There are a number of reasons why a temp is required in an office, and usually this is because of a shortage of permanent staff created by sick leave or holiday periods. This temporarily member of staff isn’t thought to be just there to pick up the shortfall however, often regular office members think temps are there so that the permanent staff get to offload some responsibility that the sick or vacationing member of staff wouldn’t even be doing! There’s also an office tradition that once the temp has left, anything that goes wrong for the 2-3 weeks immediately afterwards is blamed on something they did. Next time your office hires a temp, think about the following before assigning them responsibility for something they didn’t do, or did do but not in the right way!
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1. Not enough office supplies ordered
Unless the temp was given a previous list from which to create a new order, how on earth are they supposed to know how many paper clips and envelopes your office uses? Did you mention that you only order the recycled cups for the vending machine? If you want the temp to do the supplies order, make sure that someone else provides the information – or alternatively, if it can’t wait until the person who usually does it comes back, or it couldn’t be done before they leave, assign that task to someone else in the office who has more idea about what needs to be ordered.
2. The filing isn’t done
Unless they are there to file, the temp probably won’t file. Would you file stuff if you didn’t have to? It’s not as if they will need to find any of these papers again. They don’t care if later down the line its going to turn into one of the many office treasure hunts to find the contact that will save someones bacon. Be honest, you wouldn’t care about filing papers either if you didn’t think that at some time in the future you might be required to put your hands on them again. Temps have enough to do remembering who takes milk with their coffee, whose name comes first in the business when they answer the phone and where the bathroom is, they don’t need to be filing stuff that the regular member of staff can do when they return!
3. Phone calls get transferred to the wrong people
It’s easy done, especially in a large office environment. If there are 3 Johns, 2 Susans, 4 Mr Smiths, and any number of people who could be the “person responsible for advertising”, it’s to be expected that a temp on reception is going to transfer calls to the wrong people from time to time. Either make sure that the temp gets a more detailed telephone list than permanent staff have, or create a cheat-sheet so that they know where to transfer callers who don’t ask for a specific person.
4. They aren’t the person who’s work they’re covering
You’d think that was self-evident wouldn’t you? It should be like having an entirely new member of staff who everyone in the office wants to be friends with and helps them out by giving on-the-ground information about how the office runs etc. Unfortunately there’s a general misconception that a temporary employee is a clone of the person whose workplace they’re sitting at, and they know all of the information that member of staff knows without being told. A temp is not clairvoyant. A temp is not a member of the BACD. A temp is a stranger who needs their hand held almost as much as a new member of staff – almost being because they don’t need to know stuff like who’s in line for promotion or other office politics and gossip. Treat a temp with the respect and care you’d treat a new permanent member of staff. Remember there’s always a possibility that a position will come vacant, the temp will become permanent and they will hold a grudge against those of you who walked away leaving them with an unfamiliar paper jammed photocopier to fix!
5. Not watering plants and washing used coffee cups
There can be very few office jobs where these tasks are part of the job description. If the permanent member of staff that the temp is covering for usually does these things, don’t naturally expect that the temp will do them. Use the opportunity of having to do these things yourself as a chance to be more appreciative of the member of staff who usually makes sure that such seemingly trivial things get done without making an issue about it.
A temp may not be experienced in how your particular office equipment works, or understand the various office systems in place without being shown – but they are used to being at a new workplace and with a bit of induction training can usually adapt quickly to the new environment. If they don’t, don’t blame the temp – they’re just doing the best they can with what they’ve got, and usually, it’s nowhere near what they need!