As a weak economy struggles to find its feet, both large and small companies look for ways to stay flexible and agile. Forward thinking firms want a staffing strategy that allows them to grow quickly at a moment’s notice as tides lift, but they also want to cut back if an unexpected event requires them to contract.

This tendency has a few implications for the broader economy. First, the staffing sector can be seen as a reliable indicator of coming rises and falls in employment indexes. And second, a sign of increased temporary hiring suggests that companies are about to add more permanent staff, or are looking to spend newly available capital brought on by promising lending trends and relaxed restrictions to growth.

What’s Happening in the Staffing Sector?

As it happens, the staffing sector is experiencing robust growth. Hiring rose steadily in December, continued its rise in January, gained 45,000 jobs in February and has continued to show promising numbers throughout the early spring. 

According to analyst expectations, the percentage of temps in the U.S. workforce, now at 1.86 percent, will soon pass 2 percent, exceeding its April 2000 peak. What does this mean? It means employers are reaching for flexibility. It itself, that’s not a sign of complete economic recovery, but it’s definitely a positive trend. Employers may not be ready to hire full time help at full time wages with traditional benefits, but an increase in temporary employees suggests easier credit and a strong interest in staffing positions that were previously beyond the reach of hiring budgets.

In another promising trend, staffing firms are reporting high conversion rates, or high levels of temporary employees who are later hired as permanent staff. In cautious economic times, companies can use temporary employees to stay flexible and keep hiring costs down, but they can also use temporary placement as a risk-free vetting process for new employees.

Both employers and job seekers should take note of this tendency. While temporary placement lacks the structure and potential wage growth of standard employment contracts, it allows both employer and employee the freedom and flexibility to change course when necessary. And it allows long term relationships to grow organically between hiring managers and their teams.

If you’re looking for ways to build your bottom line and expand your workforce, but you also want to stay flexible in uncertain times, contact the staffing experts at RPC and find out how we can help. Temporary or permanent, let us connect you with the qualified employees you need.

When it’s time to make salary offers to talented candidates, the stakes are typically clear. A high salary offer might attract a star applicant, but what if the offer is too high and your budget is overextended? And what if the candidate isn’t as great as he or she seems? On the other hand, lowball offers allow excellent candidates to slip away. In a nutshell, those are the basic risks and challenges managers face while determining salary compensation.

But experienced managers know that the stakes of a salary offer are sometimes a bit more complex. For example, what problems might result if you pay a star candidate considerably more than his or her coworkers? Should you be skeptical of a seemingly qualified candidate who seems willing to accept a very low offer? And is high compensation really the only foolproof way to attract and retain top talent?

Some of these questions are intangible and entirely dependent on the circumstances. But most salary compensation woes can be answered with one word: data. The answers exist. You just have to have the patience to seek them out and the willingness to do a bit of research. Keep these considerations in mind as you go forward.

1. 
Compensation for a given position is not likely to fluctuate wildly, even during a weak economy. But it will change and drift. No current salary data, no matter how accurate, can be expected to apply in a few years.

2.
Salary averages vary considerably by location and specifics like years of experience. Don’t be frightened when you see very high averages for a position you can’t afford to staff at that level. Just look closer.

3.
Review all data carefully, but don’t take it at face value. Recognize that industry averages, visits to Salary.com (an excellent resource) and conversations with your own salary consultants will leave you with a final range. But you still can, and should, adjust that range in the face of your unique circumstances and a candidate’s unique qualifications.

4.
Be careful not to expose yourself to accusations of discrimination. It may seem like a good idea to snag a talented rising star by making her an offer she can’t refuse. But if word gets out to her more modestly paid coworkers (and it will), factor in the possibility of morale problems, interpersonal friction, increased turnover, and possible lawsuits.

5.
Remember the first rule of running a business: Money is important. That means salary negotiations are important. Don’t just offer the last salary your recruiter reports regarding a similar position a week ago. And don’t just act on impulse, instinct, or budget allowance. Every hour you invest in research before making an offer is an hour well spent.

You may not be able to afford an in-house compensation expert or a high-end salary consultant, but that doesn’t mean you’re alone. Contact RPC and talk to our experienced staffing team. We can help you make sure your compensation offers are not too high and not too low, but just right for the needs of your staff and the future of your company.

The low morale around your office is becoming harder and harder to ignore. At first, you overheard a few unhappy gripe sessions around the water cooler, but you could dismiss this as the grumbling of one or two chronic complainers. Then two bad apples became five. Then one of your best employees gave notice. Was the resignation related to the grumbling? You may never know for sure.

