Global Public Articles

Whether you are a job seeker or a major corporation, there are certain qualities one should look for when trying to locate a temp agency to service your needs.

Just what are these qualities?

1. Reputation

There are many upstarts that come and go, but the hallmark of a great company is staying power. The best hr consulting firms have been around and know what the market trends are in regards to employment opportunities. They also know what jobseekers and business want and can consistently bring the two together.

2. References

All business, no matter their nature, should have a database of individuals who can give feedback on the performance of the company. It is your right as a business owner or potential employee to ask about these references. Be leery of any company that doesn’t appear to be forthcoming in regards to this information.

3. Quality control

The best temp agencies utilize tried and true methods to assess the abilities of potential job candidates. They also screen businesses so they know workers are going to be in a safe and beneficial job environment. Both career seekers and companies often feel comfortable knowing that a screening process in place that protects both party’s interests.

4. Attentive to needs

A great business knows that they have to be attentive to the needs of their client. Noteworthy temp agencies understand these fundamental principles and work hard to answer questions and return calls in a timely fashion. If you find that you can’t get the recruiter or the contact liaison on the phone, or fall into the voice mail run around trap one time too often, you may need to find a temp agency that is more diligent in providing quality eservice.

5. Ethical and up front

There are horror stories on both sides of the fence when it comes to hr companies that have not been on the up and up. On the corporate end, some staffing firms have sent over less than qualified candidates to fill positions just because they are looking to fulfill a quota. On the flipside, workers who have expressly stated what they are looking for are bombarded with calls and offers for positions that do not fit their qualifications. This is due to the fact that recruiters only get paid when they place someone. This fact also means some of them knowingly try to place individuals in a job they are ill suited for. Investigate the agency to make sure that this is not a common practice within their firm.

6. Online/Offline Presence

Any agency worth its salt will have a web presence - and a big one at that. You should be able to contact them online and research them online. Beware of companies who are difficult to find on the Internet as they could be a fly-by-night service with no viable background in temp staffing.

There should also be free standing building that you can visit to talk to the recruiter face to face. This can also help assure you of the legitimacy of the company.

If you can check all of the above items off your list you have found a worthwhile hr consulting firm.

To get the most out of your temp agency interaction, be sure you know what you want prior to an in office visit. Focused workers and employers are more apt to get precisely what they are looking for if they seriously consider what they desire from a working relationship.

In the end, the true beauty of utilizing temp agencies is the variety they can bring to workers and the time saving benefits they deliver to busy companies.

This is why consulting firms have been around for so long, and why, no matter where the job market turns, they will always be a blessed necessity.

Temp agency has provided permanent and temporary staff recruiting for 50 years. Services include temporary staffing, permanent recruiting and human resource consultation.

When preparing for the PHR or SPHR exam consider the following areas of focus which you should know before sitting for the exam. Traditionally, HR also is responsible for devising and implementing a companies disciplinary procedures. Most systems provide sufficient time for employees to change their behavior or improve their performance before termination becomes inevitable. Handle discipline problems progressively with oral warnings, written warnings, suspensions, transfers and demotions.

Scrupulous documentation during the process will support the companies actions should employees seek legal redress. Companies should also provide a counseling service for those who need it. A reasonable and comprehensive compensation package is a challenge because of the many variables. Employees seek good salaries, but they also want flexible health insurance options and decent retirement benefits. Companies that satisfy their employees needs will be rewarded with loyalty and commitment.

When you hire, dont let your emotions get the best of you. The biggest mistake that hiring managers make is judging candidates based on their ability to give good interviews. They let feelings, biases, stereotypes and first impressions guide their decision-making. Instead, to recruit and hire the best people, set up a system based on knowing what the job entails. One such system is Power hiring, which suggests screening five basic components: Performance profiles Use a job description, including duties and responsibilities, as your criteria instead of only assessing the candidates skills, experience and personality traits. To hire superior people, first define superior performance.

Objective evaluations Use basic questions to assess an interviewees competency accurately. Look at how well the person has performed in the past, since that is the best predictor of future performance. Wide-ranging sourcing Think of recruitment sourcing as marketing rather than as advertising, and broaden your scope. Recruit the best people for a job based on understanding the factors that would motivate top-notch candidates to want that particular job.

Emotional control Dampen your natural tendency to rely too much on your intuition and emotions when you make a hiring decision. Personality is an important consideration, but depend on performance measures first. Recruit right Treat the job negotiation process as a consultative rather than a transactional approach to selling. Think of your role as career counseling, not selling, and let candidates sell you on themselves. Focus on hiring people who are both competent and motivated to do the work. Put these elements together to find and hire superior people.

