by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
It’s Jacksonville’s most iconic Downtown office building and has been seen by millions of people all over America and even worldwide thanks to televised events like the Gator Bowl and Super Bowl. Although the structure’s legal address is Independent Square, a nod to its original main tenant, the Independent Life & Accident Insurance Company, it has been known since 1999 as the “Modis Building.”
In between Modis and Independent Life, the building’s signs read “Accustaff,” the name of the corporate ancestor of MPS Group, a Jacksonville-based temporary staffing firm that operates on a global scale.
Dropping the “Accustaff” brand also brought a change in the corporation’s philosophy. Originally a provider of temporary employees of all categories and job skills, the firm has grown to become one of the world’s largest providers of white-collar staffing services.
While temporary staffing accounts for less than 2 percent of the total employment market, MPS Group’s 2008 revenue exceeded the $2 billion mark.
The temporary staffing industry has been going through the same challenges as the rest of the economy. But focusing on the white-collar segment of employment means working with some trends that don’t follow the averages.
“We’re tied to employment and the U.S. has lost 6.7 million jobs since December 2007, but temporary workers are on a different cycle than permanent employees,” said MPS Group Senior Vice President for Corporate Development Tyra Tutor.
Even unemployment statistics look different depending on which segment of the population is examined. According to the latest report of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, overall unemployment is 9.4 percent. The rest of the story is that while unemployment for persons with less than a high school diploma is currently 15.4 percent while the rate of unemployment for persons with at least a four-year degree is 4.7 percent.
“We place only degreed workers,” said Tutor. “That has helped us weather the current employment environment.”
When the economy is growing and companies are adding to their staffs demand for temporary workers actually increases because skilled workers can be in short supply. In the early phase of a recession, demand for temporary employees drops as companies reduce payroll and other expenses.
“The first thing companies do is fire their temps. It doesn’t cause problems with unemployment compensation or benefits because there never was a long-term relationship,” said Tutor.
Tutor said there are indications the current recession may be stabilizing which will mean the next trend will be an increase in hiring as companies begin to return to previous levels of production and revenue. That is historically a great time to be in the temporary staffing business.
“We usually see a turnaround in temps before there is a turnaround in permanent employees,” said Tutor. “Companies hire temps because they know they can shed them easily and that takes some of the risk away” as a business begins to rebuild after a slump.
MPS Group has several brands offering a wide range of staffing and solutions to businesses in North America and Europe: Accounting Principals provides professionals for the financial sector; Soliant Health provides temporary doctors, nurses and therapists; ENTEGEE specializes in engineering and other technical staff while Badenoch & Clark is a leading temporary staffing concern in the United Kingdom.
MPS Group also includes a pair of more specialized companies. Idea Integration doesn’t provide personnel, it provides information technology solutions like software consolidation and systems design. Beeline provides human resources management and analysis for large companies that use the services of multiple temporary staffing companies.
Special Counsel serves the legal community with temporary attorneys, paralegals and experienced legal assistants.
“If a law firm needs 200 temporary attorneys in Nashville next week, we can provide them,” said Tutor.
In the large legal markets like Washington, D.C., New York City and Dallas for example, MPS Group also maintains office space year-round for temporary legal staff. It’s fully furnished including telephones, computers and high-speed Internet.
Temporary attorneys are hired for many reasons including to allow a firm to handle a short-term increase in workload or to fill in for permanent staff who go on maternity leave. Tutor said MPS Group’s temporary lawyers are attracted to a more flexible career than being hired as an associate and then working their way toward shareholder and partner.
“A temp attorney can work 80 hours a week for three months and then take three to six months off,” said Tutor.
One of Special Counsel’s clients is Regency Centers, a national developer, owner and operator of shopping centers with headquarters in Jacksonville. Regency hasn’t retained Special Counsel because it needs temporary legal talent, it’s a way to recruit new permanent staff for the legal department.
“Special Counsel has become a strategic partner in hiring for our legal needs,” said Regency Centers Senior Corporate Counsel Randle Shoemaker, who is also a member of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission. “They can conduct a national search and handle the screening of candidates based on our requirements. They give us a short list which saves us a lot of time.”
Brian Fraser, Regency’s vice president for People Services, said Special Counsel fits perfectly into the company’s search strategy.
“There are two ways we hire at Regency, either through personal referral or through a select group of preferred providers,” he said. “All of Special Counsel’s recruiters are attorneys so they know how to speak the language and they qualify candidates very effectively. They have become part of our elite crew and they’re getting to know our culture.”
One thing that has been constant in the economy and employment for the past several years is change and that’s likely to continue as far as MPS Group is concerned. It’s part of the cycle.
“When companies were hiring so many permanent employees they had to know it would end,” Tutor said of the economic boom that ended in 2006. “In 1998 and 1999 it was the high-tech bubble that burst. This time it was housing and banking. That’s why we made the move to diversify the company to insulate MPS Group from when bubbles burst. We have more companies in more global markets. That makes us more secure in our profit and long term growth.”
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