Ask any staffing coordinator what the most frustrating part of their job is, and you'll hear the same answer: calling workers who don't pick up. It's not a new problem, but it's getting dramatically worse. In 2020, the average pickup rate for staffing coordinator calls was 38%. In 2025, it's dropped to 22%.

That means for every 10 calls a coordinator makes to fill a shift, fewer than 3 will be answered. The rest go to voicemail — where callback rates hover around 11%.

We surveyed 1,200 temporary workers across industrial, warehouse, hospitality, and healthcare staffing to understand why. The answers were more nuanced than "people don't like phone calls."

Reason #1: Spam Call Fatigue (But Not the Way You Think)

The obvious explanation is that people are screening calls because of spam. That's partly true — 78% of respondents said they regularly ignore calls from unknown numbers. But here's the twist: most workers have their staffing agency's number saved in their contacts. The issue isn't that they don't know who's calling. It's that they know exactly who's calling — and they know what the call is about.

62% of workers told us they avoid picking up staffing calls because they feel pressured to accept shifts they don't want. A phone call creates an immediate social obligation to respond. A text message doesn't. Workers overwhelmingly prefer having time to consider whether they actually want the shift before committing.

Reason #2: The Timing Is Wrong

Call-out coverage calls happen when shifts need to be filled — which usually means early morning (5-7 AM) or late evening. These are the worst possible times to call someone:

The data backs this up. Pickup rates vary dramatically by time of day: 31% between 10 AM-2 PM, but only 14% before 7 AM and 17% after 8 PM. The shifts that need filling most urgently are the ones being called about at the worst times.

Reason #3: One-at-a-Time Creates a Terrible Experience

When a coordinator calls workers sequentially — which is how 89% of agencies still operate — the first worker called has an advantage over the twentieth. But from the worker's perspective, this creates an unpredictable and frustrating experience. Sometimes they get called for a great shift. Sometimes they pick up to hear "oh, that one's already been filled, but I have another one..." which feels like bait-and-switch.

Workers who've been burned by this a few times simply stop answering.

Reason #4: Generational Shift (Literally)

This one is straightforward but important. Workers under 35 — who now represent 58% of the temporary workforce — have a fundamentally different relationship with phone calls than older workers. For them, a phone call is an interruption. A text is communication.

Our survey found that workers aged 18-34 are 3.4x more likely to respond to a text within 5 minutes than to answer a phone call. For workers 35-50, the ratio is 1.8x. For workers over 50, phone calls still win — but even in this group, the gap is narrowing.

What Actually Works: The Data

We looked at response rates across different communication channels and approaches. The results were clear:

The winning combination is clear: contact every eligible worker at the same time, using their preferred communication channel, and let them respond on their own terms. The workers who want a phone call get a call. The workers who prefer text get a text. Nobody feels pressured, and the shift gets filled in minutes.

The best-performing agencies have stopped asking "how do we get workers to answer the phone?" and started asking "how do we make it easy for workers to say yes?" Those are fundamentally different questions with fundamentally different answers.

Three Things You Can Do This Week

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