Running out of time? Then imagine what it's like being Sanjeev Srivastava. An MBA from a famous B-school, he didn't think he'd be on a summer job so long after summer (and graduation). Yet, that's what his job is-a temporary one. "I'm making the best of the situation," he shrugs. As a 'temp', he gets paid nothing like an MBA ought to, but in these scroungy times, a job with an expiry date sure beats being jobless.

That's what he'd have been if it weren't for a staffing services company which placed him at the internet division of Hughes Software Systems (HSS)-which employs only as many people as the moment's workload requires, rather than get saddled with a fat salary bill that can't be sustained if business slumps. "Temps fill up short-term needs in non-core business areas at short notice," says Aadesh Goyal, Vice President (HR), HSS, flatly.

The broad reasoning: if efficiency is the route to profit maximisation, then costs are best kept variable, dependent on output, to the extent possible. It's a good way to "address fluctuations in business cycles", in the words of D. Rajiv Krishnan, gm (Staffing Solutions), Ma Foi, an hr outsourcing firm.

THE TEMPING LOWDOWN

» Flexible salary bill » No long-term burden » Quick adaptation » Young willing temps » Lack of commitment » Loss of confidentiality » Low work passion » No intellectual leverage

The Work

Flexibility. That's the wonder word for just-in-time staffing (or 'temping'), an idea that has recently made its debut in India. This, don't forget, is a largely conservative country that still sees a job as something of a lifelong commitment. Can temping work in India?

Silly question. Temping is working already. Ask 24-year-old Keerti Mitra. "I love working as a temp," she says in all earnestness. Why? She is glad to have gained three-and-a-half years of experience with McKinsey, where she worked as the personal assistant to the head of knowledge centre. Now, thanks to a temping service agency, she's working with an infotech multinational. The goal, from her perspective, is to get a paycheck in hand, not vague promises of a career path and permanent security.

India already has some 100,000 temps at work, with the figure rising 50 per cent annually, by the estimates of Ajit Isaac, CEO, PeopleOne Consulting, a staffing services firm. Ford India, Titan Industries, RPG Group and United Healthcare's Indian entity Aspire Global are just some of the companies that are willing to go public with their temping policies. It's a market phenomenon, after all, and nothing to be ashamed of. "Entrepreneurs and organisations would like to retain flexibility in operation as much as they can," says Isaac, "especially in the light of recent developments, where demand-supply equations for products and services can be significantly altered in 30-60 days."

Kelly Services and Manpower, global firms both, have also set up shop in India, expecting the market to follow the US, where some 4 per cent of the entire workforce is estimated to be temporary. "It works abroad," says Poornima Das, Managing Director, Kelly Services, "since a 65-year-old lady can temp as a librarian, for instance, and still not raise eyebrows." By contrast, the industry here remains shadowy and unstructured. "But," says Isaac, "this is bound to see some consolidation." Once that happens and temp service firms grow big, corporates will start adopting the idea like nobody's business. Or so goes the hope.

Project-driven industries, such as it software and construction, are early adopters of the idea. Some of them are using temps even at somewhat higher levels. Recently, an it company in Hyderabad engaged a staffing services company to hire a senior Oracle specialist for three weeks for an urgent special project. It hired a temp who billed Rs 700 per hour, but got the job done on time.

A flexible salary bill is not the only advantage. It works out cheaper on the whole, too, for the same reason outsourced non-core resources are cheaper. Temps don't draw any of the gratuity, pension, and other benefits that burden companies.

Other than that, temping helps companies get around some of India's outdated labour regulations that torment companies needlessly. According to the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947, if a company has more than 100 permanent employees, then it has to take prior consent from the government before it can retrench anyone. Best, then, to remain a small firm. This, however, is a quirk of regulation rather than a true market incentive. Temp firms would rather not have it billed as a factor in the tempting phenomenon. In fact, the Act may even have muddied the modern idea of temping, since so many Indian firms have been hiring on-paper temps all these years anyway.

The Sacrifice

To employees, the good news is that temporary jobs tend to be relatively flexi-time. In the US, opinion polls show that most temps want permanency, but a significant fraction see temporary jobs as a good way to sell their skills (a market transaction), while committing their minds and hearts to personal interests, which they refuse to sacrifice to the company.

Of course that spells lack of commitment, and this is also the biggest criticism of temping from the corporate perspective. As an employer, you sacrifice confidentiality and morale-for the sake of savings. Don't expect your just-in-time employees to guard secrets or go that extra mile in the firm's larger interests. If temps perform fringe roles, it shouldn't matter. But some companies believe that nothing is too fringe, and that everyone is part of a corporate culture that must be unique if it is to be differentiated in its thinking, which, in turn, helps differentiate products and services in the market.

Besides, what's the point of a workforce that cannot be leveraged as an intellectual asset? That, though, is a matter of perspective. Today, innumerable jobs are 'commodity' jobs. Often, the firm simply needs an army of data-entry operators, say, to execute a one-off project. That's where temping can make the difference.

The Test

All very well. But will temping endure as an idea? Or is it a product of the downturn? Assume for a moment that the economy is booming, and talent is in short-supply. Would valuable workers still be temps of their own free will? That's the ultimate test.

Well, you'd be surprised how fast Indian youth attitudes are converging with American. Many temps, far from feeling exploited, are happy being temps. There are no opinion polls on the subject here, but that's not the real issue. Talk to Pooja Gupta, who works flexi-time for the administration department of an IT company. "I get a little bit of a salary hike each time I walk into a new office for a new assignment," she beams, relieved not to be a prisoner of the office clock. Her job lets her set her priorities the way she likes. What is she sacrificing? Job security. But certainly not her life, liberty or pursuit of happiness-the real issue.