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Onboarding a Large Number of Employees in a Short Period of Time

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Bond recruiting software customer Bolt Staffing utilized Bond onboarding partner Efficient Forms and their Efficient Hire/WOTC product to solve a paper intense and time sensitive problem.

Efficient Forms“When we received a call from a prospect that needed 141 people who lived 500 miles away to be put on our payroll within a week, I knew there was only one way we could pull it off: Electronic on-boarding. I had seen the Efficient Hire/WOTC presentation at our annual staffing conference, and at the time, felt we were too small for it to be a cost effective solution. This was a different situation that required us to onboard employees who lived far away. I called Todd at Efficient Forms and he fast tracked us through the set up process and we were using their system within a few days. Within a week, we had everyone onboarded and legally ready to work the assignment. No e-mailing pdfs, no scanning, no faxes. It went smoothly. Had it not been for the ‘can do’ staff at Efficient Hire we wouldn’t have landed this new account.” Joanne Sanders, President of Bolt Staffing Services, Inc.

Efficient Hire/WOTC automates the new hire employee onboarding process and tax credit screening/processing for a number of staffing firms that also use Bond’s eEmpACT and StaffSuite staffing software. Efficient Hire/WOTC uses a custom question and answer process built around the firms’ requirements to gather all necessary information and then completes the required new hire paperwork, including end client specific policies. For example, EHX automates the completion of all a company’s terms, conditions, policies, procedures, direct deposit, employee information, I-9, W-4, State 4’s, and so forth.

With the optional inclusion of Efficient WOTC a company can ensure that they are capturing all of the eligible candidates for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit. Using the plain English questions of Efficient WOTC during the hiring process, the 8850 and 9061 are completed in good order every time.

About Efficient Forms and Efficient Hire:

Founded in 2004, Efficient Forms, LLC is a privately-held Colorado company that specializes in automated electronic solutions for dynamic and cost-effective forms completion, data collection and process workflow. Their Transaction Origination Platform powers the company’s various industry leading SaaS services by allowing its customers to capture data for multiple forms by using an online one-time-entry “interactive question and answer” process. Its market leading solutions, Efficient Hire and Efficient WOTC, automate the new hire onboarding process for all types of employers.

Efficient Forms is a Bond Technology Partner whose technology enables our recruiting software customers to enhance and extend the capabilities of their software and their business.

 

Advice For Successful Onboarding of Contingent Workers

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I’m just going to be blunt – coordinating the successful onboarding of temporary employees with your clients can be a huge challenge.

While external tools like our own staffing software can help you discover better matches, there will always be outside factors that can prematurely poison a relationship.  And unfortunately, even if the relationship between your clients and temporary employees grows negative outside of your control, it will still reflect poorly on your staffing agency – from the viewpoint of both your client and your candidate.

While you will never have complete control over how your clients onboard contingent workers, you fortunately can take some actions to ensure your agency is seen as a conduit to a successful employee / temp relationship.

First and foremost, ensure you can draw a straight line between the objectives of your candidates and the objectives of your clients.  Do you have a shipping client that simply needs an influx of workers for the holidays?  This will likely not be a fit for a candidate seeking temp to hire.

Next, ensure you have a clear understanding of the unwritten needs and capabilities of your candidates.  For instance, it makes no sense to place a temporary worker with a client that pays $1 or more per hour less than the candidate’s asking price.  Even if everything else appears to be a fit, this relationship will likely end quickly, forcing you to rush a new candidate into place.  Additionally, if you have candidate that depends on public transportation, it makes little sense to place them with a client located far from any bus or train lines.

Finally, ensure you have a clear understanding of your client’s onboarding process – and when necessary – suggest subtle improvements.  I am not suggesting that you demand changes, only that you consult where necessary – based, of course – on your experience with other clients.  While this may at times be a bit out of the scope of your agreement – it can help to position your staffing agency as an indispensable consultant – even helping you to capture more revenue from that client when budget time rolls around.

No, you can’t completely control how your clients onboard contingent workers, but you definitely can set the stage for a beneficial relationship.  By keeping the insight above firmly in mind, you can expect better success.

To learn more about how staffing software by Bond US can help your more effectively match temporary workers with your clients, request a free demo.

Moving Past The Cons Of Onboarding Millennials With Recruiting Software

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Recruiting software – pros and cons graphLike it or not – your clients are going to need to onboard Millennials. And if you remain in the recruiting or staffing industry, you will have to be the one to help. Fortunately, although Millennials often receive a bad rap, they bring a number of strengths to the workforce.

Ultimately, every generation has its strengths and weaknesses. With Millennials, too many of us have become accustomed to focusing only on the cons. To help level your thinking – while at the same time avoiding any sugar coating – I’ve provided the biggest con – coupled with two big pros below to keep in mind when considering a Millennial candidate.

Thanks in advance to Jiwire for creating the infographic to the left that helps demonstrate these pros and Brandon Russell at WebLinkBlog for sharing. See the full infographic.)

Con – Self-centeredness. Yes, many individuals in this generation have been raised with the notion that everything they do is wonderful. Feeding into the self-centeredness, to a certain extent, is technology’s ability to put any one person at the center of any group. That said, there is a positive side effect of this first big con. The Millennials’ habit of constantly using social media, smartphones, and tablet PCs makes them infinitely more trackable – especially by the right staffing software and recruiting software.

Pro – The ability to adapt to change. That constant usage of technology throughout their young lives has also positioned Millennials with another strength – the ability to adapt to change more rapidly than any previous generation. And, you know the future business world will continue to change faster than ever before, so why not get the right individuals in place now?

