UNITEMP Blog

Has business picked up for you?  Is your company experiencing growing pains?  Are your employees putting in overtime?

All of these may be signs that you need to start hiring again.  But with fluctuating workloads and an uncertain economy, determining whether or not you need to add permanent headcount can be a real challenge.  On the one hand, you need to control overhead – hiring employees and then not having enough work for everyone can be financially devastating. On the other hand, you need to have sufficient staff to meet deadlines, keep employees working at peak efficiency and capitalize on new business opportunities.

So how do you know if you really need to hire someone?  These questions will help you determine if you’re adequately staffed:

1. In the past two months, have you needed to extend deadlines to meet commitments to your customers or employees?
   Although managers often rationalize missed deadlines by pointing to factors unrelated to headcount, lack of people is usually the primary reason.
2. Are employees complaining about working conditions?
   An increase in the number of complaints – either casually or formally – may be a result of overwork or inadequate staff.
3. Is your increase in business likely permanent?
   If your organizational capacity is strained, but you’re not sure if the surge in demand will be permanent, you may want to consider using contract or temporary staff.  Staffing services can quickly deliver the experienced talent you need to get work done – without adding to your direct headcount.  If the increase in business proves permanent, you can then approach your staffing provider about converting contingent staff to direct employees.
4. Are employees calling in sick more and more, or have health insurance claims risen?
   Some employees choose not to express their dissatisfaction verbally.  If they’re under too much stress, they may turn to doctors (medical or mental health professionals) for help, or simply choose not to come into work at all.  If there’s been a recent rise in sick time or health insurance claims at your company, it may be caused by an overworked staff. Your employees may be doing too much with too little.
5. Are employees taking advantage of vacation time?
   If employees are not taking the time off they’re due, this could also be a symptom of overwork. They may feel like there’s simply too much to do, so they can’t take time off.
6. Are overtime costs consistently on the rise?
   If your overtime costs are going up on a regular basis, then you may be understaffed. You simply do not have a large enough workforce to meet the needs of your workflow.
7. Have you turned down new opportunities because you don’t have enough people?
   You’ll lose your competitive edge without the right people with the right skills in place.
8. Are you following your business plan?
   You created a business plan for a reason. But if you’re not following through with it, it may be due to a lack of time and resources.

Is it time to hire?

UNITEMP can help you answer this important question.  As a leading New Jersey temporary and contract staffing company, we can help you determine if you need temporary, contract or direct staff to cost-effectively get your work done.

We invite you to contact us today to schedule a free workforce consultation.  Together, we can critically examine your workforce challenges and design a staffing plan that makes the most sense for your business.

Want to create top caliber performance in your organization?

Who doesn’t?!

Use these 10 tips to get people to stop making excuses and start delivering exceptional results:

1. Stop accepting excuses. Are you too tolerant of excuses?  Don’t be.  An excuse means the job didn’t get done and accepting excuses allows failure to persist.  When you stop tolerating excuses, you force people to develop solutions.
2. Think in terms of priorities. The next time you hear, “I didn’t have enough time,” require the person to instead say, “I’m sorry, it was not a high enough priority.”  By simply changing perspective, you will force employees to better manage their time and responsibilities and eliminate the number one excuse in business.
3. Make mistakes acceptable. As a rule, employees don’t like to report bad news because they fear the repercussions.  To get excuse-free behavior, make mistakes acceptable and treat them as opportunities for learning.  Instead of placing blame, focus problem discussions on “what” and “why” issues, as opposed to “who.”  Praise and recognize risk-takers, even when the outcome fails to achieve desired results.
4. Establish mutually defined expectations for job performance. Explore what success and failure look like for each position in your company.  Ensure that every job and project has specific, measurable goals.
5. Share the big picture with employees. People are more motivated to succeed when they understand why they need to do something.  As a leader, show them how their actions have a direct impact on the company’s success.
6. Acknowledge responsibility. Require employees to commit to their responsibilities in writing.  More importantly, follow-up to ensure commitments are met and to establish accountability.
7. Plan contingencies. Things can and will go wrong.  Take time to anticipate potential problems and set contingency plans.  A proactive approach to problem solving greatly reduces opportunities for future excuses while maximizing the probability of success.
8. Pay for performance. While it’s fine to recognize people for hard work, it’s important to reward them for results.  Structure reward systems to only provide tangible compensation based on achieving measurable results.  Ideally, offer rewards on an “all or nothing” basis.  Simply put, if the goal is not fully met, no reward is earned.
9. Create support systems. Let employees know where to get help when problems arise.  Failure most often occurs when employees don’t know how or where to get assistance, so make sure your staff has access to training, mentoring, internal “help desks” and/or any other resources they may need to do their jobs correctly.
10. Conduct post-mortems. At the end of every project, debrief employees.  If they succeeded, praise them and discuss why the project was a success.  If the employees didn’t succeed, turn the failure into a positive learning experience.

