by  Brenda Long

When you’re looking for a new technology solution that will essentially run the operations of your entire staffing business, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and caught up in the small details of it all.  What companies often lose sight of and many vendors are glad they do, is ask the very important big picture questions.

There are many more questions that need to be asked when making a staffing software purchase, but these 10 definitely shouldn’t be forgotten.

1. Upgrades: How often does your average client upgrade?  How long does it take to complete the upgrade?
2. Versions: How many different version of your software are in live use?  When was your last platform change for a major release?
3. Upgrade Costs: What costs are involved in upgrading?
4. Clients: How many clients have you lost in the last 12 months?  Why?  Who are they?
5. Data: If we are hosted, how difficult will it be for me to get my data if I leave?
6. Features: What happens if we need a new feature added to the software?
7. Price Increases: How often do you raise your prices?  When was your last increase and how much?  How much warning do you give before an increase?
8. Support: When I call support, do I get a live person or voice mail system?
9. Support Costs: How do you charge for routine support calls?  What is the average ‘extra’  monthly cost to clients besides contracted license fees and maintenance fees?
10. Company: How involved are the owners in the daily operations of the company?  What type of financial backing (VC/Private) does the company have?

Finally, the most important thing to do after you have asked these 10 questions….ask their current and former customers too.

Check out our FREE webinars for June.  To register simply send us an email.

June 7, 2011  11am Central                     Advanced Search – Digging in your database

June 23, 2011 9am Central                      Candidate Management

June 28, 2011 10am Central                   QuickPlace – How and why you should be using it

Keep watching for more FREE webinars in June

By Laura Schmitz

As many of you know, I travel a lot.  I almost always rent a car and have come to some conclusions:

1.       Best City with no traffic any time of any day: Reno, NV

2.       Worst City for traffic:  Atlanta, GA by far worse than NYC or LA or Paris or London (it once took me 3 hours to go 8 miles in Atlanta on a Tuesday; I’m renting a ten-speed from now on.)

3.       Weirdest highway entrances/exits: Toss-up between NH, Milwaukee, WI and TX

4.       Nicest and most Courteous drivers: AR & OH

5.       Best Drivers (in as far as they know the rules of the road like how to merge, etc.): WA

6.       Worst Drivers possibly in the world:  My home state of MN, it doesn’t matter where you go; the Twin Cities or in the most northern rural cities, they can’t drive!

Whether you look at the passive aggressive speed monitors who hang out in the left lane at 54 mph staying right next to the guy in the right lane or the ever annoying who speed up just as they’re supposed to yield to the merge or those that simply don’t pay attention to the Road construction signs (all 10 of them in ever increasing size, blinking patterns and neon indicating a closed lane); they still wait until they’re going to run over a cone before they get over.   Keep in mind that there are 2 seasons in MN: Winter and Road Construction; so this is a good 5-6 months each year.  But what’s really got me going is a new phenomenon:  NEVER using a blinker.  I mean all of a sudden, you’re driving along and out of the corner of your eye you see a car drifting your way and lo and behold they’re in your lane about 2 inches from your bumper.  It’s maddening!  Do Minnesotans not know about this great, timeless piece of technology called a blinker that allows them to alert other drivers as to their intentions to switch lanes or take an exit or turn?  Do they think that like headlights this has gone automatic and the car just KNOWS to signal for them?  Every day I experience my heart skip a beat as I envision the 10 car pile-up that was just miraculously avoided because some moron didn’t use a blinker and without looking just veered into the next lane.

So, I do have a business parallel to talk about (thanks for letting me get all of that inner road rage off my chest).

Just like the blinker in your car, the signals you send when utilizing the technology you have invested in can be used to indicate to all the other drivers in the business where you’re going.  Software is great, I happen to think that Avionté is some of the best software out there, but if it isn’t paired with a solid base of process and procedure, it’s just like the MN driver weaving in and out of traffic like an out of control race car driver.  Without process, users don’t know how to be most efficient or effective; they become aimless drivers on the highway, nearly avoiding collision all day long.  From applicant to candidate to placement, do you have a process that everyone is following?  From prospect to customer to placing an order, do you have a process that everyone uses? Avionté has great functionality to base these processes around, and we continue to improve upon it.   Are you up to speed on everything that Avionté has to offer to enhance your everyday processes? Are there things that you’re doing that are kind of a nuisance but you have just gotten used to doing it that way or didn’t have the time to see if it could be done better?  Now is the time.   I’ve had the pleasure of visiting and working with clients in the past couple of months to do consultations and refresher training and with even just a few tweaks to process have seen companies increase their productivity and retention by utilizing what had always been there for them to use.  Please contact me today if you’d like to talk about your process, workflow and procedure to ensure you’re getting the most out of your investment but also signaling to your staff the best route to take to reach the ultimate destination: Success.

