ABR Blog

Everyone knows an on-time (temporary) worker can act as a quick fix when a secretary or line worker calls in sick at the last minute.  But if that’s the only way you think on-time employees are good for you, you may be underestimating their value as true pain relievers.

Here are some common “aches and pains” you may face at work, and ABR’s prescriptions for using on-time staffing to cure them:

1. High fixed expenses. Bring in expertise on an as-needed basis.  On-time employees with specialized abilities can deliver the experience and skills you need without impacting fixed expenses.  If your business faces an unknown future, consider using on-time staff to keep your workforce lean and flexible.
2. Wasting time on non-critical activities.  Free up your employees’ time to focus on core competencies.
3. Paying benefits.  Limit your benefits expense by using on-time workers.
4. Meeting tight deadlines.  Bring in on-time employees – even at the last minute – to help you complete projects within tight time and budgetary constraints.
5. Bad hires. Let a staffing service assume this risk for you.  If you need a direct employee, use try-before-hire staffing and evaluate the candidate on the job before making a final hiring decision.
6. Training. Reduce training costs and shorten learning curves by bringing in on-time employees who are trained and have experience using the skills you need.
7. Turnover. When you use on-time employees in high turnover positions, the burden for replacing those workers (e.g., recruiting, training, etc.) is on the staffing service’s shoulders.
8. Seasonal crunch-time. If your business has predictable surges in demand, planned staffing may be right for your business.  With a staffing specialist’s help, you can analyze your business cycles and plan your staffing needs.  Then, during your busy periods, you can staff-up with on-time employees to supply the extra help needed to get work done.  As an added benefit, planned staffing can reduce layoffs.  When things slow down, you can let on-time staff go and hold onto your core employees.
9. Overtime. Use on-time help to avoid paying higher overtime rates and eliminate the employee burnout overwork causes.
10. Lack of expertise.  Bring in on-time or contract executives, professionals or technical gurus to teach new skills to employees in your organization.  Use their expertise on a short-term basis to complete a special project, or until your core employees have learned the new skills needed.

No panacea exists for every challenge you face on the job.  But for headaches like the ones listed above, ABR Employment Services’ complete staffing and HR solutions for Wisconsin employers are just what the doctor ordered.

The use of credit checks has grown over the last several years.  According to a 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 60 percent of employers use credit reports for some or all of their background checks.

Employers use credit reports as a screening tool for a number of reasons:

• They believe it allows them to predict future behavior based on a candidate’s financial history.
• They are trying to prevent employee theft and assess the applicant’s trustworthiness.
• They want to reduce legal liability and negligent hiring.

But checking a job applicant’s credit is not without its potential drawbacks:

• An applicant who has been unemployed for a long period of time may have no choice but to incur inordinate amounts of debt and fall behind in paying bills.  If candidates have been out of work for months, that doesn’t necessarily mean they should be disqualified for employment.
• Credit reports fail to provide context.  For example, if debt problems were the result of expensive medical procedures, a low credit score may not indicate anything about future job performance.
• Credit reports are not perfect.  Ambiguous, dated, inaccurate and/or redundant data create the potential for credit score errors.  While these errors are generally minor, employers should be aware that they exist.
• Credit reports may not be relevant for the job in question.  Unless the person you’re hiring will have access to sensitive financial information, make financial decisions or handle money, a candidate’s credit report may be of little significance.

Checking a job candidate’s credit can be a viable screening option. But, is it the best option for your business? It is important to weigh the points above to determine if credit checks are relevant to your specific needs. Ultimately, a comprehensive screening strategy can be the most effective way to avoid bad hires.

Ensure Successful Placements with ABR’s Six-Point Screening Process

ABR Employment Services follows an in-depth candidate screening process. Our comprehensive process provides a more thorough check, helping us provide a more well-rounded picture of candidates than you’ll find across most of the staffing industry. Our six-point process includes:

1. Pre-screen. We pre-screen potential candidates to ensure their experience and interests match those of potential employers.
2. Application. Our in-depth application captures vital employment information, including job skills, reasons for leaving prior jobs, supervisors’ contact information, etc.
3. Interview. ABR uses behavioral interview questions to ensure candidates meet our Expectations of Excellence and will fit well with your current culture.  If requested, we can also perform second interviews with questions specific to your available position.
4. Testing. Our E-AssessAbility is a powerful online assessment solution that helps us determine whether or not a candidate possesses the specific skills you require.
5. Referencing. All ABR candidates must provide one positive reference for any on-time position and two or more for all try-before-hire or direct hire positions.
6. Background Checking. ABR customizes all of our background checking to your needs and company.  We have the ability to complete state or nationwide backgrounds, drug screenings, educational verifications, driver’s checks and credit checks.