Quick Tips for Maximizing Temporary Employee Performance

Temporary employees can help you reduce stress on core employees, enhance productivity, control costs and manage risks.  And like your own employees, temporaries need to be held accountable for results:

• Provide clear expectations to your staffing vendor.
• Include measurable goals in each temporary’s job description.
• Provide an initial orientation, reviewing: company products/services, the department’s function, job responsibilities, performance expectations, available resources.
• Have supervisors closely monitor first day performance.  If a temporary fails to meet your expectations, replace him immediately.

Performance management is a vital component in your organization’s continued success.  Ensure that success with UNITEMP.  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 UNITEMP today to learn more.

Great staffing results don’t happen by accident.

They occur when smart people (like you) invest in creating the best possible relationship with a quality staffing firm (like UNITEMP).  Don’t leave your staffing success to chance.  Use these 10 ideas to achieve better staffing results:

1. Give temporary employees formal job descriptions. Job descriptions should be well-defined, prioritized, current and submitted in writing to your staffing firm.  They should include your expectations in terms of candidate abilities and experience, along with specific performance goals and standards.
2. Give your staffing service as much lead-time as possible. This will optimize your chances of finding an ideal candidate for the assignment and may give you more than one suitable candidate to choose from.  And when lead-time isn’t an option, let your staffing provider know which skills and traits are most critical for the assignment.
3. Be mindful of cut-rate deals. People – including temporary employees – are your organization’s most important asset.  They should be viewed as an investment, not an expense.  When it comes to staffing, you get what you pay for, so work with a staffing service that takes the time to fill your needs correctly.
4. Train your staffing services representative. Educate your staffing representative on your company’s mission statement, goals, culture, history and current performance.  Tell them what types of work styles or personalities will fit best in your organization.  Familiarizing your representative with your company’s needs and preferences helps your staffing partner become a more knowledgeable extension of your human resources department.
5. Take full advantage of your staffing vendor’s resources. Invest a little time to learn about your staffing firm’s full range of capabilities and value-added services, so you can take maximum advantage of their resources.  A good service can provide not only qualified candidates, staffing flexibility and cost savings, but staffing expertise and employee relations support as well.  To learn more about your staffing service, request a tour or a capabilities demonstration.
6. Set clear expectations. Establish mutually agreed upon expectations for interaction with your staffing supplier at the beginning of your relationship.  This may include order-placing procedures, appropriate quality control checks and feedback methods.  Setting expectations will ensure clear communication and expedient service.
7. Benchmark performance. Find out what tests candidates are required to take at your staffing firm.  When candidates are referred to you, ask what their test scores are.  Establish preferred scoring levels for placements within your company, using your own employees as benchmarks.  Additionally, encourage your temporary employees to take advantage of training available at the staffing firm.
8. Provide feedback. Maintain an ongoing dialogue and honest relationship with your staffing contacts, keeping them abreast of changes in your company.  Provide feedback on their service and the performance of their temporary employees.  Meet regularly to obtain their input on what you can do to improve the quality of service and placements.
9. Create a partner in your success. Consider involving a staffing firm in your company’s business planning.  For example, you might include your staffing representative in an annual meeting to plan staffing strategies.  Staffing experts can offer valuable insight regarding the possible uses of strategic staffing to meet your needs for workload variations, new hires and managing attrition.  They can also offer valuable market data to help you retain key employees.
10. Reward results. High quality staffing firms focus on more than filling orders.  They want to help you save time, lower expenses and get work done.  When you find a vendor who does a great job, look for opportunities to enhance the relationship.  Invite them in.  Challenge them to help you solve problems.  See what you can do to reward their good results.  Not only will you make your top vendor happy, you’ll increase their commitment to your success.

What can UNITEMP do for you?  Give us a call.  Together, we can explore opportunities to enhance your staffing results by:

• identifying inefficiencies where work could be performed at a lower cost;
• providing access to qualified and diverse candidates seeking temporary employment;
• offering the staffing flexibility you need to stay fluid during economic challenges.

