In fact, more and more small and mid-size businesses are streamlining their staffing & HR functions by outsourcing  hiring, firing, and/or benefits administration tasks to staffing firms, like Provisional.

Why?

Because they’re hoping to save money in the process. According to a recent poll by the Society of Human Resource Management, 26% of companies cited saving money as the main reason for outsourcing.

So besides cost savings, what are some other benefits outsourcing your staffing and HR responsibilities can offer you?

Get More Bang for Your Buck.

When you outsource staffing and HR, you get more value. Instead of paying one internal person to handle these tasks, you pay a firm that can offer you access to a whole team of staffing and HR experts.

Reduce Your Liability.

A Northwest staffing firm is going to be up to date on the latest legislation and regulations, along with what’s coming down the pike, so you don’t have to be. When it comes to hiring, they can make sure you’re in compliance with employment laws, healthcare laws, and other HR-related government regulations that can impact your business. This is a particularly valuable benefit considering the staggering number of laws businesses must comply with.

Increase Your Productivity.

It’s hard to handle your daily priorities when you have to spend a lot of time on recruiting and hiring. But when you work with a Northwest staffing firm, they can handle all the recruiting and hiring work, so you can get more done.

Ready to Say Good-Bye to Your Staffing Hat?

If you are, let Provisional know. As one of the leading Northwest staffing agencies, we can handle all your recruiting and staffing challenges, so you can focus on running your business. Contact Provisional today to learn more.

In fact, there have been several recent court cases regarding this very issue.

In one case, a female employee quit because a male colleague received a promotion she believed she was qualified for. The promotion was never advertised, so she wasn’t aware it existed. So she sued her former employer, alleging sexual discrimination.

The employer countered that there was no discrimination since she never applied for the job and therefore could not have been considered. But the court disagreed and said that she couldn’t have applied for the promotion because it wasn’t advertised and therefore she could in fact sue the employer over the missed opportunity (Culver v. CCL Label, No. 10-5353, 6th Cir., 2012). The female employee eventually lost the case, but not after her former employer spent a considerable sum of money defending itself against the initial legal action, along with a lengthy appeal process.

And to think, this could have all been avoided through one simple action – advertising the promotion.

As one of the leading Northwest staffing agencies, we can tell you that even though you’re not required by federal law to post opportunities for promotions, it’s really in your best interest to do so in order to avoid a potential legal claim. And remember, even if you’re innocent of any wrongdoing, the legal representation you’ll need to hire in order to prove it will get expensive…fast. But when you advertise a promotion – along with minimum job requirements – no one can sue you over a lost opportunity.

In addition, besides helping you avoid legal claims, posting all promotions just makes good business sense. Why? Because it demonstrates to your employees that you offer equal access to opportunity, enhancing employee morale and loyalty in the process.

The reason?

As one of Spokane, Washington’s top staffing firms, we know that over the past few years, many employees have been expected to work more hours, without getting paid more, in order to keep their companies afloat in a rough economy. And now some employees are striking back in the court of law, seeking payment for increased hours and/or more demanding responsibilities.

In fact, in 2011, the number of employees suing their employers under federal and state wage-and-hour laws increased by 32% since 2008.

And unfortunately, in the age of smart phones and tablets, it’s easier than ever for your employees to work overtime, without you really knowing it. What’s worse is that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which governs wage and overtime, was written in 1938 – and seems vastly outdated for issues facing today’s working world.

So until new legislation is created or old legislation is cast out, what can you do to protect your company from a wage-and-hour lawsuit filed by an employee?

Here are some suggestions:

Make sure workers are classified properly.

The Department of Labor offers descriptions of job titles and duties to help ensure your workers are all properly classified as exempt or non-exempt employees. Other classifications include interns, trainees, volunteers, independent contractors, and temporary employees.

Create a policy regarding overtime and be sure to enforce it.

If part of your policy prohibits employees from working past certain hours, and you receive an email from one of them during those hours, then notify and reprimand the employee, and also document the violation. This documentation will be valuable if a lawsuit is ever filed.

Take note.