Managers may unknowingly give negative consequences to employees who are doing great. Giving your fastest, most accurate keyboarder the most difficult, high priority job may seem logical, but what consequence does the worker get? Is more work a negative consequence? Should you also give your best worker a note of appreciation or an afternoon off?

Praise and recognition are powerful, positive reinforcements. Yet, managers regularly miss opportunities to reinforce employees behaviors with praise, though it is free and easy. Dont reserve your approval for special occasions. Genuine praise true, timely, specific even for an achievement that is just part of the employees normal job, can make poor performers into good ones and good performers into great ones.

phr certification offer to help you pass the PHR and SPHR exam on your first try. http://www.phrsphrtraining.com

Jacquelyn Donner, SPHR

It has been widely acknowledged off late, that staff retention in the UK has become an area of serious purview and discussion in the economic and business circles. It is indeed becoming ever more apparent that we, as individuals, are never a part of some loose knit society of a bygone era, but standing on a plain of concrete progressive thinking, where every voice is a civilized voice, to be heard, understood and deliberated upon for a more justifiable human existence. It is in this context that the UK as a country should be no less conscious of such a destabilizing factor like high employee turnover in the arena of business and commerce.

High turnover occurs when employees discard their old jobs in favour of new ones or simply remain nomadic by nature. However such a nature of moving from one job to another is not of their making alone, but to a very large extent significantly influenced by their working environment as well. As per the CPID (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) survey conducted in the UK it is seen that highest levels of turnover is often seen in private organisations (20.4%). Again, further surveys have revealed that high turnover is more typical of retailing, hotels, catering, call centres and among low paid private sectors. The public sector has a turnover of 13.5%.

The main reason that were cited were better opportunities elsewhere, job insecurity, work place bullying, unhealthy competition ,family issues and health factors. This obviously affects staff turnover and as per the survey the number of employees who have retained their current jobs for a period of five years or more has fallen abysmally from 24% in 2006 to 20% in 2007. Turnover levels vary from region to region in the UK. In areas where it is particularly difficult to get skilled people, staff resignation can be even more damaging to organisations than elsewhere.

In order to cope with pressures of retaining staff a series of measures have been suggested. Among these the most prominent ones are realistic job previews at the time of recruitment, making line managers more responsible, flexibility in individual preferences and working hours, job security, treating staff as individuals and being open to their ideas and suggestions, work life balances, encouraging creativity, environmentally friendly working place, treating people fairly and defending ones organisation and imbuing achievement motivation to the staff and charting long positive goals for their future.

Among the next generation of ideas meant especially for IT sectors, call centres, financial and telecom sectors are training of employees by e-learning rather than the traditional classroom methods, remote working via the internet where possible, easy to deploy portal solutions and giving career breaks.

Notwithstanding the fact that staff retention could be greatly enhanced in the industries and organisations in The UK with the help of the above measures, a great deal of work and support has to come from the ministerial levels too. For this a comprehensive plan and package to staff as well as addressing of economic grievances of the businesses in the UK has to go in line with any of the above measures to pave way for a long term solution of the problem.

Richard Reid of
Pinnacle Proactive, Specialists in the
Employee
Assistance Program,

Stress Management,

Staff Retention & Absenteeism. Take a Proactive Approach in Growing Your
Organisation

We relate stress as those moments where you feel like everything has become too much to handle and everything seems to crumble at the slightest provocation.

Even though we all know what stress is do you know how best to control and manage your stress levels?

Stress can be explained as the feelings of inability to cope with a situation or circumstance. In many cases of stress the situation may seem trivial to an outside party but its detrimental to the person experiencing those feelings.

This difference in perception about the level of crisis had led researchers to believe that stress management is largely reliant on the individuals inner self-esteem and techniques for weathering through difficult situations.

There are several schools of thought regarding effective stress management. Because every persons reaction to different stress triggers is different, there is no right or wrong way to handle stress only the right way for you.

Understanding the reasons and triggers behind your stress can be a huge step forward in learning to control your levels of stress and handle them effectively.

Job Stress Management

A highly demanding job or career can lead to very high levels of stress for people working in them and yet rarely will those people do enough to control those stress levels.

