11 Strategies for Staffing Firms to Overcome Talent Shortages & Compliance Risks

Staffing and recruitment decision-makers are constantly under pressure to adapt. Talent shortages, inefficient HR processes, and complex labor laws make it difficult to hire the right people at the right time.

At the same time, client demands and candidate expectations are shifting rapidly. Staying ahead requires a smarter, more agile approach to staffing.

These challenges can create significant roadblocks, slowing your agency’s growth and affecting candidate and client satisfaction. At Deel, we deeply understand these challenges for staffing agencies. We draw on our extensive experience as a leading global expert in HR, payroll, and IT management, collaborating with top staffing agencies around the world.

Through our Employer of Record (EOR) solutions, advanced compliance tools, and streamlined HR and onboarding automation, Deel empowers you to expand your talent pool globally, reduce onboarding bottlenecks, keep your operations agile, and strengthen your employer brand.

By partnering with Deel, your staffing organization gains powerful competitive advantages—greater operational agility, enhanced candidate engagement, reduced compliance risks, and strategic alignment to thrive even in challenging markets.

Keep reading to uncover Deel's proven strategies for staffing firms to overcome talent shortages and compliance risks.

1. Bridge talent shortages with easy global hiring

Shortage of talent has been an ongoing issue since 2020. For instance, in June 2024, the US had more job postings than unemployed people, with 0.8 unemployed persons per job opening. This shortage of people open to work poses a significant challenge for over half of staffing and recruiting agencies worldwide.

The growing demand for diversity and inclusivity in hiring practices further contributes to the challenge. It narrows the pool of qualified candidates that meet both the skills and diversity criteria. Yet, disregarding these expectations can lead to decreased client satisfaction.

Waiting for natural market changes to resolve the talent shortage isn’t a viable option for staffing firms. Instead, use Deel to expand your search for potential candidates globally and hire in compliance with local laws.

Engaging international workers often requires setting up local entities in each country where you intend to hire, a process that can be both costly and time-consuming. Deel’s Employer of Record (EOR) hiring model simplifies the hiring process by becoming the official employer, enabling you to legally engage international workers without the need for local entities.

This approach broadens your talent search on a global scale while reducing financial investment and administrative burden.

Deel also offers tools designed to help hiring teams assess the cost of hiring in foreign countries. These tools, such as the Employee Cost Calculator and the Global Salary Insights tool, allow you to assess the benefits of international hiring and identify the most advantageous countries for recruitment.

The Employee Cost Calculator compares hiring costs across locations, while the Global Salary Insights tool offers current salary data specific to various roles and countries.

Discover how Lyre solved its skill shortage with Deel EOR, hiring global talent from Bulgaria, Malaysia, and Canada.

See also: 10 Recruitment Strategies with Real Examples

2. Accelerate clunky onboarding with customized workflows

Excessive paperwork and complex compliance requirements can delay onboarding, especially with manual, paper-based processes. This problem gets worse when onboarding multiple positions at once for large projects, seasonal demands, or recruitment campaigns.

A poor onboarding experience can easily result in the loss of hard-to-find talent. Speed in filling positions, on the other hand, gives you a competitive edge. It helps you secure top candidates before your competitors scoop them up.

Deel reduces your onboarding time to just 3 days by automating workflows. Our flexible workflow builder streamlines repetitive tasks like document handling and candidate communications while allowing customization to meet your staffing agency’s needs.

Deel also saves you time by localizing contracts and agreements and integrating background checks into the onboarding process.

With a user-friendly onboarding checklist, candidates can easily view upcoming tasks, upload documents, and request assistance. This reduces time-consuming email communications while enhancing the candidate experience.

Deel enables you to:

• Meet your client’s hiring needs quickly, resulting in higher satisfaction
• Fill more positions with top talent in less time, boosting revenue generation
• Demonstrate efficiency and responsiveness, leading to positive reviews and referrals
• Maintain workflow efficiency and reduce disruptions in staffing operations

Discover how EasyBroker reduced onboarding time by 50% and fees by 52% with Deel.

See also: Elevate Employee Onboarding & Offboarding Efficiency with Deel

3. Replace outdated HR systems with a unified tech stack

Outdated HR systems limit the scope of automated tasks and capabilities, leading to increased manual work and slower processes. These systems often struggle to manage large volumes of candidate and client data, resulting in reduced productivity and a higher chance of errors.

Deel scales with your staffing business, offering a complete tech stack for global hiring and managing a large pool of workers. Our comprehensive set of tools streamline every aspect of the employee lifecycle, including:

• Onboarding
• Offboarding
• Upskilling
• Performance management
• Career development

Deel also features API connectivity and native integration capabilities. This lets you connect with your preferred business tools and create custom functions directly within the platform.