How’s business?  The ASA Staffing Index can help you answer this question.

The ASA Staffing Index, developed by the American Staffing Association, provides a current measure of staffing industry employment trends.  Published weekly, the index estimates the weekly changes in the number of people employed in on-time (temporary) and contract work.

Index numbers are reported just nine days after each work week ends, making it a virtual real-time measure of staffing employment trends.  ASA research shows that staffing employment is a coincident economic indicator and leading employment indicator – especially when the economy is emerging from a recession – making the index especially relevant right now for businesses across the nation.

The ASA Staffing Index also serves as a valuable resource for economists, journalists, analysts, researchers and policy makers who are interested in current trends in staffing employment.  Participants account for more than one-third of industry sales offices.

Two numbers are reported weekly.  The first is the weekly percentage change in staffing employment.  The second is the index itself, which shows staffing employment trends over time.  Both numbers are normally posted on the ASA web site on Tuesday mornings.

This Week’s Staffing Index:

Follow this link to view current ASA Staffing Index data.

Monthly Report – April 2011

Staffing employment in April is 7% higher than in the same month last year, according to the ASA Staffing Index.  The index for April is 92, up one index point from 91 in March, suggesting that U.S. staffing employment has increased 1% over the past month.  Staffing employment is typically lowest during the first few months of each year and grows during the subsequent months.

ABR Employment Services – In-Step with Wisconsin Employers’ Changing Needs

ABR Employment Services delivers customized direct hire, on-time, strategic and management staffing solutions to help companies like yours achieve sustained business success as the economy recovers.  What can we do for you?  Contact ABR Employment today.

Not getting the response you want from your résumé send-outs?

Want employers to view you differently this year?

Try these 10 tips to shake things up and get your résumé noticed in 2011:

“It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality.”

– Harold S. Geneen

If you’ve ever managed a single person, then you know that employees make excuses.  They procrastinate, miss deadlines and blame others when they fail.

So how do you get them to consistently perform to the best of their abilities?  Use these smart suggestions to get better results – and fewer excuses – from your staff every day:

Make performance management a daily activity.  Annual and quarterly reviews definitely play their part in gauging performance, but nothing replaces the day-to-day guidance you give to your staff.  So talk to them regularly, leveraging every opportunity to improve employee’s efforts:

• Give them honest feedback about what they’re doing right – and what they need to improve.
• Discuss new projects and the opportunities they present for employee development and growth.
• Talk about overdue assignments or project difficulties and how to resolve them.
• Reinforce the importance of consistently doing a great job.

Limit excuses.  Eliminate the external factors on which employees often blame their poor performance by:

• Ensuring employees have the resources they need to do their jobs;
• Ensuring employees are adequately trained to do their jobs;
• Setting clear, mutually agreed-upon performance expectations for each employee.

Ask the right questions when problems arise.  Uncovering the cause of poor performance is the first step in creating a plan to remedy it.  So when an employee is failing at work, ask the following types of questions to diagnose the reasons why:

• What about the work system (e.g., tools, time, training, support) is causing the employee to fail?
• Does the employee know exactly what you want him/her to do, as well as the expected outcome?
• Does the employee practice effective work management?
• Does the employee feel valued, recognized and fairly compensated for his/her contributions?

Make performance goals SMART goals.  This goal-setting acronym is still widely used for one simple reason:  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound goals are more likely to be achieved.  So as you work with your employees to set higher standards for the next quarter or year, teach them how to create SMART performance goals that will get them there.

Create a “performance mentality” among team members.  Football players won’t play their hardest in a game where nobody keeps score.  Likewise, your employees won’t deliver superior results when they merely see themselves as “doing a job” everyday.  Foster a “performance mentality” by showing your team why their efforts matter – and what’s at stake.  Make sure employees understand your mission, how their jobs fit into the “big picture,” and what they need to do to help your company win.

Improve Performance with ABR Employment Services

Performance management is a vital component in your organization’s continued success.  Ensure that success with ABR Employment’s full complement of staffing solutions.  Whether you need to improve productivity, increase operating efficiencies or streamline your staffing function, we can custom design a solution to fuel exceptional performance throughout your company.  Contact us today to learn more.

What are strategic and management staffing solutions, and what can they do for your organization?

Many of our clients enjoy the benefits of our Traditional Staffing Solutions for meeting on-time, try-before-hire and direct hire staffing requirements.  But depending upon your unique workforce and human capital management needs, one of ABR Employment Services’ Strategic or Management Staffing Solutions may be the right choice to help your company stay flexible, competitive and efficient.

