Managing the Agency Relationship

Agency performance is discussed weekly and almost always in terms of whether the numbers were filled.

The measures that conflict

Theirs: fill rate, time to supply, and margin.

Yours: people who stay, who reach standard, and who do not injure themselves.

Which means a supplier can perform perfectly by their measure while your induction runs continuously and nothing ever reaches standard.

Nobody is behaving badly. The contract measures the wrong thing.

What to put in the agreement

Survival measures alongside fill rate: proportion of supplied workers who complete a week, a month, ninety days.

Reported monthly, by them, with your figures as the check.

The same person sent repeatedly where the work is ongoing, which is the single biggest determinant of whether agency labour works.

Your induction completed before first shift.

Advert copy approved by you.

A named contact reachable at six in the morning.

And a conversion route with the fee agreed at the start, rather than negotiated when you try to use it.

The continuity clause

Worth its own attention because it changes everything else.

An operation receiving twenty different people every week can never train anybody, never reaches standard and inducts continuously.

One receiving the same twenty develops a workforce that happens to be employed elsewhere.

Suppliers resist it because it constrains their own flexibility, and it is negotiable, particularly where you offer commitment on volume in return.

The rate conversation

What you pay and what the worker receives are different, and the difference is the supplier's business.

It becomes yours when people on your floor compare rates, which they do, accurately and quickly.

Know the worker rate. You will be asked, and "I don't know what our supplier pays you" is a poor answer from the person whose warehouse it is.

And know the equal-treatment position in your jurisdiction, which after a qualifying period is frequently a legal requirement rather than a courtesy.

Reviews that are worth holding

Monthly, on survival figures and induction completion rather than on fill.

With the same figures both parties can see, which requires you to share your data and is worth doing.

And a quarterly conversation about what is making people leave, which the supplier frequently knows and is rarely asked.

Their account managers hear the exit reasons before you do.

More than one supplier

One supplier is simpler and gives you nothing to compare against.

Two or three creates competition on the measures you publish, which is the point.

And protects against a supplier failing at peak, which happens and which is unrecoverable if you have no alternative.

The administrative cost is real and on any site of size is worth paying.

When to end it

Persistent supply of people who do not complete a week.

Refusal to report survival figures.

Workers arriving without your induction, repeatedly.

And rate disputes reaching your floor, which is the sign that the commercial arrangement has become your problem.

Have an exit route in the contract and a second supplier already working, or the threat is not credible.

The measure

Survival of supplied workers at a week, a month and ninety days.

Repeat rate: the same individuals returning.

Induction completion before first shift.

Conversions made.

And the gap between your figures and theirs, which if large means one of you is counting something else and that is worth resolving before it matters.

The review that is worth holding

Monthly, forty minutes, on survival and induction completion.

With your figures and theirs side by side.

And one action each, which is what distinguishes a review from a report.

What they know that you do not

Agency account managers hear exit reasons before you do, because people tell their agency why they are not going back.

Ask them quarterly. It is the cheapest source of cause data available and almost nobody requests it.

How it fails in practice

Reviews are held on fill rate, the supplier performs well by that measure, and your induction runs continuously because twenty different people arrive each week..

The check

Ask the supplier for the proportion of people they supplied who completed a week.

If they cannot produce it, they are not measuring the thing you need.