Don’t just blindly sign time sheets without looking through them. Make sure overtime hours are authorized. If they’re not, then notify the employee and again, be sure to document the violation.

The bottom line is that we live in a litigious society. So to ensure your company is well protected, it’s important to be pro-active, rather than simply hoping against hope that an employee lawsuit isn’t coming down the pike in the near future. And should you have any specific legal questions regarding overtime issues, be sure to consult with your attorney.

Great leaders do two things really well – they build relationships (with co-workers, subordinates, managers, clients, vendors, and industry connections) and they drive results (increase sales, cut costs, improve productivity, etc.).

With those two attributes in mind, here are 10 questions to ask candidates when you’re looking to hire for a leadership position:

1. Tell me about a time when you had to persuade a group of people to buy into your idea.
2. Describe a conflict you were involved in at work. How did you resolve the conflict?
3. When you have entered a new situation (new job, promotion, etc.) in the past, explain how you have gone about meeting and developing relationships with your new co-workers, supervisors, and subordinates.
4. What would your past employees/subordinates say about working for you?
5. Tell me about a time when your team faced a challenging outlook. How did you motivate them and rally their support?
6. What accomplishment are you most proud of? What was the process like in achieving it?
7. Tell me about a time when you failed as a leader. What happened and what did you learn?
8. Tell me about a time you faced an unexpected problem and how you solved it.
9. What do you think you can contribute to this position? And this company?
10. What are the most important values and traits you demonstrate as a leader?

Bonus Question:

• What is your definition of a leader?

If you’d like some additional help hiring leaders for your company, then let us know. As one of the top staffing agencies in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, we specialize in identifying, attracting, and recruiting top-tier professionals to create strategic management teams with the experience, vision, and character to improve business performance. Contact us today to learn more.

But getting those top performers to come join your team isn’t as easy as posting an ad in the classifieds. You’ve got to take a targeted approach; one that focuses on helping you get the exact employee you want.

To help you, here are 9 ideas:

1. Get to know the kind of candidate you’re looking for (social media savvy Gen Y-er, extroverted sales producer, detail oriented administrative assistant, etc.), understand their needs, and appeal to those needs in your recruiting efforts.

2. Go outside the box when looking for talent. For instance, semi-retired workers, moms just returning to the workforce, veterans exiting the military, and career shifters are typically untapped pools of talent.

3. Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal candidate. Where would they hear about you? What message would appeal most to them?

4. Look for help from educational institutions. For instance, vocational and technical schools can give you access to new graduates with a variety of skills.

5. Put real employees in your recruiting ads. Everything you say about your company will be taken with a grain of salt by candidates. However, if you have a picture of an actual employee with comments about how great it is to work for your company, then you’re more likely to make a positive impression on candidates.

6. Focus on advantages. Don’t just list all the tasks and responsibilities the job entails; focus on the advantages of working for your company. Sell the opportunity.

7. Advertise in different places. Rather than advertising your job openings in the same places, consider different avenues. For instance, place recruitment messages in billings/invoices for customers.

8. Investigate offering a flexible work schedule. If you don’t currently offer benefits like flex time or telecommuting, you could be turning away an entire pool of potential talent who are more interested in working for companies that offer a flexible work schedule.

9. Work with one of the top staffing agencies in Spokane, Washington. Hiring just the right person for a position takes a lot of time, which you may not have at the moment. If that’s the case, then consider outsourcing the hiring process to a staffing agency. They can source, recruit, screen, interview, skill test and verify backgrounds on your behalf and then send you only the most qualified candidates from which to choose.

If you’re interested in learning more about how a staffing agency can help you, give us a call. Provisional Recruiting & Staffing Services has been a trusted source of quality personnel and staffing programs for over 15 years in the Inland Northwest. Learn more now.

Hiring mistakes.

A cheap hiring process will likely result in poor quality candidates. Therefore, your risk of making expensive hiring mistakes goes up dramatically.

Quality is overlooked.

When you’re hiring, especially for an important position, recruiting top-notch candidates is going to take some time and money. But when you’re trying to get the job done as inexpensively as possible, you won’t be able to reach them because you’ll be too focused on how much everything costs.