WEDDLE’s 2011 User’s Choice Awards: The Elite of the Online Employment Industry

January 25, 2011, Stamford, CT – With one out of five Americans either unemployed or underemployed, there’s never been a greater need for employment assistance. Knowing where to go to get the best support, however, can be a challenge as there are now more than 100,000 employment sites operating on the Web. WEDDLE’s 2011 User’s Choice Awards solve that dilemma.

Now in their seventh year, WEDDLE’s annual User’s Choice Awards are the only accolades in the online employment services industry in which actual users – those who are looking for employment and those who are looking for employees – are able to vote for the employment sites they think work best. “We believe customers count most,” says WEDDLE’s Publisher and CEO Peter Weddle. “While pundits will always have their favorites, it’s the people who use the sites who really know which are most helpful.”

The winners were selected in balloting conducted throughout 2010 at the WEDDLE’s Website (www.weddles.com). Thousands of unique ballots were cast and while they do not represent a scientific survey, they do recognize the intensity of support for the top thirty vote-getters – the 2011 User’s Choice Award winners. They are:

About WEDDLE’s LLC
Since 1996, WEDDLE’s (www.weddles.com) has conducted ground-breaking research among both recruiters and job seekers on the Web. Its findings are widely regarded for their analytical rigor and often cited when identifying the Best Practices in online recruitment and job search. WEDDLE’s research has been reported widely in the media, both in the United States and around the world. In addition, WEDDLE’s is the largest publisher of guides to the 100,000+ employment-related sites currently operating on the Internet. The American Staffing Association has called WEDDLE’s Publisher Peter Weddle, the “Zagat of the online employment industry.”

By Laura Schmitz

Business process directly affects customer service, employee satisfaction and the bottom line.  Even slight changes in process can increase revenue and productivity, allowing you to do more with less.  Here’s a quick check list to see if you have some processes that you can adjust today to advance and enhance all of the above.

1.      How often is the recruiting staff touching paper applications or paperwork from applicants in general?

a.      If your answer is more than once, you could improve your process.  Consider the on-line job board and application that includes automatic candidate management functions to take away the pile of paperwork and attach it electronically to your applicant and soon to be employee files.

2.      Do you have written, simple procedures for each area your business?  Is it updated and available to your staff?  If questioned, would every staff member be able to tell you the process?  If you answered no to one or all of these questions, you need to improve your process.

3.      Does your back office staff require more than a day to process payroll and billing? If your answer is yes, you could improve your process.

a.      How many people are involved in these processes?

b.      How much paper is being used? If your toner bill has increased or stayed the same, the process could be adjusted.

c.      Could the front office do time entry, avoiding time needed to inquire about rates, hours and even whether or not someone is on assignment?  Only the front office knows this, why not have them put in the hours and have the back office take it from there?

d.      Does everyone have access to the reports they need?  Do an audit of all of your reports and ask your staff what would be helpful for them to have.

4.      When was the last time your business processes were reviewed? If it’s been more than a year, you should take a look.  Technology, your clients’ processes and your employees are changing at lightening fast speed, your process needs to be ahead of the game.

5.       Is the technology available being used appropriately or even at all by your staff?  Have you shadowed various departments to see how they use the system, offered any refresher training or asked them to assess their own processes?

6.      How many screens does your staff have to open on a daily basis to perform their job(s)?  If your answer is more than three, your staff might need some refresher training to increase their productivity.

7.      Does your staff have the ability to see current employees with unemployment claims to get them back to work? If not, consider turning on this counter for them and making a process for this.

Did you know the answers to all of the questions above?  This is an indication of how well your process is as well, if you don’t know, are you sure someone else does?  Make every dollar count without sacrificing customer service or employee satisfaction and increase revenue by investing time into process improvement.  If you need to change or adjust your processes but aren’t sure where to start or just want some outside perspective, give me a call or drop me an email at laura@avionte.com.  You bought a program with all the bells and whistles; you might as well use it!

by Laura Schmitz

Many of you know by now that I am a loud and proud proponent for paperless processes and functionality.  Do I have some deep-rooted resentment for the post-it note?  A debilitating allergy to envelope glue?  A fateful and traumatizing fax incident in my past?   No, no and maybe.  In fact I have great respect for all of these things and think that each has an honored place in good ole Americana, like the Disco ball and the 8 track.  Unfortunately, just like the Walkman, they have been quickly replaced by ever-changing technologies faster than any of us who began life prior to 1995 ever thought they could be.  In fact, many of us cling to post-it notes like they offer life saving oxygen.  It’s time to move on.  Paperless is here to stay and offers the best way yet to increase productivity, improve customer service inside and out and hold our workforce accountable.  No longer should we have file drawers full of papers that you may or may not have access to or that may or may not need to be shredded.  In a paperless environment, everyone can have access to the same information, simultaneously, without the cost of toner, paper or time spent trying to un-jam a copy machine.   Decisions can be made with all the facts, bills can be paid faster, orders and assignments can matched up better and there are overall less chance for errors or wrong practices.

