Author Archives: psgstaffing

The Advantages of Temporary Employment

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As the area’s leading locally based staffing agency, PSG employs close to 1,000 temporary employees on a daily basis.  Some of our folks choose contract work consistently as a career choice, while others do so to stay busy while on school breaks or to fill gaps between permanent positions.  This recent article discusses why more and more people are choosing temporary employment  in our modern economy.

Our temporary employees find many advantages to the flexibility of temporary work, including:

  1. Temporary assignments allow you to continue receiving a paycheck while conducting your job search.  Candidates whose ultimate goal is to find a permanent  job look at temping as a way to pay the bills while they are looking for their next long term job.
  2. Contract assignments allow our candidates to learn new skills and gain experience for their resume.  The diverse mix of industries that employment agencies work with allow temps who work on various assignments to pick up valuable experience and gain exposure to new software, terminology and business jargon than they would at a steady position within one field.
  3. It’s a working interview! The company may not have an opening to fill or the budget to hire you on permanent, but at the very least it is a networking opportunity.  The more people you meet (and impress!), the better for your permanent job search.
  4. Flexibility.  Our folks who choose to temp as a career enjoy the flexible work schedules and independence of contract assignments.

What do you think about temporary work as a career option?  What about temp work to fill in some of the gaps of unemployment?  Any success stories through temp work? Please feel free to comment below or email me at mstevenson@psgstaffing.com.

2010: A Look Back

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by Aaron Green

The beginning of 2010 was still a dark period for most Boston workplaces. Salaries and compensation packages were static, employers and employees were tasked with doing more with fewer resources and in general there was still a lot of fear and unknown regarding the future. Since then, the economy has slowly improved. The unemployment rate has fallen; employers in the state have added nearly 50,000 jobs; and the state is doing better than the rest of the nation in terms of unemployment and economic expansion rates.  However, we’re certainly not back to pre-recession levels as unemployment is still historically high and there are still approximately 120,000 fewer jobs than when the recession began. In fact, many Massachusetts residents don’t feel a recovery has begun. A survey that my firm, Professional Staffing Group, conducts each quarter with our HR clients echoes this mixed outlook. Looking back at the quarterly surveys and reports we’ve produced with our clients, as well as the daily interactions we have with hundreds of Boston HR departments, here’s a snapshot of how far we’ve come this year and where we are now:

The Boston economy showed incremental improvement in 2010
Our economy is certainly not robust and not yet back to pre-2008 levels, but employers are adapting. According to our survey, most kept HR expenditures at a static rate throughout the year. And while the BLS projects that overall employment will increase by 10 percent in the next 5 years, Boston-area employers are only mildly optimistic. For the past 6 months, the HR managers and employers we’ve surveyed have said they plan to add staff (8 times as many said they’d add as those who said they’d cut staff). Yet, 52 percent say they expect staffing levels to remain the same.

Employer purse strings are starting to loosen
Employers are starting to offer compensation increases after having shelved these for several months.  In our most recent survey, 82 percent of employers said they expect compensation to increase in the next 12 months, up from 77 percent who said they expected an increase in last quarter’s survey.  Sixty-seven percent of employers surveyed said they actually increased compensation during the past 12 months, up from 54 percent in our last quarter’s survey.

The labor market is becoming tighter for certain positions
 Although the US unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, the US unemployment rate for job seekers with a college degree drops to only 4.7 percent. If we look at rates in Massachusetts we see that unemployment rates are much lower. The overall Massachusetts unemployment rate at 8.1% is 1.5% less than the national average of 9.6%. I’m not aware of a measurement of the unemployment rate for college graduates in Massachusetts but given the 1.5% difference in the overall rate, it seems likely to be in the mid 3% range. Therefore employers seeking degreed candidates and employees with specific credentials and skills, e.g. professional or managerial skill sets, have an even narrower field of candidates to choose from. Our latest quarterly survey found that 42 percent of employers plan to add staff in the next three months and 73 percent of employers say that staffing levels are too low. In what I think is an effort to promote from within, our latest survey shows that five times the number of employers said they’ll increase internal training over the number who said they are reducing that expenditure.

HR departments and resources have been stripped down
One of the most popular areas in the workplace to see cuts during the great recession was the HR function, leaving many HR departments with too few staff and resources. Now that the economy has improved, many HR departments are in re-building mode. Short-staffed firms have difficulty recruiting, screening and hiring new employees as quickly as they need them and, as a result, are turning to outsourced or contract recruiters or are re-tasking HR employees with recruiting to the detriment of other duties.