Now a subtle undercurrent has become a constant murmur of discontent, and your most talented staff members are getting restless. More of your employees are calling in sick, the office is quiet and gloomy, and nobody is touching the sign-up sheet for the company softball team.  Worst of all, new ideas have stopped flowing. Employees are afraid to make suggestions, and they’ve become so shell- shocked and risk averse that they don’t seem to care if their projects—or the company– succeed or fail. What’s next?

Resolving a workplace morale problem can be broken down into three not-so-simple steps: Recognizing the problem in the first place, finding out why it’s happening, and making a plan to bring energy levels back to where they belong. You’ve done first, and that’s commendable. But now for the second step—identifying the root of the problem. Here are a few considerations to keep in mind.

Eliminate Workplace Morale Problems: Get to the Heart of the Matter

1. Ask questions. And make sure you’re asking the right ones. If you call employees into your office to ask them how they’re feeling and how their projects are progressing, let them address morale issues in their own words. Don’t lead your witnesses. If you do, you might not get the real story.

2. Consider the context. Has your company experienced a recent shift in top management? Are employees adapting well to the new leadership? Are they still getting all the resources they need to do their jobs? The new management may be the problem, but the loss of the old management can also sometimes leave a trail of disorientation, loss, or even grief (depending on the reason). 

3. How secure are employees feeling about their jobs? A layoff scare can have an effect that lingers for a long time, even months, after it ends. If the layoff rumors (or realities) exposed upper management as unfeeling or disloyal to its employees, the employees will remember this whether they keep their jobs or not.

4. Are any new policies or regulations causing resentment? Are employees having difficulty meeting newly established standards for performance, productivity, or behavior? The source of your morale problem may be as simple as a new dress code, or as complicated as an office of employees mourning the loss of a coworker. But before you can take steps to resolve the problem, you’ll need to find out where it lies.

For more help with office culture and workplace morale issues, contact the staffing experts at RPC. We can help you keep your workplace positive, vibrant and productive.

If you manage HR issues in a physically demanding workplace, you probably have first-hand experience with the financial, medical, and emotional cost of workplace injuries. But even in the comparatively safe environment of an air-conditioned office, workplace injuries happen every day and incur enormous annual nationwide costs for companies across every industry.

These costs affect everyone involved in the company and the community at large. Not only do workers suffer from pain, slow recovery, lost wages, and higher insurance premiums, but companies and taxpayers suffer as well. On-the-job injuries mean unstaffed positions, duty restrictions, complicated fill-ins and scheduling problems, and expensive job re-training. In the United States, the total cost of workplace injuries is estimated to exceed one billion dollars annually.

Many of these workplace injuries are unavoidable, and accidents often happen in spite of rigorous safety protocols. But a staggering number of costly on-the-job health problems are entirely preventable, especially those that can be classified as “repetitive strain injuries”. Are you taking all the steps necessary to protect both your workers and your bottom line from these kinds of injuries? Consider the following precautions and make sure your working conditions are as safe as possible.

Workplace Injury Prevention: Avoiding Repetitive Strain Injuries

1. 
Defeat repetitive strain injury by rotating tasks.

Are your workers confined to stations in which they repeat the same tasks and go through the same muscular motions for several hours at a time? If so, adjust your process so that employees can share and alter tasks throughout the day. No single employee should be repeating the same motions for more than an hour at a stretch. Every 60 minutes, have employees transfer to another set of motions in order to give tendons and muscle groups adequate time to rest and recover.

2. 
What about the desk and chair?

Most office environments replace repetitive tasks with repetitive, continuously-held positions. Sitting motionless at a desk in front of a computer may not seem taxing, but any position that’s held for too long can take a serious physical toll, if not in two years, than in ten. Make sure office workers receive training and are encouraged to stand, stretch, and relax the eyes at regular intervals throughout the day. This can ease the nerve-pinching (impingement) in the wrist that can result from continuous typing and related activities. It can also help reduce eyestrain and restore constricted circulation in the limbs.

3. 
Invest in tools and workstation design.

It’s a good idea to invest in ergonomically-designed  tools and equipment, especially for workers who spend long periods of time engaged in sustained positions or repetitive activities. Ergonomically designed equipment refers to any equipment that reduces the amount of force and strain necessary to complete a given task. Make sure employees understand how to use this equipment and are able to make the most of ergonomic designs and accommodations.

For more information on avoiding workplace injuries, contact OSHA or make an appointment to speak to the staffing and HR experts at RPC.

Succession planning is a crucial aspect of workforce development, and industry leaders across most established fields recognize this fact, no matter how they decide to prepare for future workflows. But in the IT industry, a surprising number of firms place very little emphasis on long-term staffing needs and IT workforce planning.