ROI isn’t considered.

Yes, it will cost you more upfront to hire a quality candidate. However, that candidate will most likely deliver a much higher return on investment in the form of better productivity and better results. Looking back, that expensive cost per hire will seem like a bargain.

Cost cutting turns top candidates off.

When you have second-rate recruitment materials, you’re sending the message – whether you realize it or not – that you’re trying to cut costs, which isn’t exactly going to entice top candidates to want to work for you.

Obviously, in a perfect world, you could spend all the time and money you need to find the best candidates. Unfortunately, in this world, that’s simply not the case. And cost needs to be considered when you’re hiring, otherwise you’d go broke in the process.

That said, to hire the best you do need to invest some resources. So if your boss is putting the pressure on you to cut costs, then demonstrate how current top performers are delivering high returns on investment. Hopefully, he or she will see that the investment will pay off in the end.

And if you’d like some help with your hiring process, let us know. As one of the leading staffing firms in Spokane, we’ve been matching specialized talent with great companies since 1994.

Learn more now about how we can help you find top talent.

It’s possible, according to a recent court case.

A medical technologist in Virginia, along with several of her co-workers, complained to the firm’s COO that their supervisor was regularly altering time sheets in order to avoid showing overtime that the employees had worked. As you probably know, this is a direct violation of the FLSA. Shortly after, the medical technologist was fired, with the firm stating that there was “too much conflict with (her) supervisors and the relationship just (wasn’t) working.”

So the medical technologist sued, alleging that she’d been fired as retaliation for making an FLSA complaint. Her formed employer countered in court that she had not made a formal FLSA complaint, instead making an informal, internal, verbal complaint. Therefore, she wasn’t protected under FLSA. The lower court agreed and dismissed the complaint.

However, an appeals court has now reversed that decision, citing a Supreme Court case decision that ruled a verbal complaint was protected under FLSA if “it’s sufficiently clear … for a reasonable employer to understand it … as an assertion of rights under the statute.” The case is now back in the lower court and will likely result in a drawn out – and expensive – legal battle.

In addition, in early 2012, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division released a fact sheet, providing general information about the prohibition of retaliation against an employee who files a complaint under FLSA. The fact sheet states that employees are protected regardless of whether the complaint is oral or in writing.

The lesson here?

For employers, even the most casual mention of a wage-and-hour dispute may qualify as a claim. In addition, any disciplinary action, including termination, could be viewed as retaliation in the court of law.

Therefore, as one of Spokane, Washington’s leading employment agencies, we know that in order to protect your company, it’s important to implement a strict policy requiring documentation of ALL complaints, both written and verbal. If you are taken to court, having this kind of strongly enforced policy in place – and the documentation to back it up – will only add to your credibility in front of a judge and jury.

Sound familiar?

The problem with this approach, though, is that there are orders to be filled and customers to service. So if you actually are experiencing an uptick, but don’t want to commit to hiring full time, what can you do? To help you increase capacity…not costs, here are some ideas to consider:

Educate.

• Make your employees aware of the numbers. Explain to them where you are in terms of productivity and where you need to be. Tell them how they each fit into that equation.
• Offer continuing education or training programs that enable employees to enhance their skill set to fill a gap.
• Train your supervisors on productivity tools and techniques.

Offer rewards.

• Incentivize teams to meet certain productivity goals by offering tangible rewards.
• Incentivize individuals to increase their own productivity, again by offering tangible rewards.
• Ask employees for ideas on how to increase productivity, cut costs, and streamline processes. Create a program that rewards the top three ideas.

Modify schedules.

• Ask employees to come in ½ hour early each day or stay ½ hour later.
• Increase productivity by allowing employees to work overtime.
• Reduce sick days and vacation time.
• Cut down on meeting time.

Get help.

• Evaluate every process and procedure and eliminate low-value work. Where possible, outsource those tasks to vendors.
• Bring in contract consultants for projects requiring a specialized skill set.
• Tap into the power of temporary staffing to cover peak periods, vacation time, sick or maternity leave, or seasonal demands.

