Earlier this week, a tornado struck Oklahoma City and its surrounding suburbs. The tornado killed 24 people and is now being referred to as one of the most devastating tornados in U.S. history. While residents were warned that a tornado was on its way, it was just hours before it hit that metiorologists were able to predict just how detrimental the tornados could potentially be.

These types of natural disasters remind us of how important it is to be adequately prepared for what could go wrong, in all scenarios – so that we are able to recover in quicker and more effective ways. As a society, we still can’t see all that’s coming, but I argue that we are far more prepared today for what’s to come than we were yesterday. And we’ve definitely come a long way.

Although they are rare, disasters can occur throughout all industries, including the software industry. This is why it is important that all software companies work continuously to ensure that they are not only providing a disaster-free product, but are also prepared to react to whatever could occur.

At Avionté, development initiatives and various testing scenarios are a significant part of the daily responsibilities of many of our employees. We work hard to ensure that a software disaster scenario will never occur with our product. We have a great team of developers and support specialists here that are dedicated to our product and to our customers. Our development team is continuously churning out new releases and our support team is available to our customers around-the-clock, to work through any support issues they may be experiencing.

Keeping our staffing and recruiting customers satisfied with our product has always been Avionté’s main goal.  We work hard every day to ensure that our software not only meets customer expectations, but far exceeds them. Afterall, our clients are what make what we do everyday valuable and worthwhile. And although no company or product is perfect, we know we’ve got something special here.

Customer Care Rep Rod Barsness posing with employees from Employee Solutions.

Avionte employees pose with clients at 2012′s Client Connection Forum.

We love our employees and customers! Posing here at Client Connection, 2012.

 Angela Pitts

It was our second year attending the World Employment Conference, put on by the Association of Canadian Search Employment and Staffing Services (ACSESS) in conjunction with the International Confederation of Private Employment Agencies (CIETT).

Somewhere the conference gods were smiling down on us; we had amazing weather and a beautiful location! Our venue sat right in the middle of Lake Ontario and downtown Toronto. The views from the conference center made sitting at our booth for any amount of time quite easy. To those of you who work hard to plan the conference venue and make sure the accommodations are just right, thank you!

For anyone who has exhibited in a trade show or conference, you know that often times it can feel like the same routine, with different scenery. It really doesn’t feel like that long ago that Jason and I were setting up the same booth at the TempNet conference in Palm Desert.

Most conferences have the exhibitors come in the morning of to set up, but due to tight time constraints our set up was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. For those of you who don’t travel much for work, it may seem glamorous and exciting to be able to travel to so many different locations. The reality is, when you travel for these types of conferences, you mostly see the airport, the venue and your hotel room.  As luck would have it, on the day we arrived, the BlueJays were hosting the San Francisco Giants only blocks away. Better yet, cheap seats were still available! So Jason and I wasted no time in getting our booth up and prepped for the next day. With the booth ready to go we took a stroll to the ballpark, complete with hotdogs and Cokes.

Most conferences offer a breakfast for exhibitors. Simply stated, all the exhibitors were at their booths and breakfast was served in a location close by. We were fortunate to have several of our Canadian clients and a few of our American clients at the conference. It makes the early morning rise much better when you get to spend time with people you enjoy.

Our booth is big and bright (thanks to Brenda!) and cannot be easily missed. Curious attendees don’t have to wonder what we do; they can easily see it! Traffic flowed well for most of the morning and kept Jason and I busy answering questions and chatting with people we’d met at last year’s conference.

Lunchtime quickly rolled around. We enjoyed a beautiful day on the patio overlooking the lake and joked about some confusion between CA (Canada) and CA (California) (Jason attended both the ACSESS conference and the CSP conference last week). At the time, it was warmer in Toronto than it was in Los Angeles. But that wouldn’t be the only bit of confusion that we had between CA and CA during the conference…

I told Jason that I needed some good material for my blog post, and that thus far is was pretty ordinary.  One must be careful what they wish for! That evening, I took Jason to his hotel to catch an early morning flight to Los Angeles for the CSP conference and drove back through rush hour traffic, uneventfully. I had a late night dinner scheduled at the restaurant at the top of the hotel. It was similar to the Space Needle or other towers that had a rotating dining room to show off the view. I was a little surprised when I stepped out of the elevator to find that is was stationary. Since our dinner was scheduled a little later in the evening, the restaurant wasn’t very busy, allowing me to select where I wanted to sit. Out the window, just across the bay, sat the Billy Bishop Toronto Airport. All the small regional jets land on this island landing strip. With the sun setting and the water sparkling, it was nice to just watch the planes land and take off for a few minutes.