Retention is still not a major concern for most employers
According to our survey results, about half of employers say retention is a minor problem; only 9 percent see it as a major problem and 34 percent say it’s not a problem at all. These results are consistent with the previous quarter’s survey findings.

My personal feeling is that more employers should be concerned with retention and take actions now that will prevent it. I base my opinion on three factors: 1) Surveys of employees show a high percentage of employees would consider another job 2) Employer are preparing to hire (see above, 42 percent of responding companies plan to add staff in the next six months) 3) There is limited downside to taking actions to prevent turnover.

Aaron Green is founder and president of Boston-based Professional Staffing Group and PSG Global Solutions. He is also the vice chairman of the American Staffing Association. He can be reached at Aaron.Green@psgstaffing.com or (617) 250-1000.

Professional Staffing Group (PSG) Makes Inavero’s 2010 Best of Staffing List

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Professional Staffing Group (PSG) has been named to Inavero’s 2010 Best of Staffing™ Candidate list. Best of Staffing, presented in partnership with CareerBuilder, is the nation’s only candidate satisfaction award that recognizes staffing and recruiting firms that provide exceptional service to their talent.

“PSG has strived to be a true partner to its candidates; providing outstanding job opportunities and innovative work programs,” PSG President and CEO, Aaron Green said. “We are proud and honored to be recognized for our efforts in this way.”

Staffing firms competing to make the Best of Staffing list underwent a rigorous candidate survey process followed by careful analysis of responses to determine satisfaction levels. PSG received satisfaction ratings of 9 or 10 out of 10 from 73 percent of their talent, significantly higher than the industry’s average of 48 percent. Best of Staffing participants secured a place on the list by earning a Net Promoter Score that was at least double the national staffing industry benchmark for talent satisfaction.

“Right now, not many companies are hiring full-time employees, but staffing firms continue to put more people on assignment each week. This is a time when those firms who are focused on delivering great service to their talent should be recognized and applauded in times like these in times like these,” said Eric Gregg, Founder & CEO of Inavero. “Inavero’s Best of Staffing program presents an opportunity for staffing firms to differentiate themselves from the rest of the industry, recognizes excellence, and also provides invaluable information about how to continue to meet and exceed expectations of the talent they place on assignment.”

Inavero’s complete Best of Staffing list can be viewed at www.bestofstaffing.com. For more information about Inavero, visit www.inavero.com.  To learn more about PSG visit www.psgstaffing.com.

About Inavero, Inc.
Inavero designs and manages satisfaction surveys for a global list of clients in more than 15 countries. Inavero’s proprietary technology platform gathers and reports staffing firm client and talent satisfaction information through online surveys. Inavero’s team analyzes satisfaction feedback from more than 300,000 staffing firm clients and talent each year, and serves at the American Staffing Association’s exclusive research partner. The firm’s surveys protect more than $4.3 billion in staffing firm annual revenue. Visit Inavero on the Web at: www.inavero.com.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld

 

Helping Employees Re-enter the Workforce

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by Aaron Green

The reality today is that more employers are hiring workers who have been out of the workforce for a period of time. Perhaps your new employee is a former stay-at-home-mom who decided it was time to get back to work, or perhaps she was enticed out of retirement after her employer discovered her skills couldn’t be easily replaced. Some new workers will have recently experienced a prolonged period of unemployment because of the current economic conditions. Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that over the past year the median duration of joblessness has been more than 19 weeks, which is the highest level it’s been since the BLS started tracking it in 1967.

Whatever the scenario, employers should be aware that employees re-entering the workforce may initially be more productive if provided with some extra care to make their transition back to work smooth and successful. Here are some tips for helping the formerly unemployed successfully re-enter the workforce:

One of the first steps is to help new employees calm their new job jitters. Many employees who re-enter the workforce experience anxiety and fears of performing poorly. Keep an eye out for stress-related symptoms like low self-esteem, fear of making mistakes on the job, difficulty concentrating or insomnia. Some specific ideas are to:

  • Create a personal plan for success – a plan that articulates what is expected in the new job, how they will be measured and defines success will help the new employee focus and alleviate assumptions and miscues.
  • Pair them with a mentor – introduce and connect the new employee with a veteran staff member who can not only ‘show them the ropes’ but also provide perspective on workplace culture. The mentoring can be informal — where you simply make the introduction and let the new employee know that the veteran is there if they need them; or more formal, in which case you orchestrate planned meetings or events.
  • Offer counseling – if a valued employee is struggling with adjusting to the workplace it may be beneficial to arrange for professional counseling sessions. Depending on the need and your organization’s resources, these could range from sessions with the internal HR department, group workshops with an outside professional or one-on-one sessions with a specialist.

