the Cost of Temporary Administrative Employees

We hired a temporary employee to work at our Receptionist desk for 3 months while our regular receptionist was on maternity leave. The temporary receptionist was expected to not only answer the phones and greet customers but also a variety of other administrative tasks such as opening and sorting mail, maintaining the company calendar and typing correspondence for legal counsel.

The employee we had was wonderful. She was professional and friendly with our clients, customers and staff. She was willing to go above and beyond to help in any way she could. I had heard horror stories from folks in other departments of temporary employees who had been lazy and unmotivated to try very hard in a job that was short by design. For this reason I elected to pay a bit extra to make sure that we had someone with extensive experience and that they were financially motivated to work to their ability. When the assignment ended we did attempt to find the temporary employee a full time job within the company - that's how impressed we were! Unfortunately there was nothing available that was a match.

You get what you pay for. Don't just think of cost per hour but rather also consider the value you are getting for your dollar.