how much you pay the agency?
I'm trying to understand the industry better - would love to hear from folks who have hired before from a day labor center / staffing agency.
How "good" are the people you're sent?
How well does the process work? Love it or hate it?
How much do the agencies pay the workers compared with how much you pay the agency?
I'm trying to understand the industry better - would love to hear from folks who have hired before from a day labor center / staffing agency.
This is not exactly the scenario you describe, but back in the late 1990s my company utilized a program offered by the State of Michigan - day laborers available from their roster of folks currently receiving unemployment. (The pay these folks received didn't count against their UE insurance; the ultimate goal was to present their skills/work ethic to potential employers.) The only provisos were that you had to pay them for at least four hours' work at a minimum of $10.00 per hour, which was almost double the minimum wage at that time. The small company I worked for used this service a couple of times, mainly for heavy labor - moving office furniture/equipment out or around or loading it onto trucks for moving. In each case the two men that were sent over were very diligent workers and got everything done in about three hours (each time my boss had figured it would be an all-day job, so he gave them each $75 for their efforts). Our three experiences were very positive - the workers showed up on time and basically constantly came back and asked "What next?" after every trip downstairs/outside moving a huge piece of office furniture. We had no complaints at all, and my boss even took the time to write letters of recommendation for each of those workers after the fact.
Again, this was through the state, not a private agency, and you may want to investigate and see if your state has any sort of similar program where any and all money paid goes to the laborers.
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:56 PM on July 5, 2011
Again, this was through the state, not a private agency, and you may want to investigate and see if your state has any sort of similar program where any and all money paid goes to the laborers.
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:56 PM on July 5, 2011
Best answer: I work for a construction company and we frequently hire day laborers for miscellaneous work like general jobsite cleanup, moving stuff around, floor protection, etc. We have used Labor Ready, Pacesetter, MDT and others.
The quality of the workers varies quite a bit. The labor companies know who is a good worker and who isn't and they go out in that order. Right now, for the most part, you aren't dealing with the real bottom of the barrel because those guys just don't go out. Ten years ago unless you developed a relationship with the temp company, you could assume that if you weren't watching them they weren't doing anything. That said, some fairly good people are in and out of the day labor pool, despite the fact that we used to regularly call them "Rent-a-drunks."
Right now we are paying $11.60/hr for general labor, but this is Florida and wages are regional. Fla wages tend to be low. I assume the laborers are getting minimum wage.
If you find someone who works well you can request him again. Unless you're using him every day, you might not get him back. If he's a really good worker you probably won't.
You can (and should) specify what kind of equipment they show up with, i.e. hardhat, gloves, hard shoes, shovel, rake, etc.
Which staffing company gets used is a function of 1) price and 2) how freely they hand out game tickets to the superintendent. They tend to hand out more freebies than anyone else: coffee cups, pens, notepads, business card holders. They used to hand out nudie calendars but I haven't seen that for probably 20 years or more. They tend to hire attractive women with extraordinary boob jobs to stomp through the mud to job trailers to hand them out.
posted by lordrunningclam at 1:05 PM on July 5, 2011
The quality of the workers varies quite a bit. The labor companies know who is a good worker and who isn't and they go out in that order. Right now, for the most part, you aren't dealing with the real bottom of the barrel because those guys just don't go out. Ten years ago unless you developed a relationship with the temp company, you could assume that if you weren't watching them they weren't doing anything. That said, some fairly good people are in and out of the day labor pool, despite the fact that we used to regularly call them "Rent-a-drunks."
Right now we are paying $11.60/hr for general labor, but this is Florida and wages are regional. Fla wages tend to be low. I assume the laborers are getting minimum wage.
If you find someone who works well you can request him again. Unless you're using him every day, you might not get him back. If he's a really good worker you probably won't.
You can (and should) specify what kind of equipment they show up with, i.e. hardhat, gloves, hard shoes, shovel, rake, etc.
Which staffing company gets used is a function of 1) price and 2) how freely they hand out game tickets to the superintendent. They tend to hand out more freebies than anyone else: coffee cups, pens, notepads, business card holders. They used to hand out nudie calendars but I haven't seen that for probably 20 years or more. They tend to hire attractive women with extraordinary boob jobs to stomp through the mud to job trailers to hand them out.
posted by lordrunningclam at 1:05 PM on July 5, 2011
« Older Integrated Library System for Designers | Muscle-building exercise that's easy on the heart? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
The first day, the two guys they sent were pretty good; one guy actually had some work-skills that I was looking for hiring at my day job. He had a resume with, and we did a short interview.
That guy apparently took his first-day's paycheck and got sloppy drunk that night. He showed up for work the next morning still quite drunk. I sent him away, and called up Command Staffing -- they had a new guy at our door within a half hour, and he did a good job too.
Other than that, all three guys followed directions, worked hard, and I had no complaints at all about the other two guys. They all had hard-luck stories that explained why they didn't or couldn't hold a steady job, so in the long-term they might not have done well, but they were both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when they were working for me.
I'd say overall Command Staffing as a company was a good experience: responsive, available, and while very, very expensive I guess that's about what I could expect calling up on Monday and expecting two workers to show up Tuesday morning. And, I have no proof this is true, but the Command Staffing guy I talked to when I got the replacement said that the guy who showed up drunk would be removed from their 'call' list -- essentially fired. I kinda feel bad, he was a nice guy, but that was unacceptable behavior.
What I understand is that they pay the employee half of what I paid the service -- I paid $20/hr for each the workers, and each of them got $10/hr. I think it cost me $700 for two employees for two days. As for the process: I did everything over the phone, maybe there was a fax too (I can't remember exactly), and it was all done the day before I needed the guys. I had to put a credit card on file, and when the guys turned in their timecards my credit card got charged. It seems like it took a while for the payment to actually go through, like a week or two -- they may do their payment cycle only on certain days of the week or something. On the first day, they also called me to make sure the guys showed up and everything was going fine.
I've worked as a temp for a while, and at my dayjob we've used temp agencies before, and overall my experience with Command Staffing didn't seem remarkably different. Command was definitely more expensive than, say, Spherion, because they take a much larger cut. Command's setup process was also much more streamlined than Spherion, too. And I'd be lying if I haven't had an employee show up drunk for work before. I don't know that I'd use Command for long-term staffing needs, but if I had the money I'd go to them again if I need somebody for a couple days of unskilled labor.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:01 PM on July 5, 2011