If it’s a life change that has kept someone out of the workplace, e.g. caring for family, tending to health issues or other personal reasons, try to understand the life change and its impact on the person’s work performance. And if possible be flexible to the employee’s needs while holding the person accountable to results and high performance.

Perhaps your new employee is actually a former employee as well. According to a Career Builder survey of 2,924 hiring managers, 26 percent of employers who had laid people off in recent years were planning on bringing some of those layoff casualties back. There are a lot of benefits to rehiring former employees, including cost-effectiveness, efficiency, higher retention rates and faster on-boarding processes.

For employers looking to maintain relationships with former employees and incorporate them in a candidate pool, an online alumni network can be extremely helpful. Whether you create a custom web site or intranet for this purpose, or utilize Facebook and/or LinkedIn, an online network allows you to keep alumni updated on company news and job openings. The effort you make toward alumni relations can range from maintaining a database with individual contact information and skill sets to organizing events for alumni.

Many of the tips I mention above are considered good general workplace practices for all employees, and are particularly important now in order to adjust to a “new normal” workplace that includes managing employees whose career paths have been affected by the Great Recession.

Aaron Green is founder and president of Boston-based Professional Staffing Group and PSG Global Solutions. He is also the vice chairman of the American Staffing Association. He can be reached at Aaron.Green@psgstaffing.com or (617) 250-1000.

This article was originally posted on the On Staffing HR Column on Boston.com.

 

Professional Staffing Group Earns Top Client Satisfaction Award

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Professional Staffing Group (PSG) has been named to Inavero’s inaugural 2010 Best of Staffing™ list. Best of Staffing, presented by CareerBuilder, is the nation’s only client satisfaction award that recognizes exceptional client service in the staffing industry. Professional Staffing Group went through a rigorous client survey process to be considered for the award. The average Best of Staffing winner received a score of 9 or 10 out of 10 from 74 percent of their clients, compared to just over half of clients for the average staffing firm.

How did Professional Staffing Group make the list?

Professional Staffing Group secured their place on the list by exceeding the national staffing industry Net Promoter Score® benchmark for client satisfaction by at least 22 percent. The Net Promoter Score methodology is a standard metric for measuring client satisfaction. Beating the industry average Net Promoter Score by more than 22% proves that Professional Staffing Group truly provides exceptional service in the field of staffing.

Tips for Managing in the Flexible Workplace

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by Aaron Green

Flexible workplace options can be great perks to offer workers. Polls have shown that they are the most desired work benefits among employees and they are also a good way for employers to attract or retain talent. However, if flexible work options are not managed well they can be ineffective or even counterproductive.

Flexible work options range from flextime to flexplace and include: varying starting and finishing times to the workday; part-time work schedules, working from home or telecommuting; job sharing, workers selecting their own shifts, and flexible leave or time-off provisions.

Following are some tips for managing employees with flexible work arrangements:

Understand that flexibility is a mindset – offering flexible work options means acknowledging that there is more than one way to do things. It’s also recognition that workers have a life outside their jobs and that each employee has different life/work needs and desires and that those can change over time.

Communicate, communicate, communicate – to work well in a non-traditional setting, the flexible working employee must have strong communication with their manager, their team and anyone else they work with. Communication should be frequent, easy to do and take various forms (in-person, phone, email). Communication will help everyone understand the work being done but can also help managers gauge when the flexible work situation is working effectively.

Use technology to facilitate flexible work situations and good communication – a flexible-working employee won’t be able to succeed if their technology is inferior to traditional workers. Incorporating new technologies or devices – such as video conferencing, instant messaging or web-based file sharing – can improve the experience as well.

Remember that a flexible work arrangement is a benefit – employees and employers should treat it accordingly. Set clear expectations that there has to be effort from both sides in order for the situation to work. The benefit may be one that is “earned” or that is offered when an employee proves they can handle the option or agrees to meet certain expectations. Managers should maintain benchmarks for checking on employees’ progress and success.

Set clear expectations – in order to gauge success, you’ll need to establish clear ground rules and make sure appropriate evaluations are in place. In the case of remote workers, managers can’t rely on an employee’s presence and activity to gauge his or her efforts; they’ll need to measure deliverables and results (which should be the gauge for all workers anyway). While providing clear instructions, guidelines and deadlines is important with all employees, .these activities take or an even greater importance with employees working remotely or who are not in the office when their boss is.