My dinner companions were delightful, the food was wonderful and the scenery was beautiful. As I reached for something on the table I felt my phone drop. This happens to me a lot, hence the soft cover I now have on it to keep it from breaking. Thinking nothing of it, I bent over to realize my phone was not there. It’s not as if it could bounce that far, right? Laughing it off, I got up and started looking for my phone. That’s when I realized that when the restaurant does move, it needs a track to do so. That track was right beside my set, and it wasn’t a shallow reach.

Slightly embarrassed, I called the waiter over and asked if they had a flashlight, as I needed to confirm where my phone was. I certainly knew where it wasn’t. Looking down about a foot, there sat my phone… just out of reach. This must happen pretty frequently, because soon after, another waiter appeared with a long set of tongs to expertly retrieve my phone. Needless to say it went in my pocket for the rest of the night. And… I had my story.

Lucky for me, the rest of the trip was uneventful. Jason made it safely to Los Angeles while I broke down the booth and headed to the airport. It’s always a pleasure to see our friends from past conferences and meet new ones. We look forward to a continuing our relationship with ACSESS and its members.

The Sales side of the office has been quite quiet these past couple of weeks! May has been a fun and busy month for our team; many of our employees have been out of the office for conferences and tradeshows. Here’s a recap of where Avionté has been recently:

After returning from Chicago, where our VP of Sales Mike Scoville attended the Midwest Staffing Conference on May 1^st, Mike flew out with our Chief Software Architect Samar Basnet to May’s two-day ASG event. The conference was held in Chicago from May 8^th to May 10^th. Samar started Wednesday’s series of presentations off with his presentation on Affordable Care Act tracking and Avionté Best Practices. On May 14^th, Mike was out of the office again, networking at the NYSA’s Super Seminar Day event.

The ASG conference featured a series of presentations regarding technology & The Affordable Care Act.

Last week, our CEO John Long and Director of Operations Laura Schmitz attended the Staffing Law Conference in Chicago, which was put on by ASA and took place from May 8^th to May 9^th. Laura said it was an informative event that provided some fresh news. To learn about Avionté’s progress in adapting our software to the ACA, email aca@avionte.com.

Our VP of Sales Jason Ortner and Director of Staffing Technology Angela Pitts have spent most of the week in Toronto at the World Employment Conference, hosted by the Association of Canadian Search Employment and Staffing Services. Jason flew out earlier this morning to join Brenda Long, our Director of Marketing, and our Customer Care Rep Sarah Freitag at the California Staffing Professionals Conference. Angela’s packing up the booth and heading home later tonight. We hope you came by to say hi if you were also there!

Avionte, all set for the World Employment Conference in Toronto.

Customer Care Rep Sarah Freitag, at the CSP Conference.

As you can tell, our sales team has been busy! We’ve enjoyed being able to be a part of so many of these events and networking with old and new friends.

Have you missed one of the past Tips of the Week?  Here are some of my favorites that our users have found to be helpful.

Counters are Cool

Who Changed That?

Match ‘em Up Automatch

Paycheck Voids/Reversals

Save Time – Shortcuts

Generating Resumes

Do You Document?

Forgotten Timecards

I’ve Got Skills

Sometimes Basic is Best

Search Options

Too Many Tabs

Favorites v2010

Keeping Track of Candidates

Start Sheets

Do You Inspect?

Ending Assignments

Tracking Sources

Quarter End Reports

Look What I Can See

My Favorite Child

Assignment Changes

Data Requirement Message

Mass Resume Parser

QuickPlace

Mass Mail

More Than a Message

Mass Mail

New Back Office Features

Search Options in Advanced Search

New Back Office Features

Adding Transactions to Orders

Agency

New Resume Parser Feature

Web Time Entry

Employer Health Reporting

Contacts

User Security

Data Requirement Message

Using Quick Place to Track Orders

I Love Skill Marketing

User Security

Contacts

Back Office Corrections

A Little “Extra” Tracking

Advance Search

Favorites and Mass Mail

Text Messaging

Users

Easy Labels

Candidate vs. Candidates

Counters are Cool Part 2

Do You See What I See?

Two AQ’s for You

Clean Up Time

Do More in Less Time

 EEO/Affirmative Action

Why Worksite?

A Few of My Favorites

Filling an Assignment 101

Do you have an idea for the Tip of the Week?  Send me an email.

