What else can go wrong with manpower agencies?

by Rey Elbo, BusinessWorld, October 14, 2016

We’re now reviewing our contract with several service providers, including cooperatives that are providing us with temporary workers and outsourcing services. Can you help us identify important danger signals that would put us in a precarious situation should we pursue our relationship with such providers? — Doubting Daisy.

A woman at a grocery store was trying to buy an ice cream. Another woman came up behind her and grabbed hold of her hand. “Get away from it. You don’t need it. You’re already fat, ugly, and overweight!”

The startled woman turned around to face her critic. The woman who had approached her realized she had committed a grave mistake for confusing the woman with a friend. She apologized profusely. The woman gained her composure and responded to her critical assailant with these words: “You mean you have a friend?!!”

By the same token, I will ask you the same thing — you mean, you still have a contract with manpower agencies and cooperatives, given all the noises against it by the new administration? You need to think twice. I’ve been hearing a lot from my friends from the business community. The situation appears serious, and I’ve heard of at least two manpower agencies that are selling their business.

Not only that, labor inspectors have become very active in visiting companies these days, not only to answer the anonymous tips of disgruntled employees but to proactively correct the abuses of employers who are circumventing the law against job security.

Because of this new development, many organizations are now regularizing the employment status of some temps, if not rescinding their contracts with manpower agencies and cooperatives.

Surely, there are many advantages in hiring temps to include meeting seasonal production demand like this coming holiday season.

The trouble is that many employers have perpetuated such practices even out of season to avoid hiring regular workers with the help of equally unscrupulous labor-only contractors. The question is — would hiring temps give more benefits to principal-employers when compared to several disadvantages of spending for perpetual training sessions, morale issues, reliability, health and safety concerns, labor unproductivity, and of course legal issues?

Now, to answer your question — what are the red flags to consider when revisiting a contract with manpower service providers? I trust that you’ve already reviewed the labor department’s D.O. 18-A which is self-explanatory. And since I’m not a lawyer, I will not dwell on that. Rather, I will give you some thoughts on how to unmask unprofessional temp providers:

First, they’re not capable of doing a strategic hiring process. In many cases, service providers will simply dump hundreds of applicants’ CVs on your desk even without the benefit of testing, reviewing their documents, and interviewing people. And worse, the applicants’ profiles are manufactured to ensure that they pass the client’s standards.

Second, they don’t have any performance appraisal system. Many service providers think such system is unnecessary as they rely much on the decision of their clients who has the ultimate say to replace erring temps, even for a minor offense. The trouble is that most temps are dismissed without due process, sometimes not knowing what hit them.

Third, they don’t have a sensible employee code of conduct. At times, some manufactured “management policies” that are copied hook, line, and sinker from elsewhere are presented to their prospects or clients to put up a semblance of regularity. To discover falsity, you only have to ask for proof of implementation. And you’d be surprised by the result.

Last, the temps’ uniforms and personal protective equipment are salary deducted. This alone is one critical manifestation that your service provider is a labor-contractor who doesn’t have enough capital, even if they comply on paper with what D.O. 18-A requires.

This list is not complete. Many manpower agencies don’t operate like real organizations that have the capacity (or even the intention) to empower, energize, and engage employees, much more to have the interest about their job security. Many of them are labor-only contractors in real life who knows how to take advantage of the weakness of the law, and the lax implementation of the labor department.

Of course, this happens because there are unscrupulous employers as well.

ELBONOMICS: Your militant trade union official was once a temporary worker.