Don’t give up water cooler exchanges -flexible work arrangement can make it more difficult to gauge important employee attributes, like effort and attitude. In traditional work situations managers rely on casual and unscheduled ways to check-in with employees and ensure workers are engaged and on track. Don’t overlook the importance of providing remote employees with motivation and confirmation of their work’s value.

Consider career growth– as employers, we arrange flexible work situations because we value our employees so it’s important to allow for and encourage career growth within the flexible work arrangement. In other words, don’t let the fact that a valued employee has a flexible schedule stifle their career and the value they can bring to your organization.

Change the culture – Certain employees with traditional work arrangements may feel resentful of colleagues with flexible arrangements. Take the time to explain why your company has the flexible arrangement. Try to win skeptics over by explaining the advantages of the flexible approach to the employee as well as how it benefits the organization. Yesterday’s detractor could find their personal situation has changed and they now value a flexible arrangement of their own.

Know the law – Flexible work arrangements can sometimes add a layer of complexity to the workplace. You will want to make sure you know what your rights and responsibilities are under employment law. When necessary, get advice from experts.

Measure results not time served – The driving idea behind many flexible work arrangements is that results matter more than the amount of time an employee spends working in the office.

Aaron Green is founder and president of Boston-based Professional Staffing Group and PSG Global Solutions. He is also the vice chairman of the American Staffing Association. He can be reached at Aaron.Green@psgstaffing.com or (617) 250-1000.

This article was originally posted on the On Staffing HR Column on Boston.com.

Reference Checks are More Important Now than Ever Before

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While reference checks have always been an important part of the hiring process, recent employment trends have made them even more important.

Recent trend – covering gaps in employment with inaccurate information
The recession has kept large numbers of people out of work for extended periods of time. In fact, 4.3 percent of the labor force has been out of work for more than six months-a level much higher than after any other recession since 1948.

Some companies exclude any and all unemployed candidates from consideration. Candidates know companies may view their lack of employment negatively and some cover gaps with inaccurate experience. While I am not a proponent of universally ruling out unemployed candidates (in fact, I recently blogged about how excluding unemployed candidates is a bad recruitment strategy), dishonest candidates must be ruled out. What to look out for:

  • Self-employed candidates: You need to assess if any meaningful level of work was actually performed. I respect candidates with a good work ethic who did whatever they could to earn income during the recession, but be careful to not be fooled by candidates who embellish too much.
  • Working for family or friends: Same concern as with self-employed candidates. I once did a reference check to a family member who told me the candidate didn’t really work there. Rather than cover for the candidate, the family member was concerned about a bad reflection on her business so she told me the straight story. I never would have known had I not performed the reference check.

Recent trend – fabricating in-demand skill sets
In spite of high unemployment, certain skill sets remain in high demand. While it is acceptable for candidates to highlight their most desirable skills, there is an increased number of candidates who cross the line and simply make up skills and work experience that they don’t have. If you hire these deceptive job seekers, you run the risk of finding out the hard way that their experience was not what you thought it to be.

Recent trend – Media inspired lies
Sensational stories in the media about employees who lied their way to money and power while duping employers and co-workers along the way cause some candidates to think telling lies about their background is acceptable conduct.

Best practice for reference checks

Use the back door

Standard reference checks are of limited use. By standard I mean you call the references that the candidate provides. Expect these hand-picked people to say only good things about the candidate. You need to use your network and speak with someone at the organization where the candidate worked who will give you candid information (or, alternatively, a customer the candidate serviced). Many people in recruiting refer to this as a “back door reference.”

The goal here is not necessarily to “dig up dirt” on the candidate but rather to get a more complete and unbiased picture of the candidate in order to make the most informed decision possible. Be discrete and take care not to create any problems for a candidate who is conducting a confidential search.

The challenge is finding a person who will be honest and open with you. It is easy if you know someone at the organization where the candidate worked; if you don’t know anyone, work at it. Try social networking sites (i.e. Linked-in), send an email around your office or to your friends or alumni group, simply ask “do you know anyone who works at XYZ Company?” If your candidate worked locally it is highly likely that you will get a hit if you reach out to your contacts. Back door references are well worth the extra effort since they can prevent bad hires or provide the information that prompts you to make the right hire.