Usually around this point, somebody pipes up and says “That’s all great Laura, but OUR workers don’t know how to use the internet or email, our people HAVE to have their files and our candidates NEED to fill out our 100 page application”.  Really?  When was the last time you or anyone you know looked something up in the actual white pages book?  Bought and wrestled with a road map?  Filled out with a pen, your whole tax return?   Received an actual paper party invitation (I recently got an Evite to a wedding for Pete’s sake!)?

Is it that the workforce can’t or won’t go paperless or is it because you’re holding on to some shred of the past so YOU can keep the paper security blanket and what you’re familiar with?  It’s time to look in the mirror.  Paperless is a done deal and in the case of the new generation coming into the workforce the only thing they know.  If we want to sustain productive, growing businesses and industry, we have to accept that we can do pretty much everything without a scrap of paper or a pen or a highlighter.

The question is who can do it better?  At Avionté, we have developed many features and functions that eliminate and/or reduce paperwork to increase knowledge sharing, efficiency and ultimately the bottom line.  Just some examples are automated messaging, on-line billing and payroll, electronic document storage and many, many more.  So, I ask you, do you want to be the next exhibit at the Smithsonian; or do you want to be at the on-line table electronically signing the next big deal?  Let us know if you’d like to join the next generation in staffing; paperless counselors are standing by to help you. Send us an e-mail.

In the last couple of weeks I have talked with several companies that are hiring for their internal staff.  This is great news for so many reasons!  First and foremost, it’s exciting to hear that our customers are doing well!  Second, it reminds us that things are on the rebound and they will turn around; slowly maybe, but surely.

Hiring for internal staff can be one of the toughest orders you have to fill.  I remember my days as a branch manager and all the applications I would go through before I found one or two people that I wanted to bring in to interview.

The process is much like filling a temp order.  The branch manager usually pushes the order out to the Staffing Specialist, who in return submits resumes of those they feel are the most qualified (or who they really want to work with).  It’s tough to tell a staffer the person they picked out is not who you are looking for.  Unlike their dealings with a client, they will really push for a good reason why you are choosing not to interview them.  I will admit, I have caved a few times and have been happy with the results.  My lesson; trust the people you have hired to do their job.  If I trusted them with filling orders for my clients, why wouldn’t I trust them with my own staff?!  I learned they are the ones that are on the front lines and are probably not going to choose someone that will make them look bad or leave them with all the work.

After you have carefully selected the perfect person to work in your office, you must train them.  I think there are more than a few managers out there that forget this important step in the process.  Think about on-boarding the new person.  Would you skip doing their I-9?  Hopefully the answer is no.  But training IS part of the on-boarding process.  I attended a conference once that talked about how new employees perceived their new work environment.  Those who did not receive proper training start to doubt if this was the right choice and may start looking for another position.  Although the market is not as tight as it was a few years ago, it still is not easy to find great talent.

In a recent conversation with a new staffer she told me about her training process, or lack thereof.  She was told what she needed to do, but never received an explanation as to why she should do it or how it tied in to anything else.  She felt a bit like a trained monkey, repeating over and over each day the actions she was shown.  No one had time to answer her questions or help her to better understand the processes.  Soon she moved to a different job within the company, one that came with a little more instruction.  She had several ah-ha moments and started to really understand the processes.  Although she was excited and happy about her new adventure, it did make her a little sad that she wasn’t allowed to learn any of this before.  Point of the story; let your staff in on why they are doing certain things.  Don’t keep them in the dark simply because you are too busy.

Think about your current training program for new hires.

Are you…?

• Allotting the proper time for them to receive training?
• Supplying a good trainer for them?  One that is not distracted with other work during training time?
• Committed to making sure your new hire is correctly trained?
• Helping your new hire understand why you are doing things a certain way?
• Avoiding the phrase.. “I had to learn as I went, it’s good for you!”

Properly training a new employee is one of the best ROI you can have.  Take the time to do it and do it right.

by John Long