The use of credit checks has grown over the last several years.  According to a 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 60 percent of employers used 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 the candidate has been out of work for months, that doesn’t necessarily mean he should be disqualified for employment.
• Credit reports fail to provide context.  For example, if debt problems are 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.

Given the potential benefits, as well as the potential drawbacks, are credit checks a legitimate screening tool?  It depends on whom you ask.

According to Christine Walters, a representative for the SHRM during last October’s EEOC public hearing on the practice, effectiveness and impact of credit checks as a screening tool, “SHRM believes there is a compelling public interest in enabling our nation’s employers – whether that employer is in the government or the private sector – to assess the skills, abilities and work habits of potential hires.”

She and other hearing panelists pointed out that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) of 1970 restricts employer use of credit reports to employment purposes.  Under the law, the employer must give a job candidate the right to defend himself against (including refuting, explaining or correcting) any collected credit information that might weigh against him.

Chi Chi Wu, staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center in Boston, expressed a different opinion.  Given the state of the economy, she said that using credit history as a screening tool is “a practice that we believe is harmful and unfair to American workers.  The use of credit history for job applicants is especially absurd when you are looking at an unemployment rate of 10 percent and have many workers looking for a job.”

As an employer, you are within your rights to check a job candidate’s credit.  Before you do so, you should consider:

• how relevant the information you’re collecting is to the available position;
• the cost involved versus the benefit to be gained;
• whether or not your internal staff is trained in how to interpret the complex information contained in today’s credit reports;
• whether or not there may be potential adverse effects to checking an applicant’s credit.

Ensure Staffing Success with UNITEMP

Finding the perfect temporary and contract staff for your organization requires experience, in-depth market knowledge and a comprehensive screening process.  UNITEMP combines all of these to ensure staffing success.  Partner with UNITEMP today and connect with New Jersey’s top temporary and contract talent.

Still on the fence about using social media?  Consider these statistics from the recent Cone Business in Social Media Study:

• 93 percent of Americans believe that a company should have a presence on social media sites.
• 85 percent believe that these companies should use social media to interact with consumers.
• 60 percent of Americans regularly interact with companies on social media sites.

The truth is, social media can help expand your business network, enhance your career, recruit employees and more.

According to HR expert Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide, HR professionals need to participate in social media for career success – and she should know.  She is a management and organization development consultant who specializes in human resources issues and in management development to create forward-thinking workplaces.  Susan is also a professional facilitator, speaker, trainer and writer.

Heathfield’s About.com article “10 Reasons Social Media Should Rock Your World” details the rationale behind making social media time investment mandatory for every HR professional:

1. Stay in touch with colleagues and friends. Social media makes it easier than ever to re-connect with former colleagues, classmates, teachers and other professional contacts.
2. Make it easy for others to find you. Maintain both individual and company profiles to make it simple and convenient for customers, employees and candidates to reach you.
   
3. Find potential job candidates. For example, you can e-mail social media contacts with job requirements and ask them for referrals.
4. Investigate potential career opportunities. If you’re interested in finding a new job, social media sites like LinkedIn can be invaluable in your search.  You can use the site to network, garner recommendations and learn about new job openings.
5. Establish your online brand. You can use social media to promote your career progress by establishing an online presence that defines who you are professionally and what you want to be known for accomplishing.
6. Join groups that share your professional interests. As a group member you can give and get information about recommended reading, industry trade shows or other professional meetings/events.
7. Develop social connections. Sites like Facebook are rapidly gaining mature professional members.  Unlike LinkedIn, Facebook is ideally suited to having fun and developing social contacts over time.  A word of caution:  carefully manage your Privacy Settings and critically examine content – before you post or upload – to make sure it’s compatible with your professional image.
8. Provide a space in which users of your products/services can interact with you. Use social media to expand your customers’ opportunities to discuss their wants and needs – with you or with other customers.
9. Build community around your products or services. The people who are the “face” of your company should leverage social media opportunities to build relationships with consumers.  Forums and blogs on your company website (and within your HR Intranet), as well as fan pages, can help you build this sense of community.
10. Finally your company, in addition to individual employees, should establish a company presence on major social media sites to stay in step with the changing interests and needs of consumers.  The Internet has opened up worldwide communication.  Why not use its social media components to make you and your company more successful?

UNITEMP- Leveraging Social Media for Recruiting Success

UNITEMP leverages social media to locate the talented, experienced and hard-working individuals you need.  Contact us today to learn more about our temporary and contract staffing services for New Jersey employers.