Here is a quick overview of ABR’s Strategic Staffing Solutions:

Primary Partner Staffing:  ABR Employment Services recruits, retains and manages your non-core workforce and supervises secondary vendors to streamline and simplify staffing procurement.  Use this service to save time, money and resources by reducing training, decreasing turnover, improving performance and increasing production.

Flexible Staffing:  ABR can assist with any part of your hiring process, including screening applicants/applications, interviewing, testing, reference checking or even payrolling employees.  Use our flexible staffing services to offload the time-consuming and expensive administrative burdens associated with hiring and staffing.

Customized Staffing:  ABR reviews your project needs /specifications and uses our full complement of resources to custom-design a comprehensive solution.  Use customized staffing to handle seasonal, occasional or just out-of-the-ordinary projects.

One of ABR’s Management Staffing Solutions may be appropriate when you need a complete human capital management solution that utilizes technology, improves efficiencies and leverages your buying power:

On-Site Staffing:  An outsourcing management program in which ABR becomes an extension of your HR department.  We assign an ABR On-Site Manager to handle every facet of coordinating, ordering, planning and tracking of contingent employees.  Because the On-Site Manager acts as the central contact for hiring managers, coordinates recruiting activities and handles personnel-related issues, you are free to focus on your most important priorities.

Managed Services Provider (MSP):  For all your locations, ABR acts as the single point of contact for requesting contingent employees, management reporting and consolidated invoicing for multiple staffing providers.  ABR’s MSP provides the convenience of having a single source for all your staffing requirements – delivering the best candidates available, saving you valuable time and money, and ensuring consistency of processes and supplier quality by implementing standard operating procedures and objective metrics.

Vendor Managment System (VMS):  A comprehensive technology solution for procuring and managing your contingent workforce throughout all your locations.  Through our strategic alliance with WorkforceLogic, ABR combines a “high-technology” e-software platform with “high-touch” service to manage your contingent workforce.  Our robust VMS solution gives your users unprecedented real-time access to, and control over, your workforce management activities.

How can ABR Employment Services help you?  Please contact us today to discuss your hiring plans, staffing challenges and business goals.  Together, we can create a comprehensive solution that delivers the results you need.

Throughout 2010, the issue of work / life balance has been in the nation’s spotlight. 

In March, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) participated in a White House forum on workplace flexibility; the following month, SHRM also testified in a Congressional hearing to support legislation that would recognize employers who implement innovative work / life balance policies.  And in August, StrategyOne conducted an online survey of 1,043 Americans which showed that:

• Work / life balance is a problem in the U.S., according to 89% of those surveyed.
• The recession has upended work / life balance for 31% of workers.
• 44% of men ages 34-54 say they do not have adequate work / life balance.

For more statistics and suggestions for ways employers can improve work / life balance, follow this link to the HR News article Survey:  Work / Life Balance Off-Kilter in U.S.

Can Hard Work Be Unethical?

The economy is pushing many employees to work longer and harder – or (in their own minds) risk losing their jobs.  But while many of them are succumbing to this pressure, Bruce Weinstein (a.k.a., The Ethics Guy) warns that “burning the candle at both ends” won’t save employees’ jobs – and it’s unethical, to boot.

To learn more, read this article on the ethics of work-life balance.  It makes a great case for setting limits when it comes to work, especially in a tough economy.

Work / Life Balance an Issue in Your Organization?

If you or your staff is working too hard, ABR Employment Services can help.  Use ABR’s staffing solutions to offload non-essential activities, reduce overtime, minimize burnout and reduce turnover due to overwork.

If you’ve ever been on an interview, you’ve probably heard this one:

“Tell me a little bit about yourself.”

Sounds innocuous enough, but in reality this is an extremely important question.  Interviewers ask it for a number of reasons:

• to get a sense of what you feel is most important about yourself;
• to see how well you’ve prepared for the interview;
• to find out why you think you’re the best candidate for the job;
• to see how you handle yourself in an unstructured situation;
• to see how articulate you are;
• to find out what type of first impression you make.

There is a lot riding on your response to this question, so make sure you knock it out of the park.  Here are a few quick tips for answering the “tell me about yourself” interview question the right way:

• Be brief.  Keep the answer short – no more than two to three minutes.
• Develop and include your USP.  Your Unique Selling Proposition, also known as a personal branding statement, is a one-sentence description of who you are, what you greatest strength is and the major benefit that a potential employer will derive from this strength.  Plenty of help for developing your USP is available online.
• Practice, practice, practice.  Write your answer out, then rehearse it until it’s second nature.  The better you know your pitch, the more poised and confident you’ll sound.
• Cite examples.  When you develop your answer, include one or two examples that best demonstrate why you’re well-qualified for the available postition, or highlight your most important accomplishments.
• Stay focused.  When an interviewer asks you about yourself, he or she doesn’t necessarily want to know where you were born, what your hobbies are or a laundry list of your job skills.  Make sure your response clearly focuses on the experiences and accomplishments most relevant to the available position.

