5 Ways Health Reform Can Benefit Your Staffing Agency

Health ReformThere have been countless articles on healthcare reform and how it impacts your staffing agency.  Reading through each of these posts can leave the waters a bit murkier in terms of exactly what the impact is going to be.

What we do know is that healthcare reform isn’t going anywhere with the reelection of President Obama.  Starting in January 2014, employers will have to offer qualified health insurance to full-time employees or pay penalties, estimated at $2K per employee.  Staffing agencies currently are not fully exempt from these penalties.

This healthcare legislation has resulted in significant discussion regarding the potential negative impact to staffing agencies, even as the ASA has successfully fought for a ‘look back’ period, which lessens penalties.

While much of the discussion regarding potentially negative side effects is valid, there are some definitive benefits that are arising for the staffing industry. 5 such benefits appear below.

5 Crystallizing Benefits

1. Temporary hiring boom likely to continue: many temporary segments are forecasted to peak in 2013. Right or wrong, temporary non-full time employees look more attractive to employers since they may not be on the hook for as high of potential health costs (operative phrase at this point being ‘may not’.)  While there is no definitive way to say whether this will truly result in lower health costs – the perception that it will lead many employers to be more comfortable with hiring contingent workers.

2. Healthcare staffing poised to improve:  it’s not inherently apparent the specific positions health care reform will create.  However, with an estimated 3 percent increase in provided healthcare, there is no denying that the demand for workers within the industry will increase.  The increase in demand is a welcome sign for staffing agencies servicing the healthcare industry.

3. Easier to attract and retain better candidates:  staffing agencies that offer healthcare coverage to employees “maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace as it pertains to recruiting and retaining employees.”  As demand increases and qualified employees become scarce, offering insurance could be the catalyst staffing firms need to thrive in a new era of healthcare.

4. Time to decide: The most impact from the Affordable Care Act will be felt starting January 1st, 2014, which affords staffing agencies a little over a year to decide which road to take.  Having time to decide on the correct course of action provides staffing firms the ability to research additional information about the law and weigh their options.

5. Staffing firms control the message to their clients: staffing firms that decide to offer health insurance to their employees and clearly communicate that fact to their clients may see an advantage over competitors that seem to be passing costs on to clients.

While healthcare reform is met with mixed emotions, significant opportunities exist for staffing agencies – both in managing any potential negative impact and better understanding the positive impact.  Now is the time for staffing firms to fully immerse themselves into this new world, decide on a strategy, and execute.

For more on how health reform will impact your staffing agency, I invite you to attend the upcoming webinar, Health Care Reform: What You Need to Know, being hosted by Bond US on Thursday, December 13th.

10 Tips to Writing Powerful Blog Posts

Susan Young on blogging for staffing and recruiting companiesBy Guest Blogger: Susan Young

According to Numberof.net, there are 133 million blogs. I’ll take their word on that. In fact, the number has probably jumped since you read this!

It’s amazing to think so many people have so much to say. One of the greatest challenges I hear from professionals in recruiting, staffing, and HR is that they don’t know what to write, so they do nothing. It’s not much fun being stuck or afraid.

Blogs are vital to growing your name recognition, brand, and revenues online.

Merely having a blog is very different than proactively using it as a key marketing vehicle that drives traffic to your website. Share relevant and timely content and people will begin to pay attention.

Here are 10 tips to writing powerful blog posts:

  1. Stick to what you know.

    When you write about topics and issues that you are interested in and enjoy, the task becomes less burdensome. It also helps to stay focused. Readers will come to know that your blog is about staffing and recruiting. They won’t find cooking tips or vacation ideas from you. This is essential as you build your brand.

  2. Be transparent.

    Avoid hidden agendas and negativity. Your name is on every post. Be proud of what you share.

  3. Write in short, punchy and easy-to understand sentences.

    My theory is that we should write to express, not to impress. This is a “crazy busy” world we live in. People appreciate concise and succinct communication.

  4. Weave in your personality.

    Blogs are not typically written in a dry and formal business style. A more casual approach allows you to inject your personality into your writing. This helps connect with your reader.

  5. Avoid “JAR”

    – Jargon, Adjectives, and Rhetoric. Your readers are not looking for a stuffy sales pitch. They want something that’s compelling and thoughtful. Deliver it and you’ll develop a loyal following.

