Read below for seven tips on how to let someone go with grace and professionalism:

1. Give the person at least one more chance. Unless the person has been caught stealing, or otherwise has committed an infraction that warrants automatic termination, sit down with the employee, let him or her know of your concerns and let the person know that you will give him or her a set amount of time to improve, or you will have to terminate.
2. Better still, when someone is underperforming, you should aim to speak with the employee as soon as you notice such a pattern. Sit with the person and professionally and congenially say you’ve noticed a decline or steady erosion in performance, an increase in tardiness, etc. Ask if there’s anything that’s bothering the employee either at home or at work (if it’s a personal matter, tread very carefully). As you listen, let the employee know you understand there always are challenges in any aspect of life, but that the person was hired to perform a certain task or complete a certain project and that you will help him or her improve performance. Give a deadline as to when improvement must be seen.
3. If you do decide to terminate, aim not to have the termination meeting in your office. Instead, pick a more neutral spot such as a conference room.
4. Don’t dither. Get right down to business and let the person know that you’ve decided to terminate his or her employment.
5. Show empathy but remember that you are not the individual’s comforter. That role belongs to family members. Show compassion, but don’t act as a shoulder to cry on.
6. Especially since the person has been given warning (see steps 1 and 2 above), don’t enter into a discussion with the employee about what he or she can do better in order to keep the job. Don’t yell, cry, or pound your fist.
7. It’s definitely OK to be sympathetic and offer the employee resources to help with finding a new job. This can be especially helpful if the employee is losing the position due to a layoff rather than being terminated for cause.

Using Bayside Solutions to bring on temporary staff means you never have to fire them…they’re our employees, not yours! If a worker isn’t meeting your expectations, let us know and we’ll replace him or her quickly, sometimes as quickly as the very next day. Learn more about our staffing solutions for San Francisco-area companies by contacting us today!

1) Know your business

You may be your organization’s most talented developer or dedicated systems administrator. But if you don’t know what the business is selling or what service it’s providing, you’re not indispensable. Don’t look at things from strictly an IT perspective, but make sure you understand how your job relates to the business world around you.

2) Watch the bottom line

Your job isn’t just about systems, software or machines. It’s about helping your organization use technology to trim costs and increase efficiency. IT professionals need to focus on areas that either drive down costs, such as virtualization, cloud computing and converged networking, or on areas that help to generate revenue, such as social media, mobile marketing and SEO.

3) Get your head in the cloud

With so many traditional IT functions moving to the cloud, your company may no longer need you to flip switches, connect cables, or troubleshoot machines. But they’ll still need someone who can tell them what services are available, which ones are worth looking at and which ones they should avoid. And they’ll require people with expertise in managing a catalog of cloud services, handling subscribers, brokering agreements with cloud providers and intervening when problems arise.

4) Broaden your horizons

Besides maintaining mastery of your own tech domain, expand your skill set to include other areas of expertise. If a crisis arises in one of those areas—and the person responsible for handling it isn’t available—you may be able to step in and save the day. Plus, an employee who has more than one area of expertise is more valuable when a department is downsizing.

5) Be a translator.

Want to facilitate communication between IT and the business side, as well as earn a little goodwill in the process? Teach your co-workers to speak geek. Start a series of casual teaching sessions where you bring less savvy coworkers up to speed about the latest in tech. You can become the go-to guy for upper management when they need something technical explained.

6) Deal with data.

If your business users aren’t drowning in information now, they will be soon. Taming the data deluge will make you invaluable to any organization. IT people who can make sense of business data, safely store it, categorize it, retrieve it, and especially analyze it are highly valuable.

7) Make a name for yourself. The more people who know and rely on you—especially outside your department or organization—the harder it is to fire you. Look for projects and opportunities that cut across departments, because this builds your internal network — thus making you more valuable to the company.

And if you’re ready to practice those habits in a new and exciting position in the Bay Area, contact Bayside Solutions today!

Sadly, that phrase is too true too often: co-workers really can make one’s work life miserable.

If you’re stuck in a cubicle farm or facility with a “bad” co-worker, read below for some tips on how to cope.

