ABR Blog

Can staffing services really drive profits?  In a word, “Yes!”

In today’s economy, businesses need to do everything possible to maximize the R-E=P equation.  And if your company is like most, your employment-related expenses are among the biggest line items on your company’s P & L.  The more actively you manage these expenses, the more profitable you can become.

Of course, driving profits is about more than just cutting costs.  It’s also about maximizing workforce productivity and effectively matching your human resources to the changing challenges and opportunities your business faces.  Used properly, staffing services can play a vital role in achieving all these ends.  Here are just a few ways on-time (temporary) employees can drive profits in your organization:

• Stay lean and flexible. Design a strategic staffing strategy that limits core employment to that necessary for minimum production volumes.  Staff up with skilled on-time employees to meet peak demand periods or sudden surges in business.
• Focus on core activities. A staffing professional can help you critically examine work flow processes in your organization to identify administrative, repetitive or other support tasks that are being performed by highly compensated employees.  Bring in on-time staff to take over these tasks and free valuable team members to focus on their most vital priorities.
• Lower employment-related costs due to turnover. Take a look at your hiring and termination costs by job functions.  Determine where high turnover positions exist and re-staff with on-time employees (temporaries) to reduce hiring, training and termination costs.
• Reduce overtime expenses.  Work with your staffing representative to analyze your overtime expenditures.  Look for opportunities to use on-time staffing instead of overtime to reduce labor costs and prevent employee burnout.
• Shorten learning curves. As your company incorporates new technologies, bring in contract technical professionals to support your project teams.  They can help get your employees up-to-speed and productive more quickly, saving time and money in the process.  Once training is done, so are your training expenses.
• Capitalize on new opportunities. Have you ever had to table a great idea, simply because you didn’t have the resources to work on it?  For those times, consider supplementing your team with on-time and/or contract employees.  From support staff to senior executives, highly qualified specialists can be brought in to either manage the execution of new ideas or support your internal team while they work on the new opportunities.

ABR Employment Services – Driving Profits for Wisconsin Employers

Need to aggressively manage staffing expenses?  Looking for new ways to increase productivity?  Have a great business idea, but lack the human resources to turn it into a reality?  Contact ABR Employment today.  We have the knowledge, business expertise and highly skilled candidates you need to Comprehend, Fulfill and Achieve your business goals.

A recent Reuters article by Kristina Cooke shares some good news:

“The pace of temporary job creation after the most recent recession – an average of about 25,000 per month – has been faster than the past two, potentially a good sign for a labor market struggling with a jobless rate of 9 percent.”

This Reuters graphic of BLS data illustrates why experts look to the staffing industry for signs of recovery:

If you compare temporary employment to overall employment, you can see how the number of temporary workers declines faster heading into a recession and rises more quickly in a recovery.

In fact, research from the American Staffing Association indicates that temporary help employment is a strong coincident economic indicator when the economy is emerging from a recession.  Overall, temporary hiring rose steadily through 2010, with U.S. employers adding more than 300,000 temporary jobs (about a quarter of the 1.17 million in overall job growth last year).  Translation?  The sustained upturn in temporary staffing is good news for the economy.

But Cooke goes on to temper this enthusiasm, noting that a faster pace of temporary hiring hasn’t yet translated into significant full-time job creation – a critical piece of the recovery puzzle.  Experts such as Peter Capelli, professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, say that because employers are now using temporary assignments to try out potential employees on the job, the increase in temporary hiring could be masking direct hiring.

ABR Employment Services – Driving Wisconsin’s Recovery

As businesses throughout southeast Wisconsin begin to staff-up again, ABR is driving the recovery.  We deliver complete human resources services to help companies like yours Comprehend, Fulfill and Achieve their business goals.  What can we do for you?  Contact ABR Employment Services today.

In December, I wrote a post about improving your staffing results by strengthening your provider relationship in 2011.  Now that the New Year is upon us, here are a few additional ways to “take it to the next level”:

Set clear expectations.

Establish mutually agreed-upon guidelines for interacting with your supplier.  If you haven’t already, create processes for placing orders, conducting quality control checks, measuring results, and keeping in touch.  Setting these expectations up-front can prevent communication breakdown and ensure expedient service.

Provide feedback.

Once you’ve set expectations, it’s important to maintain an ongoing dialogue with your staffing service.  Keep them abreast of changes in your company.  Give your staffing rep useful, honest feedback on his company’s service and the performance of employees placed – unless he’s aware of a concern or problem you’re experiencing, your rep can’t do anything about it.  So make sure you regularly discuss what you can do, together, to improve quality of service and placements.

Take advantage of all your staffing provider can do for you.

Good relationships have fringe benefits.  Many staffing services offer valuable “extras,” at little or no cost, which could be beneficial to you, such as:

• computer software training for applicants
• detailed reports on your staffing usage
• applicant drug screening
• productivity analysis of your work processes
• assistance in developing position descriptions
• customized orientation and training for on-time (temporary) workers and new hires
• paycheck drop-off for on-time (temporary) workers

Ask your staffing rep what value-added services his company offers.  Then take advantage of the ones that make sense for your company.