Sarina Bhochibhoya

Congratulations to Sarina Bhochibhoya, who has been voted as May’s Employee of the Month out of our Nepal office! Sarina assists our U.S. team as an Application Developer wihin Nepal’s technical services department. She was nominated as the team’s first Employee of the Month due to her hard work on E-documentation. She has also played an important role in deploying 2013 I9s. 

When asked what she likes most about working at Avionte, she said she enjoys the friendly staff and the interractive learning environment. In her free time, she enjoys spending time in nature, whether its hiking or travelling to different places, and being with family and friends.

By: Tyler Long, Technical Support Specialist

I was chosen, along with three other people from the support department, to go along to the Children’s Hospital of Minnesota and to present them with a check from the Avionté Hope Foundation, which will go towards the Clinics’ Child Life fund.

This money was raised by Avionté through our monthly fundraising event in the office. Our support department won the challenge and was given the opportunity to choose where the money went to, along with who would go to the hospital to present the check.

After some deliberation, we decided that giving the money to the Clinics’ Child Life fund would make the most impact on a person’s life. We knew the money we were giving to them would go towards buying real things and would make the children happy.

Once we decided on the location, Children’s invited four support reps to take a tour of the Minneapolis location and to present the check. The tour was great! The four of us took a complete tour of the Children’s Hospital and got to see all of the amazing things Children’s has implemented solely to make a sick child feel as safe and at home as they can. One of my favorite parts was a musical device in the hallways that changed when you waved your hand over it.

Avionte employees, from left to right: Tony Yang, Mitch Hamann, Chad Roesler and Tyler Long.

After taking the tour, the four of us agreed that the decision to give the money to Children’s was the right one. We all felt good that a sick child will be able to get some enjoyment out of a scary situation because of us.

Avionté, a rapidly growing staffing technology provider, is seeking dynamic, high energy Account Managers with staffing industry backgrounds.  Avionté’s Customer Care department provides exceptional relationship based customer service and support of our proprietary software system to our nationwide client base.  

Avionté is a firm believer that our most important asset is our customers and we are looking for dedicated staffing industry professionals that can relate to them with their everyday business needs.

Customer Care Department Responsibilities/Specializations:

The customer care team has many facets and variety allowing individual team members to focus in specific areas:

• Customer Care/Account Management: you will be in charge of managing customer relationships with our clients that utilize our proprietary software. From providing regular check-in calls to assisting with development requests or customizations, you will be their main point of contact.
• External & Internal Training:  this position requires the aptitude to learn a comprehensive staffing software inside and out.  This department provides training on work flow, processes, new functionality, etc. to internal employees as well as external customers.  Training for external clients will require travel across the US and Canada, up to 25%.
• QA: as we are constantly developing and improving the software, new functionality is always being added or changed.  This position will assist in supporting QA initiatives.
• Documentation:  Updating and maintaining documentation for the software.
• 3rd Party Integrations:  We integrate and partner with many other staffing industry vendors. This position will be responsible for consulting on and identifying integrations to bring further efficiencies to our clients.

Skills/Qualifications:

• Staffing Industry experience, min 2+ years (this is a mandatory requirement for the position)
• Extremely detail oriented and very organized
• Great at multi-tasking and following up
• Ability to work and thrive in a fast paced environment
• Bring an enthusiastic energy and drive to create lasting relationships with clients
• Technical aptitude and motivation to learn a comprehensive software program
• Bachelor’s degree
• Previous account management experience a bonus but not required
• Excellent customer service skills, written and verbal communication skills

Perks:

• Work for a high growth, energetic organization
• Competitive benefits including retirement plan, company paid health insurance and profit sharing
• Work with others that share your drive and commitment for excellence
• A career with extreme advancement opportunities that will take you as far as you want to go!

Avionté is based in Eagan, Minnesota. While there are other offices nationwide, the candidate must work from the Eagan, MN office.  This position is not ideal for timid, measured, slow thinking, coasting individuals.  This position is hard, fast and intense but also very rewarding.

Description:
We currently have an excellent opportunity for a mid-level Web Developer. We are looking for a candidate who is aggressive, willing and eager to learn fast, and grow with the company. The right candidate will be familiar with Microsoft development technologies. In this position the right candidate will design, implement, test and deploy enhancements to our existing system to meet user and business needs. This position demands a hands-on, team player with excellent interpersonal communication skills. 

