In today’s job market, employers are exploring every possibility under the sun to fill roles they need at their businesses. One strategy that most likely never will go away is the use of temporary workers. Lisa Bruno-Guard, owner and founder of Specialized Staffing, said using temporary workers is more common when the economy is very weak or very strong. Specialized Staffing helps employers find top talent in many industries. “We see an uptick in temporary opportunities when the economy is either on a downturn or on an upturn,” Bruno-Guard said. “That is because businesses are uncertain whether or not some of these opportunities will continue long term. This is more common in an upswing.” Specialized Staffing works largely with manufacturers, who Bruno-Guard says are a little more exposed to the “economic
pendulum.” She also explained that businesses appear to be on the upswing from the coronavirus pandemic when it comes to returning people to the workforce. “The need is there,” Bruno-Guard said. “So they will bring people back on a temporary basis, and as that need gets more consistent, then they go to hire the person directly.” Needs from employers come in all shapes and sizes.  For Chantell Mc-Curdy, that need was in the form of help at the polls in Butler County during the 2016 presidential election when she was brought on as a temp with the help of Specialized Staffing. “I got thrown into one of biggest elections in our recent history,” McCurdy said. “I mean 2016 was a gigantic election. I think it was so overwhelming that the office didn’t know it was going to need that kind of help.” McCurdy eventually would work her way to executive director at the county Bureau of Elections as of this past November. “We are responsible for pulling off all the elections in Butler County,” McCurdy said. “In Butler County we have 89 polling places. Each municipality has at least one. We spend our year doing at least two election cycles. One in the primary, one in the general election.” The need for help at the bureau grew even more in 2020, McCurdy explained, when mail-in voting ramped up as a result of the pandemic. “We have mail-ins, absentee ballots and in-person voting,” McCurdy said. “It used to be just preparing the polling sites. Now we have to calculate how many ballots we have in the office.” Mail-in voting has added a lot more pressure on the elections office, and according to McCurdy, the county has a list of more than 27,000 residents who are scheduled to receive a mail-in application every year. “Those are individual letters we print, fold, stuff and mail out of our office,” Mc-Curdy said. She said the spike in demand in 2020 spurred the elections bureau to bring in more than a dozen more temporary workers to help with minor work such as opening ballots and getting polling locations ready for Election Day. “The voters of Butler County is where our concern is,” McCurdy said. “We want to make sure we have every polling place as staffed as possible. It’s not an overnight process, and the public doesn’t really know all that goes into it. People just show up on Election Day and vote and go home and are happy. If that’s what happens that means we did our job well.” While demand for temporary workers might be the driving force behind why people are looking to fill these positions, some people are simply looking to keep busy in the latter stages of their lives. “Even now, there are a lot of people who were downsized during COVID, there are those who retired early and are re-entering the workforce,” Bruno-Guard said. “The benefit in everybody doing that is you get to try something out before you commit.” John Furman is executive director at the Butler County Symphony Orchestra Association after being brought in on a temporary basis in June 2021 with the help of Specialized Staffing. Furman said becoming executive director is not what he had in mind when initially getting involved. “I came in and figured I’ll do part-time work for a little,” Furman said. “I kind of jumped in and thought we needed to do this and that, and before I knew it I was asked to be interim and if I’d consider staying on, and to be honest, the reason I did was I thought it was a good orchestra and the people were so nice.” Furman has been around music most of his life and has a music degree from the University of Pittsburgh. “I started as an opera singer in my 20s. Around that time I was doing some administration and odd jobs,” Furman said. “I have always been the type of person if I don’t know how to do something I will learn how
to do it. If you want to be successful you’ve got to read books and hang with the people who are going places.” As the Butler County Symphony Orchestra’s only full-time employee, Furman keeps busy with things such as contracts for musicians, working with the conductor to put the season together, marketing, the budget and other day-to-day operations. Both McCurdy and Furman are thankful for the help of Bruno-Guard and Specialized Staffing, who continues to help supply workers on both a full-time and temporary basis to employers around the county. “We still get temps from them for the elections for extra help,” McCurdy said. “They always provide us with quality people. I think Lisa and her team do a really good job getting us quality individuals.” No matter the age or experience, there is a place in the workforce for everyone, and you can never be sure when the next opportunity might come around. “Sometimes God leads you into something like this where you’re supposed to be,” Furman said.

-Article written by Steve Cukovich for Butler Business Matters