  6. Connect your posts with timely news stories.

    The news provides us with plenty to blog about. By mentioning current events (and reacting to them as you desire), you show people that you’re interested in what’s happening in our world. You can also tie in the news to your business, customers, and prospects. This helps to create attention-grabbing and timely posts. Using fresh information helps drive traffic to your website and shows you’re paying attention.

  7. Speak directly to the reader.

    Use active verbs and first-person language. Ask them a question or write a statement such as, “Consider this”, or “How about you?” By keeping people engaged, you can build rapport through your writing.

  8. Solve their problem.

    Providing useful tips to help ease a pain is important. Think of it this way: Your reader has a pain (challenge) and you have the pill to ease their discomfort. This tip sheet-style approach is effective because it’s reader-friendly. The bullet points allow readers to skim the content and glean nuggets and key information.

  9. Forget about the length.

    There is no right or wrong when it comes to writing blogs. Some people post only a few lines a day while others have several paragraphs or a tip sheet. Longer doesn’t mean better, it just means longer (see No. 3)

  10. Use interesting visuals.

    Grab a free image from sites like Flikr.com and insert it into your post. It breaks up the text and shows your creative side. Video is also extremely powerful and engaging. Remember, just as you may not love to write, a lot of people don’t like to read. Video blogs, or vlogs, allow people to get to know you by seeing your body language, and hearing your voice. It’s building rapport on a deeper level.

The bottom line: Your presence affects your prosperity.

To learn more, I invite you to this upcoming webinar, “The Nuts and Bolts of Blogging to Grow Your Staffing Company” on Wednesday, December 12, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST. I’ll share a special discounted offer that will only be available to participants! A fabulous way to begin 2013!

Webinar Attendees will learn:

• The #1 benefit a blog brings to your business
• 5 ways to get started…and keep going
• Secrets of successful content and blog writing
• Tips on developing your online voice and persona
• How to market your blog and generate new leads

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/372676638

Susan Young is an award-winning news, social media, PR, and communications professional with 26 years of experience. Her company, Get in Front Communications, works with businesses and associations to increase their visibility, credibility, and revenues. Susan has worked as Managing Editor of HR Communication, a daily e-newsletter for HR and recruiting executives. She currently works with NAPS and blogs on Monster.com. Her latest accomplishment: Being named one of the ‘75 Badass Women on Twitter.’

Why James Bond Villains Need Better Recruiting Software

In honor of 50 years of 007 James Bond, and the 23rd movie, ‘Skyfall’, in the franchise; a look at why his many opponents need better recruiting software.

Over the five decades that James Bond has been thwarting the plans of various would-be world-dominating megalomaniacs, one clear fact has remained unassailable. James Bond is the ultimate type ‘A’ employee that MI6 has been all too happy to recruit, train, equip, and deploy to ensure their continued success. Conversely, while Bond has faced innumerable villains, many of whom would seem to be smarter and have lots of henchmen to help, they have all failed miserably in their attempts to dispatch Bond.

Therefore, I would suggest that the leadership of the villains suffers from one glaring fault besides their obvious megalomania – lousy recruiting software.

After all, these villains, from Auric Goldfinger to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, apparently had pretty good recruiting processes within their sometimes vast international criminal organizations. They found many capable scoundrels to help them, like Oddjob and Jaws. Yet, if their recruiting processes had the software to back them up, surely they could have found a few type ‘A’ heavies of their own with the skills, brains, and focus needed to take out James Bond.

So, let’s see how good recruiting software could have helped the villains achieve their own nefarious goals.

First up, your recruiting software really needs to be able to handle a lot potential candidates, er, henchmen, then, when you search for the right person for the job, you should be able to rank them according to their skills, experience, job history, and training. One example where good recruiting software might have helped the villain is that of henchperson Tiffany Case, played by Jill St. John, in Diamonds are Forever, which would seem to work well with Bond’s well-known weakness for beautiful women.

Unfortunately, if the villain’s recruiting software had noted her job history, it might have clued the recruiter that Tiffany was a ‘job hopper’, as she switched sides to join Bond in his fight against her employer (start the video below at 5:30 to see Tiffany’s ‘conversion’).

http://youtu.be/oC1016Gu2R8?t=5m30s

Lesson: Make sure your recruiting software can pull in all relevant henchperson data from their resume and populate the database for future searches.

