When it comes to corporate planning, establishing corporate goals and strategies, and maintaining employee morale, initiatives that focus on new employees – hiring and orientation programs – get little attention, according to a recent study.  The study looked at 50 large businesses in the United States.

Business experts said companies need to improve in this area.  One of the most essential elements of the long-range performance of a company is introducing employees to the corporate culture and to the outlook of the company.  Many companies look at this process as more of a chore than anything else, but they should look at it as an opportunity, according to business experts.  It is an opportunity to help new employees hit the ground running, to prepare them for their work at the company, and to inform them about the ways they can help the company reach its goals.

Companies that established effective hiring and orientation procedures had better employee morale and outperformed others financially, according to the study.  The study showed that 65 percent of the firms that had motivated employees provided training to their managers in interviewing techniques.  Companies with more motivated employees also spent more time getting the workers ready for their new jobs.  These firms spent an average of 35 weeks on such preparations, compared to only 15 weeks for companies that had employees with lower morale.

Other studies have also shown that helping to motivate employees and putting effective recruiting procedures in place also helped businesses financially.  These studies established a strong correlation between the financial situation of a company and the morale of its employees.  In a large corporation, a sizeable change in employee morale resulted in an increase of about $95 million in earnings.  Studies also showed that companies that filled positions more quickly – within one month – had a much better financial situation than those who took longer.

Business experts argue that having effective hiring and orientation programs is cost effective.  In order to implement these programs, no big changes are required.  It is mostly a matter of improving the channels of communication between managers and employees.
One very potent technique for improving employee morale, interest and involvement in their jobs is to tell them why they were hired.  More than half the firms that achieved outstanding financial results gave an explanation to employees of why they were hired.  In contrast, almost three-fourths of firms with poor financial results did not talk to employees about the reasons for their employment with the company.

Providing such an explanation establishes a bond between the new employee and the company and gives them a better idea of what the company is looking for from them and how they can use their skills, according to business experts.

If you’d like more strategies on how to best “onboard” your new employees for your Bay Area firm, contact Bayside Solutions. We can offer solutions that have worked for other companies and we can help you source, vet and place qualified and reliable workers for your temporary, contract and direct-hire assignments. We look forward to hearing from you.

If you’ve ever wondered what workforce planning is and if your business needs it, this article is for you.

Actually, this article is the first of a two-part series on strategic workforce planning. This article will describe what workforce planning is, while next week’s post will discuss if your company should create and implement a strategic workforce plan.

A strategic workforce plan basically is the plan and process in which a business makes sure it has enough workers with the right skills at the right time, whenever needed.

Most companies tend to think of workplace planning in terms of employees, but that’s really too narrow a definition. Instead, think of it in terms of “talent.” That is, your workforce plan can take into account temporary workers, free-lancers, partnerships and, of course regular, full-time employees.

You also should think of what kind of soft and hard skills you need in these workers. What kind of education do they need, what kind of personality works best at the different tasks you need done? What kind of backgrounds and experiences are critical to your success?

In addition, no workforce plan is complete if you don’t think ahead and ascertain what could happen should you not find the right workers when you need them. You also should consider what could happen if you can’t find enough of the right kind of workers. Or what could happen to your business if you find the right kind of workers, but you don’t put them where they’re most needed.

Naturally, any strategic workforce plan you craft should be in alignment with your company’s vision and strategic plan. Which means you also should identify the most critical of your workforce needs. These are the workers that, if not in place, would mean disaster for your business.

Contact Bayside Solutions when you’re ready to create a strategic staffing plan for your Bay Area company. We have many flexible staffing solutions we can offer your company and we’d be honored to demonstrate how using our staffing service can help your company become more agile and profitable. Contact us today!

Business cycles ebb and flow, yet keeping a highly-paid professional employee on your payroll when things are slow may not be the best use of your company’s payroll dollars.

Instead, consider using professional temporary professionals — think attorneys, financial analysts, marketing directors, even CEOs — to help you when the good times roll, but you’re concerned they may last just a few weeks.