ABR Employment Services is committed to developing long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with client companies.  We want to help you save time and money, while making it easier for you to find the qualified people you need.  Contact us today to take your staffing relationship to the next level – we’ll show you how better staffing can make your company even more successful.

It’s like a bad dream.

You’re in an interview, dressed to impress and feeling totally in control of the situation, when the unthinkable happens – the interviewer asks a question that completely stumps you: 

“If you could have dinner with anyone from history, whom would it be and why?”

“Why is a manhole cover round?”

“Which fictional character would you say best describes you?”

If just reading these questions makes beads of sweat pop out on your forehead, you’re not alone.  In an interview situation, most of us would be stopped in our tracks by off-the-wall questions like these.  But that’s the point:  interviewers ask odd questions intentionally, to see how well job candidates thinks on their feet and respond to stress.

Because unusual interview questions can be about virutally any topic, they’re nearly impossible to prepare for.  Still, here are a few quick tips to help you handle them more effectively:

• Keep your composure.  The question was meant to throw you off your game – so don’t let it rattle you.  Keep your face neutral and recognize that this is the wacky question you’ve been anticipating.
• Take your time.  Smile, take a deep breath and avoid the temptation to blurt out an answer.  Don’t panic – if you have to take a moment to gather your thoughts, it merely demonstrates that you think carefully through a situation before responding.
• Relax.  When it comes to unusual interview questions, your answer is not as important as how you handle the situation.  In fact, most don’t have right or wrong answers.  So take the pressure off yourself.  You don’t have to be brilliant, you just need to answer honestly.

If you’d like some practice answering off-the-wall questions, consider the following popular ones:

• If you could be any character in fiction, whom would you be?
• If you had only six months left to live, what would you do with the time?
• If someone wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?
• If you were a _________ (insert:  car, animal, salad dressing – you get the picture), what kind would you be and why?
• If you won $50 million in the lottery, what would you do with the money?
• How would you rate me as an interviewer?

Be Prepared for Your Next Interview

Register with ABR Employment Services today.  Our team of staffing professionals will listen to your needs, match you with a perfect direct placement opportunity, and then prepare you to ace the interview.

Implementing a faulty or sloppy employee review system can put your company at risk.  One misstep can lead a disgruntled employee to “pull the trigger” on a hairy lawsuit.  So as a responsible manager, how do you keep your company out of the crosshairs?

Here is a quick list of best practices for ensuring your performance reviews are legally defensible:

1. Develop adaptable appraisal forms.  Use flexible forms evaluators can change to suit the type of position available.  The forms should allow evaluators to: incorporate specific job criteria; weight and prioritize attributes and job responsibilities; easily keep accurate, detailed annual review records for all employees.  Should you need to protect your company in the case of a dispute, this standard documentation will provide valuable evidence that evaluators conducted all appraisals in a consistent manner.
2. Train your evaluators.  Provide written instructions on the purpose and mechanics of your review system.  Teach evaluators to base appraisals upon observed evidence – never “gut feelings” or other subjective criteria.  Include information on potential EEO problems and emphasize the importance of accuracy.  Supplement written instruction with role playing, and require evaluators to sign a statement saying they’ve received and reviewed the instructions.
3. Clearly communicate the review process ahead of time.  When review time comes around, make sure employees know:  the purpose of the reviews; the impact they’ll have on employees’ work; how the reviews will be conducted; what to expect during discussions.
4. Require employees to agree to primary job duties.  During the evaluation, ask each employee to review the job duties on which he has been rated.  To prevent later debates, require each employee to sign a statement that the list provided constitutes an accurate and complete list of his major job duties.
5. Safeguard against inaccuracy and evaluator bias.  Emphasize the importance of avoiding stereotypes based on race, sex, age or any other characteristics.  Monitor evaluators and develop a system of cross-checks to ensure evaluators do not go too easy on employees, or consistently rate a particular group lower than another.
6. Summarize and distribute reviews.  Have evaluators write up salient aspects of each employee appraisal and distribute copies to all relevant parties.
7. Have each employee review and sign his evaluation.  After being given the opportunity to review and write in his own comments, require each employee to sign and date the evaluation.  This will discourage employee attempts to dispute the evaluation down the road.
8. Keep a regular review schedule.  Like any other inconsistency in employment actions, failure to provide timely reviews can become the basis for an EEO charge or other frivolous lawsuit.
9. Provide for appeals on grievances.  Give employees the right to appeal performance reviews to a higher level supervisor.  In addition to being a goodwill gesture, this process will also undermine the case of any employee who later attacks the evaluation in an EEO or wrongful discharge claim.

Make it Easier on Yourself

Remember, our temporary employment services save you the risks, time and hassles associated with performance reviews.  Contact us today to learn more.