More than half of staffing agencies offer some training to temporary workers, according to Staffing Industry Analysts’ new report, North America Staffing Company Survey 2018: Training Options Offered to Temporary Workers. Free online training, the most common method provided, is offered by 40% of staffing firms.

“In this time of skilled labor shortage, some staffing firms are going the extra mile and training their own talent. It’s generally not a full training program, but more ‘last-mile training,’ sometimes tailored to buyers’ needs. In any case, it adds real value to under-skilled workers and staffing firms are finding cost-effective ways to do it,” said Jon Osborne, VP, Strategic Research at SIA.

Commercial staffing firms report more training options for temporary workers than professional staffing firms, and large staffing firms report more training options than smaller firms.

Among commercial firms, safety/US Occupational Safety & Health Administration training is the most common type of training offered, followed by IT/software training. Among professional staffing firms, IT ranked as the most common types of training offered, followed by medical skills.

Thirteen percent of firms surveyed use paid vendors to actively train, test and/or certify workers and 12% use on-staff trainers. Thirteen percent of firms also gave some workers a full day of organized paid training or more, and 5% gave workers a full week or more of organized paid training.

A separate SIA survey found that training is the weakest area with respect to workers’ satisfaction with their staffing firm experience. The North America Temporary Worker Survey 2018 found only 19% strongly agreed with the statement, “This staffing agency provides quality training programs.” The report noted while it is likely that some temporary workers benefit from and appreciate training, it is perhaps less expected. However, 8% of the nearly 4,000 temporary workers surveyed from 37 staffing firms cited “lack of training, (I was) just thrown into it,” as the reason they quit assignments early.

The 2018 Staffing Company Survey was conducted in the summer of 2018. Results reported for North America reflect the opinions of 439 staffing firms.