The use of high-level professional temporaries is showing considerable growth. An article on MSNBC.com in January reported that a large international staffing services firm placed “placed more than 100 people — including lawyers and scientists — in interim stints that paid more than $250,000 a year.” The article reported that a large executive staffing firm that its “roster of 1,000 executives has done jobs at companies like mobile-phone content provider Fox Mobile, health care company Healthways, and private equity firm Carlyle Group.” The executive staffing firm said that  “client demand rose 50 percent in 2009,” the MSNBC.com article stated.

So when you have a critical member of your executive or management team absent from your company due to resignation, maternity leave or illness — or even if you need an experienced project manager to get you through that bid you just won that requires completion in just three months, contact  Real Street Staffing for just-in-time executive, scientific, technical, project management, and other professional-level workers.

You don’t want to wait –  leaving such critical positions to remain empty can leave your company vulnerable, especially during crunch times.

Bringing a high-level temporary CEO, manager, scientist, project manager, UNIX administrator, etc. will help you stay the course while you search for a replacement for a departing executive. Some high-level temporaries also are looking for a regular position, so you both could try “each other out” while you work to fill the position. Other executive contract workers enjoy “temping” too much to go back to a regular position, but having one there in the interim can keep your company on an even keel while you search.

You’ll also be able to avoid costly mistakes. Too many companies take a nosedive in productivity, sales and profits when an important executive or management position is left empty. Workers begin to take it easy, projects get put on the backburner, and so on. Yet having someone around to lead a company, even if it’s only for a little while, can help keep your company moving in the right direction — forward.

Look to Bayside Solutions when you need help sourcing critical members of your executive or management teams. As one of San Francisco’s premier staffing agencies, we know how to source and screen top employees for your firm. Contact us today; we look forward to serving you.

Turnover happens. Whether your company is large or small or somewhere in between, employees leave. Some businesses experience a turnover that’s slow and steady, with employees leaving only because the commute is too long, there’s no room for advancement, their spouse has a terrific new job 200 miles away, etc.

But for some companies, employee turnover is almost a constant churn. This can be quite expensive, since the cost of hiring a new employee often can be at least 50 percent of a worker’s annual salary.

And that doesn’t even count the amount of money and/or productivity lost because the other employees must fill in and do some or all of the departed worker’s tasks until a replacement is found.

Here are some ideas to help cut down on employee turnover:

Are you paying your employees fairly? Are they receiving at or above the rate of pay other companies in your industry and geographical area pay their employees?

If you can’t raise salaries, try beefing up some other on-the-job benefits such as giving more vacation time, starting flex time and/or job sharing.  For those employees who do mostly desk work, think about starting a telecommuting program. Reward those employees with perfect attendance with one or more days off. Think about starting a job sharing program

Make sure you reward your employees for doing outstanding work. Be sure to acknowledge their accomplishments publicly. Merit pay can be a terrific way to keep good employees.

Promote from within. Strive to make sure every single position in your company has a place to which an employee may “move up;” don’t let any job be considered a “dead end.”

Seriously consider offering to pay a portion of continuing education expenses, particularly for college.

No matter how great a place your company is, you will experience turnover. To help fill in the skill gap while you search for departing employees’ replacements, look to Bayside Solutions to help. We can bring in terrific temporary employees for companies in the construction, manufacturing, green, scientific and other technical industries in the San Francisco area. Contact us today.

As the economy shows signs of improving, you may start thinking of bringing on additional regular employees.

Here are some tips to help you decide if it is indeed the “the right time to hire.”

People are getting “testy.” Overwork will do that to a team. Once calm and composed people can turn sullen and morose, even curt. If you start hearing that employees are increasingly becoming short — and even rude — to customers, or that they’re starting to miss deadlines, calling in sick more and more, etc. it may be time to add another employee or two to help lighten the load.

News of expansion or more clients  normally is happy news. But if you and your team hear of new sales that will bring increased revenue as well as extra demands and you and your team members express concern about meeting the increase in workload, it may be time to bring more employees on board.

You notice that even your best employees are missing deadlines and/or not performing at the normal high level. Work loads may have become so burdensome that deadlines that were expected even just a few months ago have become impossible to meet.

Is just about everyone staying late on a regular basis? It may be time to bring in more hands.

Are managers doing the work of their staff members — work they normally wouldn’t do — in addition to performing their own job functions?

