A vaccination center can have the vaccine, the refrigerators and the appointment book, and still be missing something essential. Someone must greet the patients. Someone must register them. Someone must administer the shots. In New York’s pandemic vaccination rollout, those separate jobs became one enormous coordination problem. TemPositions, a staffing business founded decades before anyone carried a smartphone, helped organize the people who made the plan work.
- Specialist recruiters cover jobs from classrooms to accounting departments.
- A consortium lets one client draw on many local staffing firms.
- Its software handles the unglamorous details: assignments, hours and invoices.
According to the company’s Vaccinate New York case study, its consortium supplied 538 staff within three days of contract signing. The program grew to more than 5,000 workers across 75 vaccination sites. The interesting number is three. Large recruiting databases are useful. Turning names into people ready for a particular shift is a different accomplishment.
01One contract. Many local networks.
TemPositions’ answer was to coordinate other staffing firms. New York could communicate through one contact rather than separately manage more than 30 suppliers. Behind that arrangement sat centralized scheduling, time capture, approvals, invoicing and reporting. Local agencies supplied their recruiting knowledge; TemPositions supplied the administrative connection between them and the client.
The company describes a particular incentive behind its managed-services approach. In an August 2024 explanation, it says it assigns specific roles to designated firms rather than making every supplier compete for every opening. Its argument is straightforward: a recruiter with responsibility for a role has a reason to invest effort in filling it properly.
That is the competitive proposition worth examining. A buyer can hire separate specialist agencies, recruit internally, or appoint a workforce-program manager. TemPositions combines specialist recruiting with the ability to coordinate suppliers. For an organization running multiple locations, the attraction is fewer separate conversations about who is coming, when they start and who approves their hours.
02The generalist with specialist desks
Richard P. Essey founded the business in 1962 after working in retail, advertising administration and personnel. His stated aim was to give expanding businesses a flexible workforce. His son, James A. Essey, joined in 1985 and developed the group through acquisitions and organic growth. The family story has a pleasing continuity: the original problem keeps returning in different clothes.
A school needs a substitute teacher. A law office needs a paralegal. An accounting department needs a controller. The group addresses those differences through brands including School Professionals, On Call Counsel, AcctPositions and CompuForce. Its service range includes temporary and contract assignments, temp-to-hire, direct hire, retained search and recruitment process outsourcing.
That breadth matters because the person buying staffing may have several problems at once. The company says its divisions employ recruiters with experience in the fields they serve. A nursing credential and a software developer’s experience require different judgment. A shared corporate operation can handle the paperwork while specialists assess the work.
For a job seeker, the useful starting point is the relevant specialty and an accurate account of skills and availability. For an employer, it is a defined need: the role, the location, the hours and the work that must get done. Temporary coverage and a permanent search ask different questions. The group offers both, so the first decision is which problem the buyer actually has. Its national service sits alongside offices in New York, Connecticut, California and Florida. That combination gives the company a regional recruiting base and a wider market for coordinated staffing programs.
03Page two was the problem
One of the more instructive episodes predates the vaccination program by a decade. Reporting from Staffing World 2010, Dice described TemPositions losing potential candidates after page two of its online registration. The company rebuilt the application, starting with basic information and a résumé upload, and saving the candidate’s details at that first stage.
The redesigned process also made delay visible. Applicants waiting for an interview were color-coded by elapsed time; red meant two days had passed without contact. This was a small operational observation with large implications. A recruitment business can spend money attracting people and then lose them inside its own form.
A recruitment business can spend money attracting people and then lose them inside its own form.YesPress analysis
The lesson a reader can copy is specific: capture the essentials early, save progress, and show staff which applicants have been waiting. Those choices address a documented point of friction. They do not require a dramatic prediction about the future of work, which is fortunate, because the next candidate is already waiting.
04The software has a shift to work
Today the proprietary Intellistaff system connects the client and employee sides of the operation. Clients can request staff, review candidates, arrange interviews and approve time. Workers can accept assignments, enter hours and retrieve pay information. Apple’s listings also show separate IntelliStaff Jobs and IntelliStaff Hire apps, both available as free downloads.
Free software access should not be confused with free staffing. The commercial services are recruiting, supplying workers and managing workforce programs. Buyers need to agree the assignment, coverage and billing terms; the app is the interface through which much of that work becomes manageable.
Technology brings its own friction. Reviews of the older TGC Mobile App include complaints from 2019 and 2023 about crashes and launch failures. Those dated accounts do not establish how the newer apps perform. They do show why reliability belongs in any staffing discussion: access to a job bank matters most when a worker is trying to claim a job.
05Where the next shift leads
The same coordination model has reached social services. TemPositions describes staffing more than 50 New York City sanctuary sites with 3,500 social-service workers and supporting a Vermont shelter initiative serving 1,200 unhoused families. These are company-reported project figures, not a count of its permanent office staff.
There is external recognition too. ClearlyRated lists 2026 Best of Staffing Client and Talent awards, including a ten-year Platinum Talent distinction. Awards help establish a service record; an employer still needs to examine the recruiter, screening requirements and assignment in front of them.
For the consortium approach to work, someone must define the role clearly and trust suppliers’ screening. If an employer requires a bespoke interview for every arrival, the speed advantage narrows. If qualified workers are unavailable locally, coordination alone cannot produce them. The useful insight is modest and demanding: before expanding the search for people, make sure the route from application to actual work is clear.