According to recent surveys, well over half of industry managers have no IT staffing plan in place to manage needs beyond a year in the future. Fewer than 20 percent have a two-year workforce plan in place, and a very small minority—fewer than six percent—claim to have a five year IT staffing plan.

This lack of forethought can be attributed to several likely factors. Project needs in the IT field evolve rapidly, and as project requirements expand and contract, a heavy investment in a long-term staffing roadmap may seem unlikely to pay off. IT start-ups also tend to operate on narrow margins and small operating budgets, so individual staff members often take on multiple, flexible roles. Within any given IT department or independent company, teams are often assembled on a moment’s notice to take on emerging trends and meet the fluctuating demands of the marketplace.

But it’s for these very reasons that agile IT managers need to become proactive and step out ahead of the curve when it comes to IT workforce planning.

Why Engage in Long Term IT Workforce Planning?

   1. It’s easy now. But it won’t be for long.

Take a look at your list of productivity goals for the next two, three, and five years. Now consider the productivity goals of your employers and clients. The modern IT world is driven by evolution, expansion, and interdependence. Your client’s goals will eventually shape your own, and wherever the market steers them, it will eventually steer you. As project demand proliferates and becomes more complex, make sure you have the help you need standing by.

   2. So you can weather whatever the market brings and come out ahead.

So you have the team you need right now. And as project requirements expand, you’re pretty sure your current staffing resources will stretch to fit your growing output. In fact, recent contractions and layoffs still have you reeling, and you aren’t ready to think about anything but streamlining and more streamlining to prevent those dramas in the future. But stop and think. You’ll be better able to run a lean and ready operation made of tightly knit teams if you know what lies ahead.

   3. Better IT workforce planning means better workforce management.

And when IT departments are cobbled together from teams of specialists being asked to wear different hats every day, productivity suffers. In the IT field, your most valuable form of capital is your human capital. Don’t take a sloppy approach to workforce deployment. IT workforce planning isn’t just about adding personnel—it’s about making the best use of the personnel you already have.

For more help with IT workforce planning, contact the staffing experts at RPC. No matter what the future brings, we have the experience, skills, and resources you need build and retain a competitive IT team.

You have an important position to staff, you need to do it soon, and you need to do it well. You also need to complete the hiring process in a cost effective way that doesn’t break your budget. You might get lucky; a brilliant, personable, affordable candidate might stroll in the door at any minute and allow you to cross this item off your to-do list by the end of the week. But the chances of this are low. As you already know, a successful hiring process takes hard work and careful scrutiny.

But keep in mind that along with hard work and due diligence, the hiring process also involves a few intangibles like faith, risk tolerance, and instinct. Great managers don’t just sit still and exhaustively pick apart candidates in search of a sure thing. Instead, they gather all the available facts and then they make a decision and move on.

The Hiring Process: Perfectionism vs Experience

Perfectionism can be a damaging obstacle during the hiring process. But making a choice and closing the deal can be an expensive gamble. So what’s a careful manager to do?  Experienced and inexperienced hiring managers often approach the same situation in different ways. Here are a few examples:

1. This candidate has four of the measurable requirements for the job, but not all five.

The inexperienced hiring manager: This is supposed to be an employer’s market. The economy is terrible! So my candidate pool should be exceptional. But these candidates each have one missing qualification out of the five that I need for the position. I’ll just wait. In this climate, I shouldn’t have to settle.

The experienced manager: We need a candidate who speaks fluent French; that’s non-negotiable. But “five years of experience” may be a steep expectation, considering that this is an entry-level job. Let’s re-evaluate these five requirements realistically.

2. The candidate is personable…but not quite personable enough.The inexperienced manager: She seems nice, but a bit too eager to please, if you know what I mean. Plus, I didn’t like that remark she made about my tie.The experienced manager: She showed a bit of nervous energy during the interview, but I’ve conducted many, many interviews during my career and I can tell the difference between genuine social awkwardness and a simple case of nerves.
3. The candidate is personable and completely qualified, but she comes with a few red flags.Inexperienced manager: She’s has all five requirements and she seems like a cultural match, but the recruiter sent us links to her social media profiles, and I’m skeptical about some of the things I saw.Experienced manger: My years in this field have taught me how to combine bits and bytes of information into a broad, cohesive picture of what a candidate is really like, both as worker and as a person. Sometimes my impressions are on target, and sometimes they’re a little off, but I recognize the point at which I’ve gathered enough positive data and I’m ready to roll the dice.
4. This candidate is perfect, but so are all the others.Inexperienced manager: I’m in agony. I just can’t decide. So I won’t. I’ll continue to put it off until half of these great candidates are scooped up by my competitors.Experienced manager: I can think of worse problems to have. Let’s finish this task and move on.