The “tell me about yourself” interview question offers a great opportunity to set yourself apart from your job competitors.  So don’t waste it.  Take advantage of your time in the driver’s seat by selling yourself, creating a great first impression and setting a positive tone for the rest of the interview.

ABR Employment Services is committed to the success of your job search.  With offices throughout southeastern Wisconsin, and a great team of seasoned recruiting and staffing specialists, we have the resources and experience to match you with the ideal on-time or direct hire opportunity.  Contact us today or Search Jobs online.

Has technology taken the ‘human’ out of Human Resources?

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently published a report on technology trends in the sector, and the overall conclusion was unsurprising:  today’s HR departments leverage IT to benefit almost every aspect of their daily operations.

Continual technology improvements, coupled with declining costs, have fueled a surge in HR’s usage of technology:

• Software is being deployed to manage areas such as internal mobility, appraisal management, succession planning and personal development.
• E-recruitment and performance management software are dramatically improving HR’s ability to effectively execute PRM (people relationship management) and further solidify their organizations’ employer brands.
• Applicant tracking and hiring management systems are streamlining processes and driving down costs.

But will this IT success come at a price for some HR organizations?  While technology can reduce the administrative burden associated with HR and enable them to focus on more strategic issues, HR will always be about people management – which requires human interaction and face-to-face contact.  As a result, HR organizations should attempt to strike a balance between systems and the human element.

As Jeff Phelps, President of WorkforceLogic/ABE Services says, “We can’t ever begin to think of treating people like equipment or some sort of inanimate commodity…The best of all worlds is a holistic solution that combines technology with the human element to facilitate putting the right person in the right job at the right time.”

HR technologies making the biggest impact:

• Employee self-service
• Workflow technologies
• Vendor management systems
• Applicant tracking systems
• Hiring management systems
• E-recruitment software

Learn more.

Find out more about the evolution of IT in HR, as well as key findings from the SHRM’s HR technology survey, by following this link to the HR Management article “Technology aids the human touch.”

When it comes to staffing your business effectively, both IT and the human touch are critical.  ABR Employment Services leverages state-of-the-art technologies with distinctly personal service to deliver customized solutions that maximize your staffing ROI.  Contact us today to learn more about our Comprehend, Fulfill, Achieve Philosophy.

Part 2:  Co-Employment Tips for Success

Last week’s post featured a link to a brief quiz on co-employment laws.  How well did you do?

If your score was less than perfect, don’t worry.  This week’s post contains practical tips to maximize the effectiveness of your co-employment arrangement, while minimizing the potential for problems:

• Let the staffing firm do its job.  When co-employment problems occur, they often stem from situations in which a client company unnecessarily assumes employment responsibilities over on-time (temporary) or contract workers.  So remember that when you pay an on-time (temporary) or contract employee’s hourly bill rate, included in that rate are the services the staffing firm provides – recruiting, interviewing, testing and selecting candidates.  Head-off potential problems by allowing the staffing service (who is the employer of record for these workers) to perform these tasks.
• Take advantage of on-site coordinators.  If you have a large contingent workforce, ask your staffing service to provide an on-site representative.  This individual can reinforce the staffing service’s role as employer, by carrying out administrative functions, handling performance counseling and addressing disciplinary action.  Although there may be a charge involved, the benefits usually far outweigh the costs of an on-site coordinator.
• Give the staffing firm specific feedback on their employees’ job performance.  If performance issues arise, it may seem natural for you to speak directly with the on-time (temporary) or contract worker assigned to you.  But to steer clear of potential co-employment problems, you should instead speak with your staffing representative about your concerns.  That way, when the individual is subjected to disciplinary action, the staffing service will be able to provide him or her with the performance-related reason for the action – making the individual far less likely to consider the action to be discriminatory, or to file a charge.
• Allow the staffing firm to handle employee termination.  If you are dissatisfied with an on-time (temporary) or contract worker, ask your staffing provider to handle disciplinary action and / or termination and replacement.  Provide information about the individual’s work performance to your staffing representative, and then allow him or her to handle the rest.
• Review your benefit plan descriptions.  Ask an expert to make sure that the language in your benefit plan effectively excludes on-time (temporary) and contract employees.  To guard against lawsuits that stem from ambivalent wording, be sure to incorporate exclusionary language that makes benefit entitlement dependent upon your employment classifications – regardless of common law definitions.

Ensure Successful Co-Employment with ABR Employment Services

As a leading Wisconsin staffing firm, ABR Employment’s staffing experts can work with you to develop effective co-employment procedures from both a legal and operational standpoint.  Give us a call to learn more.