Second, another example is Red Grant, the highly-trained psychopathic assassin in the 1963 Bond movie, From Russia with Love. Grant seemed to be a perfect fit for his assignment, emotionless and completely focused on killing James Bond. Alas, he failed in his task when distracted by the potential offer of more cash – Bond was thus able to overcome him.

Lesson: It’s not enough to be able to recruit henchmen based on skills. Your recruiting and staffing software, with a great, fully integrated payroll system, will enable you to make your offer and payroll that should be able to keep them happy enough that they don’t actively seek more pay at inconvenient times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b10MvNfvoWM

Third, recruiting software is a great enabling tool, with its ability to automate the dull and mundane tasks that should leave your recruiters with more time to call, interview and select the right henchmen for the assignment. This is vital when you have a lot of job openings to fill. And it usually seems that there are a lot of bad guy job openings after James Bond has killed off the henchmen and thwarted the villain’s evil plans in some spectacular fashion.

http://youtu.be/QaQp_qKC5RA

Lesson: Your recruiting and staffing software needs to be able to scale up to your needs, whether you’re a boutique recruiting business specializing in assassins with unique skills like Xenia Onatopp, or a global terror organization such as SPECTRE.

In the final analysis, it would seem that the only person with a reasonable chance of killing off James Bond is…James Bond.

http://youtu.be/O9C7yYomVuo

Finally, if you are in the market for really great recruiting software or staffing software to help you find type ‘A’ agents – and are NOT part of some organization led by a megalomaniac bent on world domination, please click or call us today. We’re ready to help!

END

Lock Down Your Staffing Software Budget With A Demo At TechServe

TechServe 2012The 2012 TechServe Alliance Conference & Tradeshow, held this November 8-10 in Miami, promises to be an information-rich event engineered to inspire and energize members of the IT staffing and professional services industry.  Conference attendees will have the opportunity to network with top executives and thought leaders in the industry and discover technologies that help organizations execute critical strategic initiatives.

My company, Bond International Software, will also be on hand sharing how our staffing software provides a competitive advantage to agencies servicing the IT and professional services industry.

Via personalized demos, which I invite you to register for in advance, you will see how your agency’s organizational goals can be met with our cost-effective and feature rich solutions. As your 2013 budget plans wrap up, now is the perfect time to discover how Bond recruiting and staffing software will help you efficiently facilitate the discovery, placement and management of talent by:

  • Alleviating the administrative burden associated with onboarding talent
  • Streamlining all documentation and related onboarding forms. In other words, go paperless!
  • Improve metrics ranging from order-to-fill ratios to new hire retention rates

Make sure that your 2013 budget includes a comprehensive staffing and recruiting software solution that is optimized for candidate discovery and employment quickly, accurately, and efficiently.  Register for a demo of Bond recruiting and staffing software, during or after this week’s TechServe Alliance.

Event Details:

What:     TechServe Alliance 2012
When
:     November 8th-10th, 2012
Where
:    Loews Miami Beach Hotel, Miami, FL

5 Reasons To Invest In Staffing Software Regardless of The Election Outcome

Economic Uncertainty

Those of us working in or servicing the staffing industry find ourselves on the economic front lines, and are among the first to see changes on the horizon.  And with the election this week, the outlook has perhaps never been more cloudy – as we see four more years of continued recovery or doom & gloom, depending on which way we lean and what we predict in terms of results.

With this much uncertainty, sure to spill well past November 6th, is it the ideal time for your staffing agency to even consider adding new staffing software into its budgeting plans for 2013 – or even late 2012?  As you tire of election day ads and coverage that serve spin and uncertainty, here are five straightforward reasons why the answer is ‘yes’

1. Temp Hiring To Remain Strong Regardless of Election Outcome
As I commented last week, 2013 temporary hiring will reach historic highs in certain segments, according to Staffing Industry Analysts.  A fortunate outcome of this development, in my opinion, is that strong temporary hiring is oftentimes one of the first signs of real recovery.

But we are not living in ‘oftentimes.’  The challenges of our times are new and unprecedented, and as a result, so will the surge of temporary hiring we are about to see.  And quite honestly, it will be difficult to contain the surge of 2013 temporary hiring with software built around 2009 needs.