1. Act fast. Don’t tolerate the bad behavior hoping it will go away on its own. Chances are, the poor behavior will get worse if ignored. By not speaking up when someone bullies you, you’re tacitly giving the individual permission to continue
2. Some people don’t take criticism well. They don’t understand that suggestions on how to do something better or requests to get work done by deadline, etc.  aren’t personal attacks, but professional and business critiques to improve  performance. Such individuals may take professional critiques as personal attacks and lash out.
3. If the problem with your co-worker is that he or she can’t do all the tasks assigned well, offer to split duties, if possible, with both of you taking on tasks each of you does best. Yes, this may mean more work for you, but you can let your superiors know that you’re taking on more responsibility (without denigrating your co-worker) and a promotion and/or raise could result!
4. Try to resolve your differences without the help of your manager or the human resources department first. If the two of you still can’t come to some sort of professional workplace collaboration and if the bad behavior persists, bring it up to your boss and then to HR (in case the boss can’t or won’t help).
5. Keep the conflict private as much as possible. Don’t kvetch in meetings or to co-workers: you’ll be seen as a whiner instead of justifiably aggrieved.

If you’re in the market for some new co-workers, contact one of our recruiters. Bayside Solutions can help provide you with opportunities to work with some of the Bay Area’s top employers. Contact us today!

One example of this has been at the giant grocery store chain SuperValue, which has about 135,000 employees spread over 44 states. Because it is such a huge organization, connecting people had become a problem, Ferris says. So the company set up a social media platform called Yammer which was used internally. It is helping the company boost sales, according to SuperValue officials. The company uses Yammer to set up working groups. These groups might consist of managers from similar departments, like liquor or deli, or managers whose stores serve similar markets, such as college towns.

A recent survey of Fortune 500 companies showed that almost three-fourths of them are planning to put more emphasis on social media.

But social media experts say to avoid problems with this technology, don’t put the cart before the horse; that is, don’t get so caught up in the kind of technology you are going to use and forget about the purpose you want your social media to serve. The technology doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you want to use it for. The first thing you need to do, they say, is set up goals for what you want to accomplish, and to make those goals as specific as possible – with specific problems and specific people.

Too often, what happens is that companies set up the social media without any overall purpose in mind. Workers then tend to post randomly and no real conversation really develops. Managers use it simply to issue orders. As a result it proves useless, leading management to abandon the entire idea.

But used effectively, social media can become a real change agent, as shown by SuperValue, generating good ideas from workers, Ferris says. It can also help to attract younger workers to the company, build loyalty among employees and promote a strong company culture.

If your San Francisco-area company needs skilled and reliable technology workers, contact a recruiter at Bayside Solutions. We can source, vet and place workers for your temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire needs. We look forward to hearing from you!

The news focuses relentlessly on layoffs and the long-term unemployed. As unemployment remains high, people become anxious about job security and the stability of their employer. It appears as if the job market has crashed and burned, that no one out there is hiring. Reading the headlines, it is easy to believe this myth, but it is exactly that, a myth. Companies are still hiring. In fact, some human resource consultants say the number of job offers made during a recession remains about the same as in a more healthy economy. Even in a recession, innovation and entrepreneurship are still at work, and companies are working to bring new products and services to market.

But, reading the doom and gloom in the headlines sometimes makes people feel that it’s not even worth the effort because the economy is so bad. But this is not true. The job market still exists; it has just become more selective. People who are valued for their skills, experience and accomplishments will have little trouble finding a job, and can get a job offer in a relatively short period of time.

Those in the worst position during a recession, however, are the long-term unemployed. They stand little chance of getting a job offer during a recession. They might even have trouble gaining employment in a growing economy, because there is little value placed on their skills and competencies.

The economy doesn’t stop during a recession, it just slows down, and the same thing happens in the job market – it slows down. Companies make more effort to avoid risk, and so hiring decisions tend to take longer. But, eventually, hiring managers reach a decision – they must, because they need to continue their operations so that they can serve their customers.

So, if you are a job candidate, you can be pretty sure there is a company out there that needs your help; you just need to be smart and savvy in your job search. Network, persevere and look for the companies that are attempting to start new projects.

Working on short- and long-term temporary assignments with Bayside Solutions in San Francisco can be a great way for someone to keep skills current and learn new ones. Contact a recruiter today to learn more about the different type of assignments we have available.