Essential Functions:

• Design and develop complex technical solutions that encompass multi-tier web applications
• Design and ensure compliance with underlying principles and architectures of IT software systems
• Incorporate system development tools and methods into an integrated development environment
• Contribute to the ongoing development of strategic information technology plans
• Document system functionality for ongoing support and assist in the development of end-user documentation
• Provide ongoing support and problem identification/resolution of system problems
• Work using Test Driven Development in an Agile environment

Required Skills and Education:

• BS in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience
• 2 to 4 years of hands-on development experience using C# and ASP.NET
• Strong experience and solid understanding of all of the following: AJAX, XML, JavaScript/jQuery, CSS, HTML, and Web Services
• Solid understanding of IIS environments and configuration
• Understanding how to use SqlServer and Stored Procedures

Preferred Experience:

• HTML5, CSS3
• SSRS, SSMS
• Mobile web development experience
• ASP.NET MVC 3 or 4
• ASP.NET WebForms

Testing frameworks such as Spec Flow, Web Driver, and White.

We consider ourselves lucky, here at the Avionté office in Eagan, Minn. Why? Because in addition to our team of employees in the U.S., we have a brilliant and talented team that works with us out of Kathmandu, Nepal, who bring a wide range of experience to our growing company. With these additional team members in Nepal, Avionté employees are working litterally around the clock; While we’re fast asleep here in the U.S., this dedicated team is hard at work in Nepal.

And while there are many opportunities throughout the year for our customers and team members in the U.S. to interact (whether it’s at conferences and trade show events, during on-site visits, or at our annual Client Connection Forum) – our employees in Nepal work behind the scenes to ensure a quality product, and rarely interract with our customers. So, we’ve decided to choose one Nepal team member each month, to be our honorary “Nepal Team Employee of the Month”, so that you can get to know the great team members that support our team here in the U.S. But before we choose our first Nepal team member, we’d like to provide a brief introduction to the team overall – to how the team is structured and how they operate on a day-to-day basis.

Our Nepal team is made up of four departments: operations, development, implementation and technical services. The Operations team assists with upgrades and web portal setup, while the Nepal development team assists our U.S. development team with projects and support tickets. The implementation team in Nepal further supports our U.S. implementation support team with conversion and import/export feeds, while the Nepal support team helps out with Edocs, support issues and managing reports.

Introducing the Managers:

  Gaurav Basnyat has been with Avionté for six months and said his main responsibilities at Avionté are monitoring operations and HR issues at the Nepal office, along with managing the upgrade process and scheduling. Outside of the office he’s big into music; he enjoys playing it, going to shows and listening to music. He also enjoys reading in his spare time.

  Santosh Newa helps the Development team prioritize incoming tickets and increase productivity as the Sr. Application Developer. He’s been with Avionté for about six years and said he loves the friendly work environment and internal motivation that the partners continually provide. Outside of work, Santosh loves to travel, listen to music, play video games and watch movies.

Sanjib Pokharel, our implementation team manager, has been with Avionté for six years and leads the implementation team as the Sr. Implementation Analyst. Outside of the office, Sanjib loves exploring the interesting things about Kathmandu, a city that he describes as “rich in culture”. He’s also very active and enjoys football, cycling, swimming and beach volleyball.

Tinu Manandhar manages our technical services team. Tinu has been on the Avionté team for 2 1/2 years and spends her time helping manage reports, Edocs and keeping the Support team on track. She says her favorite thing about working at Avionté is the team-based environment, where everyone treats one another equally. Outside of work, Tinu enjoys watching movies, listening to music and being with friends and family.

 _

Stay tuned for the announcement of our first “Nepal Team Employee of the Month” blog post in May!

Last week, our Project Manager Jenna LaGesse was on site with our client, LeadingEdge Personnel, and was told some startling news. Jenna found out one of our client’s temporary employees’ family home (which also served as their family business) burned down from a fire that broke out after the house was struck by lightning.

“They lost everything,” Vice President of LeadingEdge Personnel Patty Yarbrough said.

But there is more to the story. The fire came just three weeks after the employee had lost her Mother to a battle with breast cancer. Furthermore, the employee was 32 weeks pregnant when the fire broke out.

Needless to say, the fire came at a less than ideal time.

Patty said they decided to give the employee a $500 check, which they hoped would help her Dad and brother buy what they needed to get by. Our Project Manager Jenna was moved by this story, and reached out to us at the office to tell us what had happened. After hearing the story, Avionté (through the Avionté Hope Foundation) decided to match the $500 donation.

The employee was in tears when the folks at LeadingEdge Personnel presented her with the checks. Unfortunately, what is left of the employee’s home will need to be demolished, but we hope our donations will lead to a faster bounce back for the employee.

Some members of the LeadingEdge team, prior to going live with Avionte.