Have you recruited a new employee with great potential, but want a trial period to evaluate him on the job?

Are you trying to work around a hiring freeze?

Would you like a more efficient way to manage seasonal help, interns, retirees or contractors?

These are just a few of the reasons employers like you throughout New Jersey use payroll services.  This flexible outsourcing solution helps them reduce the cost and simplify the process of payroll administration.  Here’s how the service works:

1. You transfer an employee or candidate you’ve sourced onto the staffing firm’s payroll.
2. The staffing firm handles all required paperwork and becomes the individual’s employer of record.
3. The staffing firm then manages the entire payroll process, from payroll taxes to W-2’s.  Additionally, they are responsible for unemployment and workers’ compensation.
4. You keep control of your employees by setting pay rates, assigning jobs and managing their activities.

Payroll services are a simple solution with a variety of benefits:

• Save time, money and work by offloading employee payroll processing.
• Mitigate employment risk.
• Lower employment costs such as workers’ compensation insurance, unemployment insurance and benefits.
• Reduce the hidden costs associated with hiring and termination.

Are payroll services right for your business?

Learn more about the features and benefits of UNITEMP’s UNIPLAN “Your Third Option” by contacting UNITEMP directly.  Our staffing professionals will help you assess your workforce challenges, to determine if UNIPLAN payroll services make sense for you organization.

Should you stay or should you go?

In a time when good jobs are harder to find, you may be tempted to just “stay put” – even if your current position lacks the potential you desire.  But if you look at your career from a strategic point of view, there are several reasons why it makes sense to change jobs every few years:

Find your career passion. Career passion is an essential component in long-term success.  How passionate are you about your current role?  Does your work take advantage of your biggest strengths?  If not, you may want to explore career opportunities that will spark more engagement and key into your natural talents.

Broaden your experience and skills. Every job has an initial learning curve during which you acquire invaluable knowledge, skills and experience.  After a few years, however, you become competent in your current role.  Learning diminishes, as does your professional development.

Increase your earning power. When you strategically seek out opportunities with greater responsibility, you accelerate both your promotion cycle and wage /salary increases.  Be careful, however, not to make a strategic change based solely on pay.  Keep your work/life balance, career passion and long-term development in mind as well.

Considering a Job Change?

If you are thinking about making a strategic job change:

Create a plan. Develop a focused vision of where you want to go – and what you want to do – in your new role.  Write it down and use it to guide you as you make important career decisions.

Get advice and help if you need it. UNITEMP’s employment experts can help you:

• Critically analyze your experience, strengths and goals, to map out a strategy for your long-term career success.
• “Test the waters” in a temporary or contract position – allowing you to build new skills, try out different types of jobs / employers, and find your employment niche.
• Access unadvertised temporary and contract opportunities in New Jersey that may promote your career development.

Want to learn more?  Contact a UNITEMP Recruiter today.

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, has 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.  UNITEMP 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 staffing solutions for New Jersey employers.

Whether you’re tackling 2011 strategic business initiatives or simply need a temporary employee to cover a vacation,  UNITEMP makes it easy for New Jersey employers to request temporary help or payroll services online in three simple steps.  If you haven’t used our online ordering feature yet, here’s how it works:

Step 1:  Choose a Service

Tell us whether you need temporary help (for special projects, absences, peak periods, etc.) or payroll services (for introductory periods, or to boost staff during peak periods with prospective/former employees at a great savings).

Step 2:  Provide Company Information

This step helps us gather vital company and contact information (such as your business address, phone number and job title), to facilitate communication as we fill your request.

Step 3:  Tell Us What Kind of Employee You Need

To match the ideal candidate with your needs, we gather essential information about:

• Your work environment/atmosphere
• Assignment and project specifications
• Required and desired employee skills, traits and experience

Once you’ve provided these details, all you need to do is click the “Submit” button.  A UNITEMP staffing specialist will then contact you and get started on filling your request. 

What can UNITEMP do for you?

With:

• vast pool of trained and professional personnel,
• an online request feature for faster, simpler and more efficient ordering,
• and a full complement of smart staffing solutions,

UNITEMP is your best source for on-demand staffing in New Jersey.  How can we help you?

As we look ahead to the promise of a new year, we also hope that 2011 presents a lot more opportunities for us to work together. 

From all of us at UNITEMP, we’d like to wish you a happy, healthy and successful year ahead.