You find yourself back searching for a job. You thought it wouldn’t take long, given your skills and experience. But what was supposed to be a job search lasting weeks has now become a year, and employers are beginning to express concern that your skills may have become outdated.

If you find yourself in this position, how should you approach the job search?

The first thing to look at is your resume. Since this is the first thing the employer will see, how you sell yourself and your skills is important, even more so if you have to deal with a gap in your employment history.

If your resume doesn’t address the issues that concern the employer, it will be put on the stack of rejected applications right away. So, in this case, you need to rework your resume, using a format that doesn’t fit the traditional mold.

In this case, you want to use what is known as a combination resume, which is geared more for people who have been out of work for a while, or for people who are changing careers. The combination resume is what the name implies, a combination of what you have done, along with when you have done it.

The first part is the introduction, where you give the employer a taste of what you have done and the value you would have to the business. You would highlight briefly your outstanding accomplishments along with your other qualities. It gives a checklist of qualifications.

The next section is accomplishments, where you highlight what you have done. This is an opportunity to show that you still have the skills and experience to do the job. Here you want to be as specific as possible about what you have done and include the achievements you are most proud of.

Then, only after you have highlighted your skills, accomplishments and experience, do you list your work history, giving a chronological listing of previous employment, with a short summary of your duties in each job.

Then, lastly, you would include your educational background, which would include college and any professional development training.

Bring your resume to Bayside Solutions! Many of the Bay Area’s top companies look to us to help them fill temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire positions. We look forward to hearing from you.

The survey showed that about 25 percent of workers are less involved with their managers than they were one year ago. The workers say their superiors do not communicate well with them, are disinterested and erratic in their management and play favorites.

Only about 10 percent of workers believed that their management would make the right calls in a time of crisis, according to the survey. Moreover, only about 15 percent said they thought their company’s leaders were ethical and honest. A little more than 10 percent thought that their leaders really listened to them and cared about them. And less than 10 percent thought their management was completely honest.

These figures are alarming, according to business experts, and point to a real need for management to take serious steps to get its workforce re-engaged. One of the ways companies can do this, they said, is to re-examine the organization’s values. Employees need to be able to believe in the values of the company. They need to feel that they share important values with their organization if they are to feel a loyalty to it and work enthusiastically for it.

The surveys revealed the strong connection between trust and shared values. In places where employees had more trust in their leaders, the survey showed a higher percentage that believed the values of the company reflected their own values.

Employee disconnect from a company can result in less production and hurt the firm’s bottom line. In the overall economy, employee apathy results in losses between $300 billion and $350 billion a year, according to experts.

Apathetic employees are less productive, have less loyalty to their organizations, are less happy in their personal lives, and are more anxious about their jobs and keeping their jobs.

A 2010 survey also showed that high-performing employees are more disenchanted as well and are looking at opportunities at other companies. According to the survey, about 25 percent were looking to leave their jobs within a year, compared to about 10 percent who said the same thing in 2006.

Bayside Solutions can provide San Francisco-area companies with skilled employees on a temporary, temp-to-hire or even direct-hire basis. Contact us today.

The companies are emphasizing the things that make them good employers, based on surveys of their own employees. A smaller company, for example, may highlight the opportunities for advancement and working in different areas, things larger competitors might not be able to offer. Some even run ads in different media.

But even more important for a company is first coming up with a clear idea of what its strengths and weaknesses as a workplace are, and how these stack up against its competitors. The company needs to be able to set itself apart from the competition, and tell prospective employees what is unique about it.

Toward that end, the company needs to survey its own employees, and find out why they came and why they stay with the firm, and use their responses to come up with a concise brand, one that will make the company stand out from among its competition. Showing how a company is different from the competition is the key factor, the difference between success and failure in recruiting.

Companies are turning to marketing and advertising research to help them sell their employment brand. Some, for example, use focus groups.

Some companies also are using consultants to check out the competition. They will send people to the other companies to apply for jobs there and then tell about the kind of experience they had.

Other consultants recommend that companies, before they start advertising, test their employment brand with focus groups in their own company – if they are promising something to prospective employees, they should find out from their own employees if the company has been able to deliver.