Additional modern HR tech in Deel includes:

• Cloud-based infrastructure that supports scalability and remote access
• Analytics and real-time reporting to facilitate timely decision-making
• User-friendly and intuitive interface
• Automation features
• Customization options to tailor workflows to your business’s specific needs
• Regular updates that keep the tool equipped with the latest technological innovations
• Deel AI, a smart assistant that answers questions about workforce data and employment laws, speeding up decision-making

Discover how ThirstySprout saves 7 to 10 hours per hire with Deel.

See also: Why Staffing Agencies Are Replacing Legacy Providers with Scalable Solutions

4. Overcome operational inefficiencies with automations

A lot of time goes into manually coordinating processes to ensure workers are properly placed, trained, and equipped to meet client expectations. This can cause bottlenecks and slower response times, negatively impacting your agency’s productivity and service quality.

Deel addresses these operational inefficiencies by automating tasks such as:

• Creating, assigning, and tracking training programs for workers
• Equipment and software management and granting access to company software
• Drafting, organizing, and storing compliance documentation, including contracts, terminations, and regulatory filings
• Processing global payroll, including tax deductions, benefits, and payslip creation
• Managing time and attendance

By automating these processes, Deel reduces the need for constant oversight, allowing you to focus on high-impact activities.

Discover how SiteMinder manages 52 employees in 11 countries and saves three days of admin work monthly with Deel.

See also: Top 12 HR Automation Benefits to Consider in 2024

5. Strengthen a weak employer brand by prioritizing employee experience

Most staffing and recruiting agencies offer similar services using similar processes. They target the same clients and talent pools that job boards also pursue. These factors make it difficult to stand out, but not impossible.

What you need is a partner that helps you deliver a unique value proposition. It should help you build an exceptional reputation through personalized support and tailored solutions for your clients and candidates.

Deel enhances your employer brand with distinctive global solutions that ensure exceptional employee experiences and client satisfaction.

For your clients:

• Comprehensive services, including benefits administration and visa and immigration support
• Localized support from experts in tax and labor laws
• Access to talent in 150 countries
• Employee development tools
• Access to Deel’s partnerships with top health insurers, enabling them to offer high-quality benefits at reduced rates

For candidates:

• Self-serve capabilities for easy management of personal information, time off, and pay slips
• Flexible payment methods, such as e-wallets and instant card transfers in multiple currencies
• Convenient access to funds through Deel Card and Deel Advance
• Attractive compensation, benefits, and perks for personal and professional development

Discover how Bowtie Life Insurance attracts and hires global talent with Deel.

See also: Employee Experience: How Staffing Agencies Thrive with an EOR

6. Enhance poor employee engagement with communication and collaboration tools

Workers placed through a staffing agency may feel like outsiders or not fully integrated into the company culture. They may feel disconnected, undervalued, or excluded from team dynamics and organizational activities.

This lack of belonging can lead to lower engagement and motivation, affecting their overall job satisfaction and performance.

Deel can help you improve candidate engagement and employee experience with Deel Engage, a suite of tools that includes:

• 360° performance reviews: Provides a platform for employees to give and receive constructive feedback, fostering a sense of inclusion and promoting a collaborative work environment
• Employee training courses: Allows for the creation of custom training and access to a library of external courses, helping employees bridge the skills gap and build a culture of continuous learning
• Career progression frameworks: Outlines how workers can advance within the company, creating transparent career development paths and reinforcing their role within the team dynamic
• Slack HR plugins: Integrates PTO management, kudos, referrals, org charts, and more into the Slack workspace, centralizing HR functions and communications to enhance connectivity and cohesion within the team

Discover how Freeletics upskills leaders and saves costs with Deel Engage.

See also: Top 6 Tools to Measure Employee Engagement Compared

7. Correct data blindness with advanced reporting and analytics features

Within data lies valuable insights about:

• Trends in candidate skills, availability, and demand
• Client hiring patterns and preferences
• Candidates’ performance
• Metrics like time-to-fill positions and cost-per-hire

However, data overload, the use of multiple systems, or outdated tools without reporting features make it challenging to integrate and analyze data. This results in missed opportunities to optimize talent search, hiring, and placements and hinders data-driven decision-making.

The Deel platform:

• Integrates data from sources like your time and attendance system and payroll system, providing a centralized view of all relevant information
• Has built-in advanced reporting and analytics capabilities
• Allows for the customization of reports to fit specific business needs and objectives
• Integrates with existing tools, such as applicant tracking systems, to allow data flow and reduce data fragmentation
• Enables real-time data access for timely decision-making

You can analyze data by country and worker type and compare reports for different periods. This allows you to make strategic decisions based on both historical insights and current data.

