Can Temps Drive Profit?

As a business manager, you are ultimately responsible for your organization's financial and human resources. By deploying the right staffing strategy, you can greatly enhance your ability to control costs, improve productivity, and manage risk. Need proof? Read on to discover how two businesses used strategic temporary staffing to enhance their profits.

Hiring for Cultural Fit

With the workplace constantly evolving, companies should think about hiring for cultural fit as much as or even more than technical skills. Recruiting qualified candidates with the technical skills needed for a specific job is usually the easy part. The hiring managers know the skills and can tell through an effective interview if they have the technical part of the job. However, determining how a candidate will fit into the organization's culture is more challenging. The fit will be missing if a candidate's values differ from those of the company. Let's take a look at an example.

Using Personality Tests to Predict the Ability to Multi-Task

Do you find yourself constantly distracted? Your attention constantly divided, jumping from one task to another? Does every day feel like you've been really busy but not really productive? The hustle and bustle of everyday life has become a regular occurrence for many people - so much so that we have embraced a word to describe our efforts to respond to the many pressing demands on our time: multitasking.

Multitasking has become so prevalent in our lives that that the youngest generations are defined by it and employers idolize workers who do it. Used for decades to describe the parallel processing abilities of computers, multitasking is now considered a required skill for peak job performance. It is shorthand for trying to get many things done in the least amount of time possible. Read on to learn how personality tests can be used to predict a worker's ability to multi-task.

The Hiring Strategy Successful Leaders Follow

Why do some leaders have an ability to surpass expectations and create something far bigger than themselves? Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, knows what it takes to do that. He knows that to be successful, hiring the right people is critical. The most successful leaders, including Welch, have a track record of surrounding themselves with high performing talent that pushes them and their company to be better. To reduce the risk of making the wrong hire, successful leaders also use a structured hiring process (like the following strategy) that is measurable, repeatable and objective.

The Haunting of a Low Job Fit Employee

Recently, I saw first hand another example of a low job fit employee team member in a role they were not "wired" to do nor enjoy. This team member is a ten-year veteran. His job is to engage the company's most sensitive, complicated Customers. Many of these Customers are very demanding. His behavioral style is opposite of that of most of their demanding Customers. He is very passive, while most of his customers are direct. Unfortunately, he is not happy at work due to his behavioral misfit with customers, and it is impacting the rest of his life and customer satisfaction.

Why Time to Hire is the Worst Recruiting Metric of Them All

I've complained in the past about certain old school HR metrics that are still hanging around in our organizations even though they don't really matter (at best) or actually damage an organization (at worst). But many of us still diligently report on them regularly even though deep down we know they don't mean jack. Now I'll be the first to admit that until recently I thought that tracking and reporting on time to hire was important. I mean, finding the right people as quickly as possible is important, right?

Six Steps to Better Employee Selection

There are few areas of your business model that are as impactful as who you hire-especially when hiring key positions such as management and sales. Over the last dozen years of partnering with large and small business, I have found that most organizations have a significant need to enhance their employee selection process. I encourage those I serve to view their employee selection process as a continuous work in progress - always room for improvement. Following are 6 steps to better employee selection.

Top Five Challenges of Hiring Employees in a Small Business

For over 15 years I have advised small businesses and startups. One of the greatest challenges small businesses have - especially in their early stages - is hiring top talent to propel the business forward. Nothing is as important for shaping the future of a small business than who is hired - especially in management and sales. I know from direct experience. In 1999, I became the VP of Sales for a small online training company.

4 Small Yet Impactful Improvements Your Workplace Needs in 2013

As we make our way into the new year, companies everywhere are looking for new ways to better their workplaces. (Or if they aren't, they should be!) But for many companies, big improvements might not hold precedence on a busy 2013 agenda. Never fear, big changes aren't always necessary when it comes to turning your workplace into a more employee-friendly environment.