Center for Social Policy Reports Alternative Staffing Services Help Workers Overcome Barriers

By Brian Sokol

Finding a job is difficult for everyone, but millions of job seekers face extra barriers such as physical disabilities, homelessness, or recent incarceration. A national study released by UMass Boston's Center for Social Policy (CSP) sheds new light on alternative staffing services, an innovative model that helps workers overcome barriers and find quality jobs with minimal public support.

A team led by CSP research director Françoise Carré found that alternative staffing services successfully use the temporary staffing business formula to place thousands of job seekers who face barriers and to keep them employed, according to the National Study of Alternative Staffing Services, which was funded by the Ford Foundation. The research team also included: Joaquín Herranz, Dorie Seavey, Carlha Vickers, Ashley Aull, and Rebecca Keegan.

"To employers, alternative staffing services look like conventional staffing services with especially good customer service," said Carré. "To job seekers, alternative staffing services provide an extra level of support that cannot be found in most staffing services and even in most nonprofit job-search programs."

As a service-intensive option to conventional staffing services, as well as federally backed One-Stop Career Centers, alternative staffing services continue to support workers and follow up with their employers during assignments, according to the report "Alternative Job Brokering: Addressing Labor Market Disadvantages, Improving the Temp Experience, and Enhancing Job Opportunities." The report was released October 28 at a forum attended by leading human services and workforce development officials at the downtown offices of the president of the University of Massachusetts system.

Serving dual bottom lines-- fulfilling both financial and social responsibilities--can translate into fiscal stability for these non-profit enterprises, which operate in major cities throughout the U.S. The study located and interviewed 27 staffing agencies across the country in 2002. Seven of them had gross revenues of over $1 million in 2001; two had revenues of over $5 million.

According to one worker Carré and researchers interviewed for the study, "Here you fill out an application, go to the job, then they support you and deal with your issues to keep you on the job."

Alternative staffing services is still an emerging sector, but there is a significant potential for growth, Carré said. Millions of people face barriers to work and can benefit from alternative staffing services.

The staffing centers fulfill the goals of a number of social service providers, as well as federal officials. The Federal Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) was designed "to consolidate, coordinate, and improve employment, training, literacy, and vocational rehabilitation programs in the United States, and for other purposes."

WIA puts great emphasis on job placement and on developing intermediary organizations to help workers enter or reenter the job market and also to retain jobs.

"So far, alternative staffing services are among the very few organizations that have met the challenge," said Carré. "They have developed a track record of finding job assignments, preparing and monitoring workers, and regularly satisfying employers with their service."

Image: Françoise Carré, research director for the Center for Social Policy, and her colleagues, Joaquín Herranz, Dorie Seavey, Carlha Vickers, Ashley Aull, and Rebecca Keegan, released a national study that sheds light on alternative staffing services. (Photo by Harry Brett)

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