Good advice
For excellent guidance on how to conduct reference checks, read the book “Who” by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. Smart and Street recommend a total of seven reference interviews for key hires: three past bosses, two peers or customers, and two subordinates. To save yourself time and increase the likelihood you reach you reach the reference, they recommend you ask the candidate to contact the reference to set-up the interview. Smart and Street also recommend five simple questions to ask on reference calls:

  1. In what context did you work with the person?
  2. What were the person’s biggest strengths?
  3. What were the person’s biggest areas for improvement back then?
  4. How would you rate his/her overall performance in that job on a 1-10 scale? What about his or her performance causes you to give that rating?
  5. The person mentioned that he/she struggled with __________ in that job. Can you tell me more about that?

Since many people don’t want to provide negative information on reference calls you will need to pay attention to both what people say as well as how they say it and press for details. A positive reference will be unmistakable; it will be full of unqualified compliments.

Following the above guidelines will help ensure that you’re getting what you want in a candidate and making informed hiring decisions. While I am sympathetic to the struggles of job seekers in these difficult economic times, desperation is breeding dishonesty and hiring managers must remain diligent about candidate screening and reference checks.

Aaron Green is founder and president of Boston-based Professional Staffing Group and PSG Global Solutions. He is also the vice chairman of the American Staffing Association. He can be reached at Aaron.Green@psgstaffing.com or (617) 250-1000.

This article was originally posted on the On Staffing HR Column on Boston.com.

Five Ways Social Media Can Help Your Recruiting Efforts

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by Aaron Green

Hiring activity is predicted to increase for the second half of 2010, so recruiters must have their candidate pipelines primed to compete for talent. Here’s why social media, such as blogs and social networking sites (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook), should be part of your recruiting strategy:

Blogging drives traffic to your site and builds brand recognition
If you have the resources, i.e. the time, energy and a bit of skill, regularly blogging about your industry or about career-related issues can generate significant brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. A blog on your domain can attract links, attention, publicity, trust and increase your site’s search rankings. (Because blogs are generally updated more frequently than regular website pages, they can rank higher in searches.) Offering comments that add value to someone else’s blog is another way to generate a following.

Online professional networks can increase the quality of hire
Social networks aren’t just for sharing photos and updates about where you are or what you’re doing at a given moment. They can also be an important tool for networking professionally. Professional networks range from industry-specific or job-specific groups on LinkedIn, to community websites for a particular industry, to corporate alumni networks. Members tend to keep their contributions on a professional level and share information or gather data related to their industry or profession. Job searches are typically a key component of these networks and job queries or posts can uncover candidates that wouldn’t also appear in response to a job board post. Mining alumni networks is another tactic that yields high-quality candidates, as they are already familiar with the company and have an easily accessible performance record.

Social media enhances job postings
It is widely accepted inside the recruiting industry that online job postings are not a very effective way to find job candidates. In fact, recruiting through job board postings are often referred to as “post and pray” because it’s a strategy based on hope rather than action. Of the countless training programs designed to help recruiters find the best candidates, none of them emphasize job boards as a strategy – rather, they focus on networking and direct recruiting. And since many social media tools emphasize networking it is natural to reason that combining job postings with online networking will yield better results. In fact, incorporating your Facebook fan page and LinkedIn groups into your job posting strategy can increase your chances of success. For one, they increase the number of people that see your posting. Secondly, they make the job posting an interactive discussion by allowing interested folks to comment on the post and by allowing you to immediately see who is interested in the post and all of their profile information. And for those of us who can’t ignore job boards altogether, social media can help us drive more qualified candidates to our job posts.

Social media allows you to customize messages to your audience
In the same way you may be using different email campaigns to target different distribution lists, you could establish multiple brand personalities on Twitter. One Twitter account could be the official company brand, one could be a “Jobs@OurCompany” Twitter account that only tweets about job openings (or related info) and one could be a “personal” Twitter account for senior leadership that reflects the personal musings and lends personality to your social media efforts. This practice allows followers to select the “channel” or voice they’re most interested in. The end result is more qualified and higher quality followers who are more likely to engage and respond.

Social media can help you identify and engage with passive candidates
Passive candidates are candidates who aren’t openly seeking and applying for jobs. Although they may not respond to a job board post, they could be active online as part of a social network, blog community or Twitter list. Connecting with them or with groups of their peers allows you to build a relationship so that when they are ready to seek a new job (and make the transition from passive candidate to active candidate) you will already be engaged with them.

Aaron Green is founder and president of Boston-based Professional Staffing Group and PSG Global Solutions. He is also the vice chairman of the American Staffing Association. He can be reached at Aaron.Green@psgstaffing.com or (617) 250-1000.

This article was originally posted on the On Staffing HR Column on Boston.com.