What will I be doing?

One of the best ways of developing skills for your home business is to hire yourself out as a temporary worker in your chosen field. You will quickly get on-the-job training without the obligations of a long-term job. You may also meet some of your prospective customers.

You may also decide to operate your own home-based temporary help agency. Such a service finds temporary laborers, office workers, salespeople and even professionals for business, industry and individuals. In many areas, temporary help agencies specialize in domestic, day-labor, crafts, office or other workers.

What will I need to start?

There are nearly 18,000 temporary help agencies in the U.S. Com-
petition for quantity is high, but competition for quality is never very high—so offer quality service.

To start your temporary help service you will, obviously, need some temporary help. You will need to match jobs with qualified workers. In most cases, you’ll gather workers through your advertisements and jobs through ads and outbound calls to employers. So you’ll need a telephone and a card file or computer system to track all your resources.

Who will my customers be?

Your customers will be retail businesses, manufacturers, service businesses, individuals who have a job to be done but don’t want to hire a full-time person to do it. To minimize bookkeeping, the employers prefer to pay a fee to a temporary help service who will find qualified workers, make sure they are at the job and take care of pay and taxes

Who hires temporary help? Offices need a replacement for a vacationing secretary. A warehouse needs workers to help unload a big shipment coming in tomorrow morning. A homeowner needs a temporary domestic helper for the holidays.

How much should I charge?

Temporary help services usually hire the employees directly as needed, paying taxes and sometimes benefits, collecting a higher fee from the employer. For example, a laborer may be hired by the service for $8 an hour to unload trucks for a couple of days. The agency may get $16 an hour for the laborer’s time, passing on half of it to the laborer and keeping the rest. After expenses, the agency may get a quarter of the fee or about $4 an hour. To make money, the agency must have many workers out on jobs at any given time.

How much will I make?

You can make a little or a lot, depending on how efficient you are at finding and matching jobs and workers. You can work late afternoons finding jobs and evenings finding workers for those jobs. A standard workday can give you a weekly income of $1,000 or more. Or not. If not, look for jobs or workers that are easier to find and coordinate.

Your overhead costs, excluding payroll and taxes, will range from 25 to 50 percent of your portion of the pay. If you have five workers out at $12 an hour each and you pay them $6 an hour each, you’re making $30 an hour. Your overhead will take up a quarter to a half of your portion after taxes are paid.

How can I get started?

Many temporary help services are started by those who have experience as temporary workers. They know how the local market works, who needs temps and where to find them. They also know the importance of good service. If you don’t have experience as a temp, become one for a while to learn the business from the other side.

Once you’re ready to go into business for yourself, select a field of labor, contact temp employers and start lining up temporary employees. Develop business cards and fliers to help you promote your business.

For more information contact the National Association of Temporary Services (703-549-6287).

The SIC code for temporary help agencies is 7363-04.

How can I use computers to increase profits?

Temp services must keep accurate and up-to-date records of employers and employees, jobs, taxes, expenses, and many other facts. That’s where computers shine. They are math machines that follow instructions from software and users. Database software can manage many of these tasks, with files for temps, potential employers, and related data. Checking software can help track income and expenses. Payroll software can help take care of that headache.