It may not be necessary to hire full-time, regular employees onto your payroll. Bayside Solutions can provide San Francisco-area companies with skilled employees on a temporary, temp-to-hire or even direct-hire basis when business picks up. This will help you ascertain whether you need these employees temporarily or if it truly is time to bring new workers onto your payroll. Contact us today.

We’ve all done it: hired someone who just turned out to be truly awful employee or, at the least, someone who never moved above mediocre.

Here are five common mistakes just about every hiring manager has committed, and tips on how to avoid them.

During an interview, stop talking! The point of an interview is to get to know the job candidate talking, not to hear the soothing sounds of your own voice. Listen 80 percent of the time and you’ll learn a lot of valuable information about your candidate. Watch how she responds to your question about why she left her previous employer. Note how he perks up when he talks about how he’s read your annual reports for the past five years and learned that you doubled in size in that time and then baldly states he wants to work for a winning company just like yours! You also may want to consider using behavioral interview techniques so that you can learn how your candidate handled challenges and opportunities in previous jobs.

Be sure the candidate is very clear regarding the job’s duties and expectations. Will she be expected to travel two days a week in her sales job? Does the PR person need to pitch to X number of media professionals a week? Will the administrative assistant report to two or three managers? This helps clear up any misconceptions about the job (she thought she traveled two times a month; he thought he would be supporting a group of five directors, etc.)

Don’t place so much emphasis on the  first interview. Aim to take your first impression of a candidate more lightly than you probably are inclined to do. Realize that many people who interview can end up not being a good employee. In addition many people get very nervous during interviews and clam up. That awfully “nice” and “quiet” person could become quite testy once he’s been on the job a few weeks. Meanwhile, many truly shy people can sometimes be quite wonderful contributors to your company’s success.

Aim for several interviews (at least two) before making your choice. See if you can get others to sit with the candidate as well. You also may want to give some personality tests to see if a person’s talk matches her true personality. For example, regarding sales positions: some experienced interviewees can be very gregarious during an interview but then clam up when facing sales prospects. Test for the correct sales personality.

In addition, be aware that there’s a dark side to every positive personality trait. A “caring” person can go overboard and become too involved with office personalities. Conversely, someone who’s proud of her “I get the job done” trait could become so pushy around others as she strives to complete tasks that she alienates her co-workers.

Ask the exact same questions of each candidate for the same position. This way you’ll be able to compare candidates using the same criteria. You’ll be better able to compare candidates’ strengths and weaknesses. Develop a ranking/rating system for your interview process.

Let Bayside Solutions take the often tedious, lengthy and highly subjective interview process off of your to-do list. Our Bay Area staffing firm can bring you skilled and professional workers for temporary, temp-to-hire and direct hire assignments with just a phone call. We look forward to hearing from you.

As you enter the salary negotiation portion of the interview process with your top candidate, your job is to hire the person at a fair wage for her talents and experience that also stays within your budget.

Here are some tips to help you do so:.

1) You should know in advance the salary standards for your industry and your location. If you don’t already know this, contact businesses in your region similar to yours and ask for their salary structure for different positions.

2) Set a number over which you will not go. Give yourself a ceiling after you figure how much you can spend on salaries and benefits. If you find a great employee you believe will ask for more, you should leave yourself a bit of wiggle room, but a ceiling will help prevent you from wasting time on candidates who are too expensive, no matter how wonderful they are.

3) Remember that salary negotiation is about more than money. If your terrific candidate truly wants and expects more than you can truly afford, offer more paid time off, stock options, perhaps even a signing/retention bonus (this is a one-time hit to your budget, rather than one that occurs week after week). An attractive benefits package can go a long way to attracting and keeping great employees. Or, for a truly ambitious candidate, you could place her on a special, highly visible project with the goal of promotion in responsibilities and pay.

When you’re looking to save on your San Francisco company’s payroll costs, contact Bayside Solutions. We can source and hire (on our payroll) some of the best Bay area employees for temporary, temp-to-hire and direct hire positions. Contact us today; we look forward to helping your company run smoothly and well within your budget.

