Remember when “The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts” came out in 2015? Everyone was talking about it. You couldn’t have a chat with friends or gather around the watercooler at work without someone asking if you were an “acts of service” or “words of affirmation” person. But communication and speaking the same language aren’t just key in romantic relationships – they’re vitally important in business relationships, too. Having a staffing partner that understands you, your work and your organizational culture, and uses the same language, is key to a successful staffing relationship.
What Staffing Agencies Need to Know: The Nuts and Bolts of Your Business
It’s so important that your staffing partner understand what your jobs entail. Does a position include working in sub-freezing temperatures with regular heavy lifting? Or are you hiring a marketing person who needs experience in WordPress and the Adobe Creative Suite? No one (the client, the employee or the staffing company) is going to be happy if a welder shows up to an executive assistant assignment, or vice versa.
It may seem basic, but ensuring that your staffing partner understands what you do, and can speak eloquently about it, is going to be key to establishing a long-term partnership. This holds true for any industry and job type, from manufacturing to HR to executive roles.
Beyond Job Duties: Understanding Company Culture
It’s not just the nuts and bolts that a great staffing agency needs to be familiar with; the really good ones will delve even deeper. In order to understand the best person for your jobs, they need to understand your organization’s culture and what makes your organization tick.
Every company is unique. An A+ staffing agency will take the time to find out who you are and why your company is the way it is, and speak the language that you speak. That will ensure that you get the best candidates that are not only a skills fit, but also a cultural fit.
Where DPI Staffing Comes In: Light Industrial and Administrative Specialties
So what languages does DPI Staffing speak? We’ve developed expertise in light industrial and administrative staffing.
Light Industrial
Light industrial positions include everything from general labor to forklift drivers to shipping and receiving clerks to quality assurance to distribution staff. Work may be performed in the creation of a variety of products, from consumer products to food, and is often done in a manufacturing or distribution environment, or an outdoor worksite.
DPI Staffing’s specialty in light industrial work goes back to our founding. Our parent organization The DPI Group has operated a variety of manufacturing subsidiaries over its more than 50-year history that DPI Staffing has provided staffing for. That includes a large food and consumer goods packaging facility that produced food from raw ingredients in one of the most regulated industries in the world: infant formula. DPI today continues to operate a tactical tool assembly business called Fort Rock Tactical – check out these awesome knives! We’ve also staffed for a wide variety of commercial light industrial businesses around the nation, from family businesses to multinational companies.
Our extensive experience means we’re intimately familiar with the needs and challenges of staffing for a manufacturing business. We have staffed for International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certified facilities, so we understand the rigorous requirements of working in a facility with highly regulated warehouses and cleanrooms. We’ve also staffed for food production facilities with a variety of certifications, like organic, non-GMO, dairy free and gluten free. We have experience working with clients that use various MRP (Material Requirements Planning) software and operate QC (quality control) and QA (quality assurance) programs.
And for production of food, drugs, medical devices and cosmetics, we’re familiar with GMPs (Good Manufacturing Practices), and working in a wide variety of environments (hot, cold, freezer, wet, etc.).
Administrative
Administrative support is vital to the functioning of so many organizations. From administrative assistants to office managers to receptionists to data entry specialists, workplaces just can’t function without amazing administrative workers. They’re vital to not only commercial businesses, but also to the government sector, another of DPI Staffing’s specialties.
We get what makes admins, and the organizations they work for, tick. We’re well-versed in the requirements of administrative positions; for instance, many of our clients require employees with expertise in software like the Microsoft Office Suite (Outlook, Excel, Word, Teams, PowerPoint, etc.) or Google Workspace. And we can administer tests of typing speed if our clients require a certain number of words per minute (WPM) or accuracy. DPI used to operate a training program for those wanting to pursue a career in administrative positions, so we really know our stuff.
Depending on the role, some admins might also need more specialized software, such as accounting programs like QuickBooks if supporting an accounting department, or an MRP if working in a warehouse.
Cultural fit is also a big deal for administrative positions. We ask open-ended questions in interviews that ensure that candidates have not only the hard skills, but the soft skills to thrive in a position. Many of our clients hire admins on a temp-to-perm basis, and we absolutely love when our associates land a permanent position.
The Takeaway: Make Sure Your Staffing Partner Speaks Your Language
We hope this post gave you a few things to think about. Does it seem like you and your staffing partner are speaking different languages? If it does, it might be time to reconsider the relationship and how another firm may better serve you.