Discover how SOCi consolidates company data and automates reporting with Deel.

See also: Best Staffing Agency Software for 2025: Centralize Operations and Cost Reporting

8. Enhance transparency and workforce visibility with a centralized hub

Managing multiple clients and candidates simultaneously makes it difficult to maintain consistent communication and transparency, especially with limited staff or heavy workloads. It can result in low service quality and decreased client satisfaction.

Deel resolves this by offering an integrated platform that centralizes contractor and employee management. Alongside our EOR service, we offer Deel Contractor and Deel Contractor of Record solutions designed to make hiring and managing international contractors easy.

Deel’s global platform brings your remote, globally distributed direct employees, EOR employees, and contractors together under one roof. This provides complete visibility into their work, performance, and engagement levels.

You can deliver consistent management across all regions and teams. This helps enhance team cohesion and drive your workers’ overall productivity.

Discover how Responsible Cyber manages its international team with Deel.

See also: The Ultimate Guide to Managing Global Teams: HR & People Ops Strategies

9. Retain flexibility and agility with a global mobility strategy

In today’s competitive landscape, staffing agencies face the challenge of remaining flexible and agile with their talent mobility solutions. With the increasing demand for skilled professionals across various regions and workers’ demands for flexibility, staffing and recruitment agencies must support mobility.

Whether it’s responding to clients’ requests for talent relocation, aiding third-country nationals with expiring work visas, or navigating the complexities of international work authorizations, staffing agencies need a partner who can simplify these processes.

This is where Deel's visa and immigration support comes in. It enables staffing agencies to relocate talent seamlessly or procure work authorizations without the hassle of logistical complexities. Deel streamlines the visa and immigration process, providing sponsorship for work visas and managing all necessary documentation.

Discover how Form3 grew its workforce by 20% in one year with Deel.

See also: How to Build a Talent Mobility Strategy to Drive Team Engagement and Development [Policy Template Included]

10. Adhere to employment regulations with integrated HR compliance support

Complying with labor laws in the countries where you hire can be resource-intensive. Labor laws are constantly changing, and keeping up can be a full-time job in itself. On the other hand, making compliance mistakes can damage your reputation and result in hefty fines.

Deel offers a Compliance Hub designed to keep your staffing agency compliant with labor laws around the world. Its key features include:

• Monthly Workforce Insights: Personalized reports sent to your inbox. They provide updates on tax and labor laws affecting your business and alerts for important tasks like visa renewals
• Compliance Monitor: Scans and gathers the latest regulatory changes from over 150 countries. It presents these updates in clear, straightforward language to show how they affect your staffing and recruiting operations
• AI-powered worker classification: Advanced AI accurately classifies workers, reducing the risk of misclassification

Deel also has a team of legal experts available to provide guidance on compliance requirements and address any concerns.

Discover how Turing consolidates payments and compliance for 500+ workers with Deel.

See also: Compliance Challenges When Managing a Global Contingent Workforce

11. Calm data security concerns with robust data protection measures

Access to large amounts of workers’ personal details makes staffing agencies attractive targets for cybercriminals. With the global average cost of a data breach reaching USD 4.88 million in 2024, data security is crucial.

Unfortunately, managing workforces using multiple systems introduces numerous security risks. Each additional system creates potential entry points for cyberattacks.

Moreover, employees accessing these systems from their home networks further increases the risk of security breaches.

Deel has industry-standard data protection certifications and incident-proof infrastructure. Using a single system for your HR functions offers the following data security benefits:

• Fewer opportunities for unauthorized access
• Implementation of unified security protocols and policies, such as encryption, access controls, and monitoring
• Centralized data management

All these factors make it easier to prevent, detect, and respond to potential data breaches.

See also: Data Privacy Compliance: Best Practices for Global Teams

Deel as your full-service solution to your staffing and recruiting challenges

Every business encounters challenges, but it is through overcoming these obstacles that growth emerges.

Deel offers a comprehensive solution to staffing and recruiting challenges. It frees up your time to focus on strategies that propel your business to the top of the staffing industry.

Our full-service platform boosts your staffing and recruitment business by:

• Streamlining your hiring processes through global hiring and simplifying onboarding and payroll
• Supporting your retention strategies with a unified tech stack that enhances the experience for clients and candidates alike
• Optimizing your staffing and recruiting process by reducing administrative workload, enabling data-driven decision-making, and managing your global compliance requirements

Speak with a product expert to discover how Deel can address the challenges facing your staffing and recruiting business.