If you’re truly stalled, the experts at RPC can help you gather the information you need to make an informed hiring decision. Contact our office today.

When it comes to the salary negotiation process, there are volumes of helpful advice available for candidates and job seekers. Candidates are often seen as the ones with something to lose, the ones who have to shift nervously in their seats and bluster their way to a fair deal. But it’s best for negotiators on both sides of the table to remember that hiring is a two way process. Just because you’re the one offering the job doesn’t always mean you’re at an advantage.

In fact, the opposite is often true. If you’re the employer than you’re the customer in this exchange, and you wouldn’t be sitting across from this candidate if you weren’t in need of something she’s prepared to supply. Great candidates like this don’t appear every day. You don’t want to lose her, and as you enter into this long term relationship, you want to make sure you’re getting what you pay for. 

Keep these considerations in mind as the interview process draws to a close and the salary negotiation process begins.

1. 
Make things easy on yourself by appealing to a wide pool of applicants.

Be strategic about your search. Use your network, use your online resources, and consult staffing experts like the ones at RPC for advice on attracting great candidates. When it’s time to talk money, more options will mean more breathing room.

2. 
Don’t show all your cards.

Don’t reveal too much about your monetary needs in your job posting. A post commanding all applicants to submit full salary histories along with their resumes is not only transparent, it’s also scary. Good candidates won’t be attracted to struggling companies that can’t pay them what they’re worth.

3. 
Don’t jump the gun (and don’t let candidates do so either).

Don’t start talking about salary until the candidate has a complete understanding of everything the job will entail. Give her the full tour. Otherwise, she might make a low offer that she’ll want to retract when she learns more about the challenges of the position. Or she may make a high offer before realizing that this truly is her dream job and she’s willing to take a lower figure in order to get in the door. In either scenario, you risk losing her, and that’s something you don’t want.

4. 
Respect her research, but do your own.

Doing your research means more than just asking the candidate what she’s currently making. The answer she provides may or may not be true, and besides, it shouldn’t determine your destiny. For a wide variety of reasons, her previous salary may vary wildly from what she’s currently expecting.

If you’re the on the hiring side during a salary negotiation, you’re the one making the offer, and you’re the one hoping for a return on your investment. So before you open the floor to discussion, investigate online resources like HR Salary Wizard, and make sure you’ve accounted for the geographic area and the market demand for the position.

For more hiring tools and salary negotiation tips, make an appointment with the staffing experts at RPC.

Great hiring strategies are built on a few simple principles that can be applied across almost every industry. But there are also a few hiring tips that are specific to the IT field, and these simple rules can help you gain an advantage in the competition for top IT and programing talent.

1. Know Where to Look

   Who exactly do you want for this job and what should she already know how to do? Answer this question before you plaster internet jobs board with a generic posting. Your candidate is out there somewhere, but where? Where does she go to look for work? Where does she spend her time both in the real world and in cyberspace? Is she a recent or upcoming graduate, and if so, from what institution? Target your search and you’ll get better results.

2. Hire Up

   Hire employees who are better than you. Look for harder workers, more agile minds, more creative problems solvers, and all-around better people. This takes courage, which is why most hiring mangers don’t do it. They think they want strong teams, but they actually want employees who make them shine by comparison. Avoid this mistake. Instead, hire employees who make you shine because they take every opportunity to push your company forward.

3. Consider Your Culture

   Hire for the culture you have, not the culture you think you have. Even employees with stellar backgrounds won’t thrive if they aren’t a match for your existing workplace. Square pegs and round holes don’t mix, and IT hiring mangers ignore this at their peril. Find an IT pro who knows her way around a network system, but make sure she can also adapt to the demands and shortcomings of your existing social structure.

4. Ignore Irrelevant Details

   Keep an eye out for the skills and qualifications that can’t be learned in a classroom. If your applicant has these qualities, consider hiring her regardless of her degrees and work experience. And vice versa; a fancy degree doesn’t always translate to success in the real world.

5. Retain, Retain, Retain

   Once you establish traction with a talented employee, by all means hold onto her. Great IT professionals are always in demand. If you can’t provide the training, cultivation and support she needs, somebody else can, and they will. Stay on top of salary trends to make sure your pay grades are competitive, and maintain an open door policy so employees can come to you with concerns, questions, requests and new ideas.