Pro – They work well in teams. Because of the constant electronic communication they’re used to, Millennials are well-prepared to work in teams. Just how connected to the digital world are they? As noted by the infographic above:

  • Millennials own 2.4 devices
  • 28% use location-based apps more than once per day
  • 71% use laptops and 62% use smartphones to connect on-the-go

So what conclusion should you draw from this? While Millennials may not fit what previous generations of employees view as the most desirable work skills, the truth remains they do have many valuable talents. At some point, we will all need to learn how to pick the best candidates and set them up for success at ours or our clients’ organizations. When that time comes, don’t let the con overshadow the pros.

To learn more about how staffing and recruiting software from Bond US can help your agency achieve its onboarding goals, regardless of what generation candidates you are bringing on, request a demo.

Moxie Maven Alexia Vernon On What Your Staffing Agency Needs To Know About Onboarding Millennials With Recruiting Software

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Recruiting software user – Alexia Vernon If you work for a recruiting or staffing agency, you have an opinion on Millennial – or Generation Y – candidates.  For seasoned recruiters or staffing professionals, these candidates – born between the early 80s and early 90s – can bring a frustratingly unbalanced mix of confidence and sense of entitlement.  And, of course, all the resulting headaches.

But is this a completely fair assessment of Generation Y recruiting? Or can staffers and recruiters relieve their headaches by taking time to better understand how the ‘wants’ of Generation Y sync with the ‘needs’ of clients? For help, I turned to consultant and author Alexia Vernon.

Called a “Moxie Maven” by the White House, since winning the Miss Junior America competition in college, Alexia Vernon has been working with companies, campuses, and community organizations to help develop successful, sustainable, and socially impactful employees and leaders. She has shared her advice with myriad media such as CNN, NBC, CBS MoneyWatch, FOX Business News, the Wall Street Journal, CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, and Forbes.com.

She is also the author of Awaken Your CAREERpreneur: A Holistic Road Map to Climb from Your Calling to Your Career, and most recently, 90 Days 90 Ways: Onboard Young Professionals to Peak Performance.

Below, Alexia shares what your recruiting or staffing agency needs to know when onboarding Millennial workers:

Some have referred to Generation Y as the entitlement generation. Do you feel that the fault behind this admittedly broad definition rests more with Millennials themselves, or with traditional employers being hesitant to change their views?

Alexia Vernon: While I like to think of Generation Y (Gen Y) or Millennials as “creative, collaborative, and tech- savvy” rather than “disrespectful, whiny, and entitled,!” I believe that Gen Y’s’ bad rap stems equally from the fact that EVERY generation is a little rough around the edges when entering the workplace AND that Gen Y, overall, has been a very coddled generation.

Scheduled play dates. Trophies for everything short of breathing. Oprah playing on our TV’s when we got home from school. Why Gen Y behaves as it does though, honestly, is not so important (unless you’re a demographer or run a Gen Y consulting business like me!). What matters is that employers understand how to meet us where we are when we come in the door and co-create solutions to take us where we need to be in order to capitalize on our lauded potential.

It’s been said that money is not necessarily a primary motivator for Generation Y. It has also been said that Generation Y employees will stay at their first job for only about two years. How can employers retain the most skilled Millennial employees, when traditional motivators are not what these employees are after?

AV: You are correct. Across studies, the #1 reason that Millennials consistently leave a job is because they no longer feel like they are learning and growing in their roles. And this is great news. Companies should not get in their own way of retaining top talent by moaning over the fact they don’t have the capacity to offer Millennials a raise or a promotion. Rather, employers have a real opportunity to put time and energy into ensuring that Millennials have opportunities to stretch. Whether that means participating in a formal learning and development program, sitting on a committee, spearheading a new project, or simply engaging in a mentoring relationship – it’s important that companies put their high-potential Millennials in these situations to keep them engaged and growing professionally and personally.

In your book, 90 Days, 90 Ways, you share strategies for employers to successfully onboard Generation Y workers. What advice would you offer to recruiters or staffing agencies that find themselves a few steps in front of the onboarding process, striving to effectively place the most skilled Millennial candidates with appropriate employers?

AV: Look for a strong cultural fit. While a candidate might look like a good fit for a company on paper – for the relationship to be a long-term, mutually beneficial one, it’s important that an employee fits in at a deeper level. Make sure you know how your talent communicates, creates, learns, handles conflict, plays, and so forth so that you are effectively playing matchmaker.

Based on your experience, what would you consider to be the most significant hurdle for any Millennial entering the workforce today?

AV: Unfortunately, I’ve been giving the same answer for the last four years. — the economy. When you have less educational and professional experience than Baby Boomers, Gen X’ers, and even older Millennials who were laid off, became under employed, and/or are in the throes of reinventing themselves, you really need to be clear about how you are uniquely poised to deliver the value a company desires in order to stand out in the application process.

Similar to the question above, what would you consider to be the most significant challenge that employers or staffing agencies should be aware of, prior to hiring or placing a Millennial worker, and how can this challenge be overcome?

AV: Companies that are employing Millennial talent should be aware that, as a generation, Millennials have had fewer opportunities to hone face-to-face communication skills than any previous generation in our nation’s history. While Millennials love to work collaboratively, build relationships, and so forth, they typically have a lot of room for growth in their interpersonal communication. The good news is that high-impact communication is a skill. As long as companies are aware that their young employees need formal and informal opportunities to practice their 30-second introductions, negotiation, feedback, banter, and presentation skills, they can efficiently and effectively get their young employees producing the results they seek.

You can learn more about Alexia at AlexiaVernon.com, follow her on Twitter @AlexiaVernon, or connect on Facebook and LinkedIn.

To learn more about how recruiting software and staffing software from Bond US can help your agency achieve its onboarding goals, regardless of what generation candidates you are bringing on, request a demo.