Employers

07 Oct Can you make telecommuting work for your company?

Posted at 07:00h in Employers, Small Business Owners, Startups

First, there was the closed office, one to a person, hopefully with a window. Then there were cubicles, lauded as increasing productivity (no hiding behind closed doors and surfing the internet), then came open plan (now embraced by 70% of all employers) – no walls between cubicles, just communal tables demarcated by one workstation after another (among other things, very cost efficient). But still very much in the mix is no office at all – at least not at the employer’s site. Telecommuting is popular both with small companies who are still tight on space, to large companies like Dell and Xerox (where a reported 11% of their workforce work from home). Is telecommuting right for your organization? Well, that depends.

Here are some things to consider to make telecommuting work for your company

23 Sep Hiring? Using Social Media for Recruiting Great Talent

Posted at 18:31h in Employers, Small Business Owners, Startups

You would have to be under a rock, inside a hole, in the middle of the desert to not know LinkedIn and Facebook. But, many people think of them as an individual user tools, for personal professional promotion and social use, and not enough for business recruiting purposes. But that kind of logic could cost you great opportunities to connect with the perfect candidate. LinkedIn has over 380 million members as of 2015, and over 100 million are in the U.S. And as we discussed in our article about jobseekers ditching paper resumes, LinkedIn profiles have essentially become the leading way to promote yourself in the job market.

Using social media for recruiting can be highly effective when done smartly.

16 Sep Recruiting Wrongs and Avoiding Them: Making the Right Hire

Posted at 07:00h in Employers, Small Business Owners, Startups

There is almost nothing harder than finding the right new hire for your team. Do they fit interpersonally? Will they be able to align with the mission? Do they have enough experience, or too much? Can they integrate into the culture? A dozen questions bombard the hiring manager as they meet each candidate. Unfortunately, the right candidate can be blurred by unimportant noise, or the wrong candidate can rise to the top for the wrong reasons.

Here then, are five tips on making the right hire:

02 Sep Time to grow? Six things that will help tell you when to hire.

Posted at 07:00h in Employers, Small Business Owners, Startups

It’s lonely at the top. If you’re a solopreneur, an entrepreneur with a small team, or running a good-sized organization, you are used to making decisions that you are alone are qualified to assess. One of those considerations may be when to make a new hire. Whether it’s your first employee or your 50^th, you have to weigh if perception (yours’ or your employees’) that you need help is real or imagined. So how can you pressure test your company to see if it is time to start reading resumes?

19 Aug 5 Tips For Keeping Employee Morale High

Posted at 07:00h in Employers, Small Business Owners, Startups

How do you promote employee morale? Employees are the heart of any organization. Keeping them enthusiastic about the company are your best public relations, marketing, and business development strategies. But how do you keep them at the forefront of priorities in balance with all the other day-to-day demands?

05 Aug Do You Know Temporary Employees’ Rights?

Posted at 07:00h in Employers, Small Business Owners, Startups

More and more companies are fulfilling short-term needs with temps and independent contractors. This can be a great way to meet your staffing needs efficiently – say, for seasonal work or if you want to hire conservatively as you grow your company. But just because you’re not their employer, doesn’t mean that you don’t have certain obligations. The commitments are reasonable and do not have to be an onerous task that should discourage you from using staffing agencies – just be aware that you do have some responsibilities.

22 Jul How to be a Short-Term Boss: Managing Temporary Employees

Posted at 07:00h in Employers, Small Business Owners, Startups

Companies hire temporary employees for all kinds of reasons. They might need seasonal help, like an ice cream business in the summer or accounting firm in March. Or, they might want to test out a new person in a temp-to-perm arrangement before they make a full time hire. A company might even hire a temporary person because they aren’t sure what they need, and how much they need, just that they need someone. In any case, a staffing agency is called, people are interviewed, and presto, new employees arrive – at least for a little while. But how are you supposed to manage people who are kinda, sorta employees?

08 Jul Go Temp-to-Perm to Find Your New Hire . . . But Do This First

Posted at 07:00h in Employers, Job Seekers, Small Business Owners, Startups

This year 46% of companies plan to use temporary employees at some point in 2015. While many of them may truly only need short-term help for a spike in business (such as accounting firms during tax season), using a temp can also be a great way to assess a temp-to-perm opportunity – turning a seasonal or periodic worker into a long-term member of the team. But how do you assess a potential new hire that is working for you through a staffing agency?

17 Jun Listen to Your Temporary Help for Long Term Impact

Posted at 07:00h in Employers, Small Business Owners, Startups

In the new economy, millions of workers in the U.S. have returned to work in interim, or temp jobs, via staffing agencies. Many of today’s temp jobs are being filled by people with a decade (or two) of experience -- [bctt tweet="in 2010, more than 40% of jobs were held by those 55 and over"] and can offer a lot more than what is needed for the role they are now filling for the short term.

10 Jun Trial Period for Employees? Consider Temp-to-Perm.

Posted at 07:00h in Employers, Job Seekers, Small Business Owners, Startups

We’re all accustomed to trial periods for software programs, 30-day return policies for appliances, and easy refunds for clothes we return. But what about new employees? It’s hard to imagine parting ways with a recent hire after a few short weeks, even if you’re sure it isn’t working out well. Not only can it be legally tough – in some states you can quickly incur financial obligations if you terminate even relatively short-lived employees, it’s also a painful, and just plain awkward conversation to have.