Paying Fringe Benefits to Temps Is Trend : Employment: Many of the better workers were laid off from companies that paid them benefits.

A trend by temporary employment agencies to provide benefits to the workers they place with companies is growing because many of the most desirable temps were laid off from companies where they received full-time benefits.

For job seekers with office, computer and administrative skills that are in high demand, it pays to shop around for the best benefits from temp agencies, an informal poll of agencies suggests.

“We’re starting to have a recruiting problem, finding employees with office technology skills our clients require,” says Bruce Steinberg, spokesman for the National Assn. of Temporary Services of Alexandria, Va.

To sweeten the pot and lure the best workers to a particular agency, benefits are often the incentive.

Though many temp outfits offer medical insurance, the amount they pay in can fluctuate greatly. Differences also pop up with respect to vacation pay, 401(k) retirement savings plans and bonuses.

Companies using the services of the $30-billion temporary industry, he adds, favor temp workers with benefits because “they don’t want the temporaries to feel like second-class citizens” when working alongside employees who are covered.

“A number of our client employers request that we offer the same paid holidays to our temporaries as they provide to their permanent employees,” says Robert Funk, president and chairman of Express Personnel Services, an Oklahoma City-based firm with 200 franchised agencies hiring 150,000 temps.

Pressure also is coming from the temps themselves, adds Kitty Sorell of New York City, a consultant to temp agencies.

“The old saw was that temps don’t ask for benefits. But so many people have been laid off, they are looking (for them) now,” Sorell says.

Given the high unemployment levels in Southern California, the trend toward offering insurance and other benefits still has room to grow.

Gene Wilson, president of Thomas Temporaries, said his agency gives temporary workers the option of purchasing low-cost health insurance. But he said luring workers for his Irvine-based company has not been difficult.

“I think the employment climate in California is still very different than the rest of the country. Our market is still very soft,” Wilson said. “To say across the board that recruiting is a problem is difficult to say. I have to say that I don’t believe that benefits are the most important thing in recruiting. There are many other factors.”

Most of NATS’ 1,100 members offer their temporary workers medical coverage, Steinberg says, but it is by no means uniform. Often, employees must be practically full-time, meaning going out to jobs every day, to qualify for medical coverage, but the agencies involved make only small contributions.

“Keep in mind,” says Funk, “that temporary employees work on average four weeks before they move on. Currently, very few company-sponsored health insurance plans would even cover someone for this length of time.”

However, his franchises do offer both short- and long-term plans, with coverage starting immediately and paid entirely by employees unless the agency decides to help pay the premium.

Milwaukee-based Manpower, the nation’s largest temporary work firm which runs 950 agencies with 640,000 temps, offers medical benefits the day a temp starts. However, it kicks in 50% of the premium only after a temp works 400 hours over a four-month period.

Olsten Staffing Services, of Westbury, N.Y., which operates 320 offices, will allow its 375,000 temps to get on its medical plan when they start work. But employees must pay it all themselves. The same holds true for TOPS, a small San Diego-based agency with 700 temporary workers.

TeleSec Staffing Services, of Kensington, Md., will pay half of a temp’s medical premium if the worker puts in 32 hours a week in a month and only after accruing 200 hours.

“Actually, only a very small percentage take advantage of it,” says Stacey Matthews, director of public relations.

The temp firms surveyed, representing more than 1.2 million employees, all said they offer vacation pay. But the length of time a temp has to work for one week’s pay varies greatly.

TeleSec says it gives one week’s vacation pay after a temp works 1,000 hours.

The six firms operating under the umbrella of Career Horizons, a 91-office outfit with 70,500 temps based in Woodbury, N.Y., require temps to put in 1,475 hours during the calendar year to get a week’s vacation pay.

Its divisions are TempForce, of Woodbury; Temporaries Inc., in major Texas cities; POPI, of Greensboro and Winston-Salem, N.C.; Potomac Personnel, of northern Virginia; Flexi-Force, of Milwaukee; and Tempo of New York City.

Temps both at Manpower and Olsten must put in 1,500 hours to earn a week’s vacation pay, and TOPS requires its hires to put in 1,800 hours. At Manpower, temps who put in 1,800 hours in their second year get two weeks’ paid vacation.

ESP franchises may require employees to put in 2,000 to 2,500 hours to get a week’s vacation.

Pension plans are important as well. While Olsten, ESP and TeleSec do not offer 401(k) plans, Manpower, Career Horizons and TOPS do. Career Horizons allows an employee after 1,000 hours to save up to 10% of pay on a tax-deferred basis. Moreover, it will match 50 cents on every dollar saved up to 5% of a temp salary, according to Theo Mavros, communications manager.

A number of the firms polled will pay bonuses to temps for completing extended assignments and, in the case of Manpower, for winning the praise of clients, provided the temps accrue 400 hours a year. TeleSec gives an annual bonus to employees starting at 600 hours of $50, and $15 for each additional 100 hours worked.

Olsten says it also offers day care benefits and employee-of-the-month certificates.

One bonus all the agencies polled pay out is, of course, to the temporary who recruits another temp.