In this age of information overload, companies also need to be continuously broadcasting their employment brand as well.

And businesses are broadcasting their brand in different ways. More are using social networking sites, with video and music to punch up the message.

Beneath all the hype, however, the experts say that companies need to make sure the message gives a truthful description of what it is like to work at the company, its culture and values. You can put together a terrific promotional effort to get the word out about what a great place to work your company is, but if the message does not reflect the reality, your new hires won’t be staying around long anyway.

When you’re looking for terrific employees, contact Bayside Solutions. We can source and hire 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.

This could have a devastating impact on your company in more ways than one — disrupted projects, overruns on schedules and budgets, quality issues, and loss of corporate memory — in addition to the time and expense of having to find replacements.

How can you increase commitment and decrease turnover among your valued IT employees?

First, you need to understand why IT professionals tend to leave an organization. You may think the most important reason is money, but that’s not the entire story. It’s easy for IT workers to compare their salaries to others doing the same work, both within your company and within their industry. If they feel they are not being paid competitively, pay is definitely an issue. However, infotech employees also appreciate other perks, such as:

• Challenging work assignments
• Favorable work environment
• Flextime
• Stock options
• Additional vacation time
• Family-friendly values
• Everyday casual dress code
• Cross-functional assignments, tuition and training reimbursement

One recent survey found that the second most important retention factor for IT professionals is quality of management – how well the IT staff is managed. Many bosses in IT aren’t strong on mentoring and team-building. They often received promotions themselves because they were technically strong, and not necessarily because they had strong people skills or instinctive leadership qualities.

In order to ensure that your managers are giving the IT staff what they need, try to ensure that they are:

Communicating about Career Development IT managers need to communicate frequently with their employees about career development activities. This should include assessing an employee’s competencies in terms of technical ability, project management and process skills, innovation, and effectiveness.

Employees also want to learn business skills, interpersonal skills and communication skills. They know that companies are looking for well-rounded individuals, not just “techno geeks.”

Conducting Employee Surveys In other words, managers need to ask their employees what they like about their jobs, and what they need in terms of training and mentoring. The amount of training offered is a critical consideration in an IT professional’s decision to stay or leave.

Training is too often seen as a perk when it should be viewed as an essential investment in a company’s intellectual capital. In IT, change is rapid and nobody wants to become obsolete by working too long in an unchanging environment. Strong training, coaching, job rotation programs, and opportunities for experimentation send a clear message that management is seeking to establish a long-term relationship with employees.

In order to retain your top IT employees, take a look at your salary ranges to see if they are competitive, ensure that you are offering other benefits besides salary and insurance, make sure your managers are providing a challenging work environment, and see that career development and training programs are in place.

To find out more about how you can keep your IT team intact, or how we can help fill your technical staffing needs, contact Bayside Solutions today.

No longer can a firm’s leaders take on the “top-down” style of management, where an executive barks orders to the minions below, expecting employees to carry them out without input. This type of organizational structure has gone the way of the dodo — to extinction.

And good riddance!

Instead, leaders today need to persuade (not coerce). Leaders need to be honest, not dictatorial. In addition, a companies leaders should come from all levels of an organization, of all ages so that leadership will be nimble and innovative and also wise and efficient.

Leadership best practices today call for a company culture where everyone has a say, where ideas are welcome. This will help spur employees to greater innovation.

In fact, leaders should come from everywhere in a company, not just from the executive suite. Workers need to be able to move up, down and sideways within an organization, depending on where their particular gifts are best utilized and where their aspirations take them.

Today’s leaders should be accessible to all employees. Leaders today should actively solicit input from the firm’s workers. Employees need to know they may speak their minds freely (within certain boundaries, of course), without worrying that they’ll be demoted, ostracized, ridiculed.

Company leadership today also must be completely honest with a firm’s workers. This is especially true with the prevalence of social networks, making it easy for workers to spread news, gossip or vent about bad management online. News of any sort, good, bad, indifferent, etc. can spread around a company — if not the world — in an instant. Since there’s no place “to hide” anymore, honesty from a firm’s leaders is ever more imperative.

How can Bayside Solutions help your company succeed? We offer Bay Area firms custom recruiting solutions, temporary staffing and other workforce solutions. Contact us today!