The days when temporary employees worked as “fill-in” workers when a company’s regular workers were out sick or on vacation are long gone. Instead, temporary workers often are highly skilled workers such as doctors, nurses, CEOs, architects, designers, lawyers, computer programmers, etc.

Of course, temporary employment services continue to provide the country’s businesses with warehouse workers, administrative assistants, receptionists and general laborers, but the “face” of today’s temporary worker is changing to one who possesses high-level skills.

In fact, according to an American Staffing Association Intelligence Report,
Staffing Employees: Extraordinary Human Resources:

• Staffing employees are better educated than the overall workforce, with 74 percent having at least some college education (compared to only 62 percent of the overall workforce.
• Staffing employees who prefer temporary and contract work are more likely to hold a bachelor’s degree and earn higher wages.

In addition, many people who work for temporary employment firms do so because they enjoy the variety and the chance to learn new skills temporary assignments can give them.

They also see temporary work as a bridge to a regular position on a company’s payroll. In fact, many people who work for a staffing service see the service as the way to find a full-time position. As the ASA Intelligence Report states:

“Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a truly permanent job. But most staffing employees and most staffing clients want something staffing firms have to offer: a bridge to permanent employment.”

• Most staffing employees who want a permanent job get one eventually—43 percent get hired by the staffing client.
• Almost 25 percent of those who got a permanent job say they did so faster because of their temporary or contract work.
• Fewer than half of staffing employees are actively seeking permanent employment on their own — most are either using their temporary job as their only way to search for a position. (some just prefer the temporary/contract work).

“As the world economy evolves and agility becomes absolutely essential for success in the global marketplace,” the report states, “the smartest companies are taking bold approaches to staffing,” the report states. “Increasingly, they are eschewing the traditional hiring model. They are moving away from hiring processes that can take weeks or months to recruit, interview, screen, and negotiate with candidates to fill a single opening. They no longer see the wisdom in filling every position with a permanent employee whose real cost to a company only begins with a salary and extends to benefits, payroll taxes, vacation time, holiday pay, and a host of other expenses.”

To read the full Intelligence Report, click here.

If you’re a company doing business in the Bay area, Let Bayside Solutions help you maximize your human resources efforts. We’ll be happy to demonstrate how using our staffing service can help your company become more agile and more profitable. Contact us today!

Sometimes the least expensive isn’t the best. We all know it, but sometimes we need to be reminded of it.

Of course we love to get a good deal. Hunting for bargains seems to be human nature. But when it comes to hiring a temporary staffing service, selecting the service with the lowest price often isn’t the best use of your company’s funds.

Instead, as you interview different staffing agencies, find out the value they offer. Ask questions – lots of questions – and you’ll discover that there’s so much more to their services than simply asking the first person who comes into their office to go on over to your company to work for you on a temporary basis.

A staffing firm that offers you workers at a rate below what other employment agencies in your area offer may have to cut corners to provide you workers at that low rate. Are you really willing to give these up?

For example, hiring a cut-rate staffing company could mean that the firm won’t have the resources to thoroughly source and screen temporary employees. At worst, this could result in employees who have sketchy work backgrounds. At the least, this could mean your staffing service may not be able to find the workers with the skills and background you need.

If the firm does hire a lower-skilled person to fill your open position, you may have to take the time to train the person on the job. One of your regular employees may have to do double duty “cleaning up” the mistakes an unqualified temporary makes on assignment. Naturally, you may request that the firm replace the low-performing person. You also may decide to seek another personnel service to fill the position. Both actions cost you added time and money, costs that could have been avoided had you hired a staffing agency that has the means to find employees who can come to your site and be productive immediately.

In addition, lower priced staffing firms generally pay their employees less than a firm that charges a higher fee to you. Word gets around an area as to which firm pays temporary workers more and the best employees naturally will seek those personnel staffing firms first, leaving the lower-priced firm you’ve hired to send you  the least skilled and least reliable workers.

So is it worth saving a bit of money in the short term to possibly be saddled with the costly problems outlined above in the long term?

We believe in providing our client companies only the highest caliber of temporary employees. Won’t you call us today to discuss your staffing needs?

What business isn’t looking to control expenses? Staffing 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 contract 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 Bayside Solutions, 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 Bayside Solutions contract staffing services.