Very large companies have the luxury of being flexible... that means that they can ‘send people home’ whenever is needed. But that is a luxury since it requires a lot of money to achieve and maintain.
The way to achieve this is by hiring flex employees who are employed by external agencies. Usually the company has to pay a bit more for a flex employee compared to a company employee.
In the Netherlands
The two main kinds for these agencies are “uitzendbureau” and “detacheringsbureau”.
Similar agency types exist in the rest of Europe .
“Uitzendbureau” is the agency which acts as a recruiter and middle contact for a number of companies and it usually has to do with jobs which require low skilled employees. Their main associated companies have to do with production, manufacturing or other tasks which require handwork. The company pays an amount for the worked hours of the employee of which the “uitzendbureau” will keep a small portion (usually the deduction is applied on a worked hour).
The problem with this kind of agency is the uncertainty for the employer as if the company does need the employee any longer, then the employee stays at home doing and getting nothing (unless the agency finds him another job, which is usually the case).
“Detacheringsbureau” is the agency which targets high skilled employees and the companies it is working with are closer to research and development. These agencies are hiring engineers, managers or other people with Bachelors, MCs or PHDs for long term employment. The working principle for them is that, in a way, will ‘rent’ the services of their employee to a company for a certain time. The ‘rental’ time could be project driven or based on the company’s needs. The employee is getting paid by the agency and not by the company. Once assigned to a company for an assignment he is reporting to the company for work related issues and to the agency for personal/human resources related issues.
The difference with the “uitzendbureau” is that once the employee is finished from an assignment and the agency does not have another assignment for him at the next day, he is still getting paid! Of course, he will have to look for possible positions for him at the job market and attend to interviews arranged by his agency.
Depending on the agency’s profile, the employee gets to choose the assignment he wants to work on (if there are enough options) based on what he wants and what he is able to do, while the agency usually offers training packages based on the career path the employee wants to follow.
There are also mixtures of the agencies mentioned above and there are even “detacheringsbureau” agencies which can provide engineering or consultancy services.