6. Fix Your Mistakes

   All hiring managers make a poor choice now and then despite their best laid plans. To keep your team strong, take quick action by dismissing, transferring, or coaching new hires who aren’t working out. If you wait too long, a dismissal may undermine your team dynamic, if it’s possible at all. As soon as you recognize a mistake, own up, fix the problem, and move on.

For specific guidance with your IT hiring process, contact the experts at RPC and schedule a consultation.

For a small business owner, excellent customer service requires almost no overhead, very little time, and minimal financial investment. And while costing practically nothing, a great customer service policy can give a company a disproportionate leg-up on the ladder to success. 

In these challenging times, your customer service philosophy may even mean the difference between thriving growth and bankruptcy. If you haven’t taken a close look at your customer relationship strategy in a while, it may be time to conduct a review and make some necessary changes. Keep these considerations in mind as you move forward.

Customer Service: A Business Tool Based on Simple Principles

A customer service plan should accomplish two things: First, every single customer interaction you have should help you gather the information you need to shape the direction of your business. When you receive feedback of any kind, in any format, whether happy, angry, confused, elated, or curious, don’t just respond and move on. Use that feedback to inform your business strategy. A customer who wants better options, more flavors, special discounts, or easier returns is actually a business professor in disguise. She’s a mentor who can help you gain valuable information about your target audience. Listen carefully to what she has to say.

Second, satisfied customers come back. And they represent something that’s worth more than gold to business owners: word-of-mouth advertising. In earlier times, word-of-mouth travelled from person to person, one conversation at a time. But in the internet age, one review can be read by thousands of potential customers in an instant. Strong customer feelings now have unprecedented power to make or break small businesses. Do what you must to make sure those strong feelings are positive.

A Few Helpful Customer Service Tips
 
Keep communication channels easy and open. Make sure customers know exactly where to find you and how to make their feelings and desires known.

Control confusion. Speak to customers with clarity and confidence. Nothing makes a communication problem worse than halting dialogue, unfulfilled promises, or an employee who doesn’t know enough about the business.

Be friendly, be patient and be kind. We learned these rules in kindergarten and they still apply. If your customer service reps have trouble with this, act decisively. Replace them, or get them the training and coaching they need.

Listen. Again, an angry customer isn’t just an angry customer. She’s a free lesson. She can teach you volumes about the needs and expectations of your target audience. But her lessons will only have value if you keep your ears open. 

For more information and small business management advice, contact the experts at RPC and arrange a consultation today.

Here’s a common dialogue between two managers making a final hiring decision:

 Manager A: How about this one?

 Manager B: I like her confidence. And she has an impressive background. Look at her education! She has more  letters after her name than I do, that’s for sure.

 Manager A: She wants to join this team as a junior member, but she’s managed entire teams far bigger than  this one. Her most recent salary was 20,000 dollars more than what we’re offering. I wonder why she would  apply here?

 Manager B: I think it’s obvious. She needs work. But when she gets in the door, she’ll probably be bored  and unhappy. And I bet she won’t take orders or criticism very well. I don’t want her showing me up in  front of the team. I’m only 29, and this is my first real job in management. She makes me nervous.

 Manager A: Me too. There’s something suspicious about this. I know she needs work, but why here? It might  be easier to just choose this recent graduate. Or, hey, how about this guy? He has no experience at all and  he’s willing to work for almost nothing.

 Manager B: We can definitely afford that. High five!

If this conversation sounds familiar to you, you’re not alone. Hiring managers all over the country are seeing the effects of an imbalanced job market, which often means an applicant pool flooded with overqualified candidates. While experienced employers tend to take this in stride and respond appropriately, weaker hiring managers can easily become overwhelmed or confused by candidates with curiously strong qualifications.

Don’t let this happen to you. And don’t dismiss valuable talent or let your personal fears undermine the success of your company. If you spy an excellent, possibly overqualified candidate in your pool, take these steps before you make a final decision:

Ask questions. Don’t just assume an overqualified candidate will get bored and leave in a week.  Ask her to describe her long term plans and goals. You might find out that she’s pursuing passion instead of money, or that she’s decided to make a mid-life career shift. She has her reasons for making this decision. It’s a good idea to find out what they are before you act. 

Don’t be afraid of her. That’s just plain silly. Good managers place the interests of the company ahead of their own, and if an overqualified candidate has the ability to move the company forward, don’t pass on that opportunity because you fear she might show you up.

Consider her personality. Obviously, she can handle the requirements of the position. But is she a good match for your culture? Will she fit in well and be easy to get along with? Answer honestly. And if she’s likable, friendly and great at what she does, stop overthinking and act before your competitors do.

For more guidance with the candidate selection process, contact RPC and schedule a consultation with our staffing experts.