2. Busy Holiday Hiring
Forbes
reports that nearly 700,000 new retail jobs – many of them temporary – will be added for the 2012 holiday season.  While I certainly understand that staffing software selection is something that must be carefully considered, I also know firsthand that it can be quickly implemented and tested – helping you prepare for real-time needs mere weeks away.

3. You Need to Prepare
Scott Wintrip, president of Wintrip Consulting Group, president of StaffingU, named to the Staffing 100 by Staffing Industry Analysts in both 2011 and 2012, calls our economic landscape the Avoidant Economy, defined by:

“delayed decisions, fear of overhead and the permanent change in the psyche of buyers as a result of the Great Recession.”

Wintrip also sees this environment as:

“the single greatest opportunity the staffing and recruiting industry has seen in the past three decades…an unprecedented opportunity to bring value to companies and profits to your bottom line.”

And an economy this unprecedented will not change based on the results of one election.  What
can change, however, is how prepared  you are to handle this opportunity.  Again, are you preparing for 2013 with tools and software from 2009 – or are you ready to move forward with tools built during and for this current landscape?

4. Technology Investments Help You Improve
In describing how to succeed in the Avoidant Economy, Wintrip goes on to indicate that agencies “will need to be more nimble, more responsive, and more innovative.”

If you are using a software package from 2009 – can you truly make the claim that your agency is as nimble, responsive and innovative as it needs to be in 2013?

5. You Have The Information You Need
As I note above, staffing software selection is not an overnight decision.  To help you make the most informed decision for your company, I invite you to review two unbiased staffing software selection resources offered by my company:

I also invite you to register for a free demo of Bond staffing software at anytime.

Tomorrow – I encourage you to get out and vote for the candidate that you feel will best move our nation forward.  But remember, whoever wins, uncertainty continues to lie ahead.  Fortunately, it will only hurt those that are truly unprepared.  Let’s ensure this is your agency’s competition.

How Will The Election Impact The Staffing & Recruiting Industry?

I’m not going to get into the debate over which presidential candidate is better for the country – or even which is better for the staffing and recruiting industry.  But, I will discuss some ways in which political forces have been impacting the jobs market – and the likelihood that the effects of these forces will continue well beyond November 6th.

A Strong Temporary Workforce

With so much uncertainty in how the election might impact the economy, companies are seemingly even more cautious about bringing on full-time employees.  Astonishingly, this trend is climbing up the ranks of executives, too.

The simple fact is that contingent and temporary employees have become a prevalent norm in the hiring industry. Since September 2008, in fact, 88% of companies have hired temporary workers. Temporary and contract employment has grown 26.6%, since the beginning of 2012 according to the ASA’s September Staffing Index Monthly Report.

Another political force impacting the staffing and recruiting industries is the Affordable Care Act.  Some experts believe this could reduce fraudulent worker’s compensation claims because workers would have better healthcare coverage.  The savings experienced from the Affordable Care Act would be passed on to the companies hiring temp workers because they would have less reason to use workers’ compensation.  Aside from payroll, worker’s compensation is the biggest expense facing companies.

Finally, there is the election itself directly impacting the temporary workforce. Contingent workers in cities all over the country have been hired to test the ballot machines and man the polls on Election Day. Second the campaigns themselves are huge employers of hundreds, even thousands of contingent workers. Once the election is done, most will probably have to find new temporary work, regardless of whether their candidate won.

Will the Trend Continue?

Staffing Industry Analysts suggest that temporary employee demand in certain segments will reach historic highs in 2013.  Additionally, with the sluggish growth the economy has been experiencing and the holiday hiring season ramping up, I think it’s safe to say temporary workers will be in high demand for companies of all shapes and sizes through the end of the year.  And this is all rather independent of who wins the election.

Regardless of who wins the election – the truth is this.  As the economy recovers, contingent and temporary employees are those that are brought on first – prior to the recovery in full time hiring.  And whether we have four more years of Obama, or the first four of Romney, our economy will likely be perpetually recovering – at least for the next several years.  How long the staffing and recruiting industry remains such a fertile field depends solely on how quickly either candidate moves our economy from ‘recovery’ to ‘recovered.’

Our recruiting software solutions can help you recruiting or staffing agency regardless of our economic state.  To learn how, request a demo.