About a quarter of temporary workers barely look at their staffing firm’s website or app, and many more are just slightly aware of the features such as viewing payroll information or available jobs, according to a recent report released by Staffing Industry Analysts. Only 20% said such tools have been a huge help, despite staffing firm investments in these technologies.

However, website demonstrations markedly increase temp usage. Those who had been walked through the features of their staffing firm’s websites and apps were both far more aware of the features and much more likely to make use of them. Only 40% of temporary workers reported their firm had given them such a demo.

“Website demos look like a best practice to me,” said the author of the report, Jon Osborne, VP strategic research. “The more temps self-serve through a staffing firm’s technology, the less help they need from internal staff. If you’re going to invest in technology, it makes sense to go the extra mile and spend some time making sure your target users know what is available to them.”

The survey asked temp workers, “Of those features that your staffing firm’s website or app does not offer, which two do you most want?” The ability to “rate client” garnered the most responses; however, this is also the feature respondents said was least frequently offered to them. The top-five selected features that are desired but not currently offered are:

1. Rate client: 23%
2. View available jobs: 22%
3. Be pre-qualified and select and confirm specific assignments or shifts at will: 18%
4. Apply for available jobs: 17%
5. Indicate desired job type and be automatically accepted for temporary assignments: 15%

In an open-ended question, temporary workers most commonly suggested these four improvements in websites and apps: add more capability, improve the technology, organize the website/app better, and demonstrate the website/app.

The 2018 Temporary Worker Survey was implemented in conjunction with Staffing Industry Analysts’ “Best Staffing Companies to Work For” competition. The survey was conducted in late 2017 and reflects the opinions of 3,975 temporary worker respondents from 37 staffing firms; no single firm accounted for more than 13% of respondents.