In many cases, the trigger for stress in these situations can be feeling under too much pressure from management to continually perform well. Other people report feeling as though theres simply too much expected of them throughout the working day. Still others complain continually about needing an extra few hours in each day to get everything done. The common feeling among each of these situations is frustration.

Stress management for people in these kinds of situations can often be a matter of better time management and correct delegation. Constant interruptions by telephone or other colleagues can chew into precious time in which you could be getting things done.

If your workload is wearing you down, consider breaking your tasks down into prioritised lists and working through the most important issues first. Any less important tasks can either be done later or given to another staff member to assist. Leave the phone to the voice-mail if you can. Ignore emails until after you have completed the task you are working on. Explain to colleagues that standing around gossiping takes more time than you have available. Talk to them when your work load is lowered.

Be sure to take a walk when your work day is over. You do not need to jog or sprint. Just walk around the block or around the park. The simple act of walking can help to clear bottled up feelings of frustration, improve blood circulation and give you precious time to think things through without interruption.

Relationship Stress Management

Not everyone gets stressed at work. Many people feel stressed about their relationship or family life. A large number of women report feeling stressed about the demands of running a busy household and raising a family without enough support. Many feel their partners are unsympathetic and unhelpful and the pressures of day to day life begin to affect everything they do.

Stress management for people in this situation could be partially helped with time management and effective delegation to other family members, but in relationship stress the overlying emotion is not always frustration, as with job stress. It is often lack of self-esteem and low self-worth. Many women feel as though they lose themselves in order to care for the family first.

Learning to put your own needs first before those of your family is not considered selfish. It is actually beneficial to everyone. If your own needs are well looked after, then you have more energy and more love to spread around to your family.

Take time to relax in the bath. Take a walk away from the chores and the family and enjoy the alone-time. These things do not need to take all day but just a few minutes away from the constant pressure can mean the difference between coping and falling apart.

Richard Reid of
Pinnacle Proactive, Specialists in the
Employee
Assistance Program,

Stress Management,

Staff Retention & Absenteeism. Take a Proactive Approach in Growing Your
Organisation

While many enterprises are concerned about the costs of such programs, they may not be aware that studies show an actual cost savings from creating a working employee assistance program.

One major positive result of an employee assistance program is a competitive advantage in the marketplace. A workforce that is enduring chronic stress is less manageable and less productive. Stress can manifest in many ways which hurt your business, including lack of courtesy, less creativity, lack of concentration, lack of motivation, and employee absenteeism. Employees with mental health or personal problems typically have a work performance of at least 35% below normal.

Absenteeism has obvious costs to any enterprise. Employee assistance programs providing intervention in cases of substance abuse, major life events, and chronic stress problems can drastically decrease the number of days missed.

Many employees have personal or family problems that prevent them from attending work which can be resolved or mitigated through an employee assistance program. Because 5.6% of the average enterprises payroll is spent on absenteeism, a cost of less than 1% for an employee assistance program is a huge cost savings.

Another major benefit to employers is a decrease in turnover. In 65 to 80 percent of cases, the cause for termination is due to personal or interpersonal factors rather than an inability to perform the job. An employee assistance program is designed to help resolve precisely these type of issues before termination is necessary.

For example, an employee could get free counselling services to learn to manage workplace stress effectively, or two workers with an interpersonal dispute could seek out mediation in order to resolve the problem. Terminating an employee has many negative effects, including loss of workplace morale, disruption to work processes, and increased costs to the enterprise for recruiting, hiring, placement, and training.

Even a small reduction in turnover can have huge impacts on an enterprises bottom line. For example, replacing a single clerical worker has a cost of nearly GBP 2,000, replacing a member of technical staff can cost GBP 7,000 or more.Stress and personal problems can also create unforeseen problems such as workplace accidents, injuries, and disabilities. Studies show that stress contributes to 85% of accidents.

If an employee assistance program helps reduce the workplace disruption and morale problems of a single significant workplace accident, it can likely pay for an entire year of the programs cost.One study of employees in an automobile plant showed dramatic changes from implementing an employee assistance program in order to specifically offer support for alcoholic employees. This created a huge difference in the workplace.

For example, absenteeism decreased by 56 percent, disciplinary problems decreased by 63 percent, and workplace accidents decreased by 82 percent. The relative cost savings of an employee assistance program will, in most cases, far outweigh the initial financial cost.

Richard Reid of
Pinnacle Proactive, Specialists in the
Employee
Assistance Program,

Stress Management,

Staff Retention & Absenteeism. Take a Proactive Approach in Growing Your
Organisation