And if you’d like to get more done with the help of temporary workers, let us know. As one of the top temporary staffing agencies in Spokane, Washington, we can give you access to the people you need, when you need them. Learn more now.

As one of the top staffing agencies in the Northwest, we know this scenario has happened to many employers. They rely on ineffective and outdated recruiting and interviewing techniques – and then pay the price after they hire the wrong person.

The reason that many of the these techniques prove insufficient are varied, including:

• Interviewers going with their “gut” when they hire someone.
• Many interviewers aren’t properly trained to conduct job interviews.
• Many job candidates exaggerate their experience or skill set to get the job.

So how can you avoid making these same mistakes – and hire high caliber talent who can hit the ground running? Here are some steps to take:

Do your homework.

Make sure you understand the key elements of the job before conducting any interviews. If you don’t, work with other employees who are in similar positions or who are familiar with the necessary responsibilities. Screen resumes and develop standardized questions for all candidates based on this knowledge.

First impressions count.

The most talented professionals are going to have their choice between job opportunities. So you should be looking to make a favorable impression on them during the interview process, starting with the moment they walk through the company doors.

Ask a mix of questions.

To give all candidates a fair chance, interviews should follow a structured format that is the same for each one. During the interview you should be asking a mix of both behavioral- and situation-based questions.

Some examples include:

Situational:

Example #1: What would you do if your boss asked you to lie for him or her?

Example #2: What would you do if you found out an employee was stealing?

Behavior-based:

Example #1: Tell me about a time when you took a risk and it paid off.

Example #2: Give me an example of a time when you faced a major crisis or challenge at work. How did you handle it?

Evaluate people skills.

People skills are tough to evaluate during an interview. Just like on a date, candidates are putting their best foot forward and aren’t necessarily showing their true colors. But understanding who they are – their personality and motivations – can help you significantly improve the hiring process. One way to do that is by conducting personality profiles of a few select candidates. Through these, you’ll get a better sense of a candidate’s behaviors, attitude, interpersonal skills and how they will interact with customers and co-workers.

And if you’d like some help with the hiring process, just give us a call. As on of the top staffing agencies in the Northwest, Provisional specializes in identifying, attracting and recruiting top-tier professionals to create strategic leadership teams with the experience, vision and character to improve business performance. Contact us today to learn more.

The good news is that, as one of the top staffing services firms in Spokane, Washington, we know that creating an employee handbook isn’t rocket science. There are a few steps you can take to streamline the process, while also ensuring your employees have access to the information they need.

Here’s a look:

Step #1: Use clear language.

Some employers have a tendency to write out their employee manuals as complex legal documents, only decipherable by highly trained attorneys. The problem with this is that the handbook is for your employees – and unless your company is a law firm, this approach won’t get you anywhere. So be succinct and use everyday language.

Step #2: Include policy information first.

Most questions from employees typically revolve around policy issues – like health care benefits, holidays the office is closed, vacation and bereavement time, sick leave, and payroll procedures. So put that information first so it’s easy to access.

Step #3: Communicate your expectations.

Use your handbook to outline important work rules, such as rules of conduct, dress code, terms of probation or termination, and policies relating to electronic communications and confidential information. Although most employees don’t like to read about causes for termination, it’s much worse for you if you don’t inform them of your expectations, before an issue arises. In addition, employees come from a variety of work environments and it’s important to define your standards to ensure consistency in your particular work environment.

Step #4: Don’t forget the legal stuff.

Use your employee handbook as the place to put important legal information, such as how to file a complaint and the company’s policies on sexual harassment, discrimination, and workplace violence. You may want to work with your attorney or an HR expert in order to iron out the details.

Step #5: Don’t let fear of forgetting a detail stop you.

Keep in mind that your handbook is a work in progress; it will go through many changes in the future, but you have to start somewhere to get anywhere.

And if you need help creating your employee handbook, give us a call. As one of the top staffing services firms in Spokane, Washington, we can take some of the hassle out of your staffing and HR duties, so you can focus on running your company.