Provisional Blog

Trust is essential when building a healthy and productive work environment.  Whether you’re leading an entire department or work hand in hand with a just a few coworkers it’s important to build trusting relationships.

Here are several tips to help trust both with coworkers and your superiors:

• Follow through on commitments.  The easiest way to lose someone’s trust and confidence is to let them down.  Make sure you meet your commitments and don’t set deadlines you can’t meet.
• Be honest and share information completely. Be straightforward and honest with everyone and expect the same in return.
• Stand up for what you believe in.  If you feel strongly about an issue, make sure you voice your opinion–but be sure you can share some evidence to support your view.
• Be open to the ideas of others. Don’t dismiss an idea simply because it doesn’t align with what you had in mind.  Take everyone’s feedback into consideration before making a final decisions and let other’s be heard.
• Learn from your mistakes.  Mistakes will happen, and when they do, own up to them.  Taking responsibility and developing a process to ensure the same mistake isn’t repeated is a great way to build trust.

By fostering a workplace of trust, you’ll discover that employees are more engaged, productive and efficient.  You’ll also discover that work ethics improve and turnover will drastically decrease.

What business isn’t looking to control expenses? Staffing and recruiting firms offer many effective solutions for reducing overhead, managing operating costs and improving organizational performance.  Used effectively, staffing services can save you more than they cost.

 Here are some key ways you can use staffing to reduce costs in your organization:

Convert fixed expenses to variable.
Develop a plan to staff your business strategically. Minimize the number of permanent employees on your staff to the level needed to sustain your core volume of work. Proactively plan to bring in extra help when it’s needed.

Bring in expertise on an as-needed basis.
Temporaries can deliver the experience and skills you need without impacting fixed expenses. As an added benefit, temporary “experts” are often less expensive than consultants.

Lower benefits costs.
Limit benefits expense by using temporary employees. Most temporary employees receive only limited benefits which are paid by the temporary staffing service. Companies with extensive benefits programs may not want to offer full benefits to all employees. Using a temporary staffing, payrolling or employee leasing service may make it possible to offer more limited and cost effective benefits programs to these employees.

Eliminate overtime.
Use temporary employees to reduce the amount of overtime worked by your permanent staff.

Reduce training costs.
Reduce training costs and learning curves by bringing in temporary employees who are trained and have experience using the skills you need.

Streamline recruiting.
Use a permanent placement service to eliminate the cost and time involvement associated with advertising, screening resumes, interviewing, testing and reference checking applicants.

Lower payroll expenses.
Eliminate the costs associated with processing and administering your company’s payroll and benefits by using a payroll or employee leasing service.

Reduce unemployment claims.
Using a temporary in place of a short-term employee prevents an unemployment claim from affecting the client company.  Legally, payrolled or leased employees work for the company providing the payrolling or employee leasing service. All claims affect the staffing service’s unemployment rating, not yours.

Eliminate operating inefficiencies.
Inefficient functions can be outsourced to services that can perform the work more effectively. The outsourcing service should be able to reduce expenses and improve performance while allowing your company to focus on its core competencies.

Develop a Strategic Staffing Plan for Your Organization
At Provisional Recruiting and Staffing, we help clients evaluate their current workforce and develop a strategic staffing model to help lower overall employment costs and access the skilled talent they need.  Discover more about Provisional’s staffing solutions for employers throughout Spokane and beyond.

Having the right tools at your disposal can make hiring a lot easier—and a lot more successful.  Here is a quick overview of different assessments tools you can use, beyond the basic job interview:

Qualifications Screens – simple questionnaires determine if an applicant has the minimum requirements to perform a job (availability, minimum age, years of related experience, etc.).

Job Simulations / Work-Sample Tests – These require the candidate to actually demonstrate or perform job tasks. Simulations may be conducted: as written tests, as role-playing exercises, on a computer, or even in real-life conditions. By design, they generally show a high degree of job-relatedness.

General Abilities Tests – Generally used for entry-level jobs or for applicants without advanced degrees. They measure broad mental abilities such as reasoning, quantitative, verbal, and spatial abilities.

Specific Ability Tests – Test for distinct mental and physical abilities, such as typing speed, reading comprehension, strength, and mechanical aptitude.

Knowledge and Skills Tests – Determine how much an individual knows about a very specific, advanced subject area such as software programming or mortgage laws. Knowledge tests are similar to specific ability assessments, but examine more sophisticated skills.

Talent Measures / Personality Inventories – Measure a candidate’s natural personal characteristics like: leadership and management skills; problem-solving ability; motivation; self-confidence; and communication styles.

Culture Fit Inventories -  Assess how well an applicant will fit into your corporate culture and work environment, to help ensure organizational commitment.

Background Investigations – Gather information from outside sources, such as former employers and police records. Employment, criminal record, and reference checks all help employers avoid potentially catastrophic hires.

Drug Screens – Use a physical specimen from the candidate (hair, urine, etc.) to determine past drug or alcohol use. Employers use drug screens to prevent industrial accidents, work-related injuries, and excessive absenteeism.

If you would like more information about any of the above assessments please contact our offices today.