If you have brought in temporary employees to your workplace, you know how productive and efficient they can be.

Here are some tips to help you manage your temporary workforce:

Long gone are the days when most contingent workers came to a place of business just to fill in for a vacationing or sick “regular” employee. Companies today bring temporary workers in for long-term (sometimes indefinitely so) assignments, many of them critical to an employer’s success. Companies now routinely also bring in highly skilled — even executive level — contingent workers to complete special projects or to help manage or even lead a company through a touch transition. And, of course, many businesses now look to temporary staffing firms to bring them potential employees on “temp-to-hire” contracts, allowing both the worker and the business to check out the position to see if the worker and the job/company are a good fit for each other.

Yet, and we do see this frequently, many managers still treat their contingent workers like second-class citizens. There are “our employees” and “the temps.”

Instead, we recommend you look at your temporary employees as potential regular employees (after all, you very well may hire them yourself!). Take the time to help them feel as if they belong, that they are an important part of your team.

When you hire a temporary, especially for a long-term assignment, take the time to give plenty of detail about the open position and the skills and background you feel are necessary of the person who ends up filling the slot. Let your staffing agency know of the kind of your company’s culture and the kind of person who fits best within it.

Once the temporary employee arrives, give her an orientation. Give a thorough explanation of the job’s duties, as well as a tour of your facilities, break times, lunch times, where the rest rooms are located.

As you introduce the individual, don’t refer to her as “the temp,” either to her face or to others. Instead, let employees know the her name and the duties she’ll be taking on.

Let your temporary workers be “in the know.” Give them information about your business and how their work fits in to your goal’s. Invite your contingent workers to staff and department meetings. Share company memos and announcements with them.

When you’re looking to bring in new employees on a temp-to-hire basis, or when you need highly skilled temporary employees to help your business grow, give Bayside Solutions a call. We provide talented and hard-working employees for Bay Area manufacturing, “green” technologies, technology and construction companies. Contact us today.

Yes, it’s a sweet time to be a business owner or human resources manager right now when it comes to getting to pick and choose from the wealth of talent looking for work . With so many great people out of work as a result of cutbacks at their employers during the Great Recession, finding a talented, committed, skillful employee is almost as easy as just dipping a fishing line into small, well-stocked fishing pond.

But that will change. And sooner than you may think.

Talent Management reported in March the results of a survey conducted by StepStone Solutions. In the article, Talent Management stated that “[c]companies must put their people first in the recovery or risk experiencing deep talent erosion and sustained underperformance, StepStone Solutions warns businesses in a new report, titled Companies at the Crossroads.”

The article continues:
“According to a worldwide survey of senior managers, sponsored by StepStone,  two years of cutbacks have undermined workplace trust. Combined with  increasing demand for executive talent and a sharp drop in graduate recruitment,  the survey found that companies without the right talent strategies risk developing  a major skills shortage just when they need employees’ energy and commitment  the most. The survey, undertaken in December 2009, covered more than 400  senior managers primarily in major corporations in the US, Europe and Asia-  Pacific.

“Matthew Parker, group managing director at StepStone Solutions, said: ‘Right now, businesses are at a crossroads when it comes to their talent. They can either  take steps to create, maintain and develop global talent pools, or ignore the  warning signs from this survey and suffer a gradual talent erosion at all levels  that will inevitably lead to underperformance.’”

So what can and should a business owner/HR manager do now to avoid a dearth of talent in the coming years? Here are some tips:

• Be prepared to pony up in increased salaries to attract and retain the best and the brightest. Know this going in, increase payrates quickly and you can keep and find the best first. If you wait to increase wages too long, you run the risk of having your candidate pool be filled with less-than-stellar candidates.
• Create a brand around your organization. A company that has the reputation of a great organization — think Microsoft, Google, Southwest Airlines, etc. — will have a much easier job attracting and keeping top talent
• Think about improving other aspects of your employees’ day-to-day working lives. Can you automate the tedious, hard or dangerous tasks on the job. Can you increase fringe benefits (go from two weeks of vacation a year to three or even four weeks). Make sure you offer employees great learning opportunities, whether it’s tuition reimbursement for college, on-site classes in net technology, or even management training for promising colleagues. Can you offer telecommuting options or become more flexible in your scheduling (worried less that employees clock in at certain hours and instead letting them do the work as they see fit, on their own schedule, so long as the work gets done by deadline)?

Finally, look to personnel firms such as Bayside Solutions for help in sourcing exceptional employees. As one of San Francisco’s premier staffing agencies, we know how to source and screen top employees for your firm. Contact us today; we look forward to serving you.

Are you sending out tons and tons of resumes and applications to jobs and getting no results?

Are you wondering why you’re “working” so hard at finding work, but have little to show for it?

Here’s a little secret: Sending out applications and resumes willy nilly is not the way to find work. In fact, it’s really not job searching in any real way because you’re being passive about it, sending out resumes/applications and sitting back waiting for the Job Fairy to tap you on the shoulder with her magic wand so that Your Perfect Job appears before you.

No. Instead, the real secret to finding work is WORK: You’re going to have to put in some considerable effort.

But the payoff will be a job that pays well, challenges and excites you. All the effort you will be putting forth will be well worth it.

• Be proactive. Be very proactive. Yes, craft a great resume (one that showcases the results of your efforts for previous employers, not just duties), but don’t spend too much time on it. Instead, spend most of your time contacting everyone you know to let them know of search for work and the skills and experience you bring to an employer. Keep the focus off of your need for your work and more on your skills and the value you bring to an employer.
• Research companies you think a) you’d like to work for or b) could use someone with your skills and experience. Find out the name of someone who could actually hire you – a hiring manager – and call that person, even if there’s no job opening.
• At the very least, e-mail the person. Briefly explain your background and your skills. Ask if that person knows of any opportunities that match your skills. Ask if you could meet with the person to discuss your skill set and where your skills might best be utilized, whether it’s at his company or another.
• Yes, you’ll get turned down. But if you conduct yourself as one colleague sharing information with another colleague the direct approach can be very effective. One phone call could result in a meeting. Another could result in “just” a name of someone to call, but you now have a connection to someone else who knows someone, who knows someone else who needs the skills and value you bring to the table.

Of course, working with a staffing agency can be a great way for you to find work to tide you over while you search for your perfect job. A personnel service also could place you in a temp-to-hire position in your field.

In fact, don’t be surprised if a “temporary” stint becomes your regular job! It happens all the time: an individual takes a temporary assignment and finds that he loves the work and the company and is eventually hired full time at the company where he’s on assignment.

So while you’re busy contacting employers directly, why not contact Bayside Solutions now to learn how we can help you find your next great gig. We’re the Bay Area staffing agency for those searching for positions in the technology, manufacturing, construction, scientific and green industries.

The Boomers are out; Gen Y is in.

So how do you attract the best and brightest, without turning your IT organization upside down? You have to strike a new balance. Prepare for the changes to come by learning more about Gen Y. Stay flexible, and meet millennials halfway by accommodating their needs as much as possible.

To help, here are some great strategies for recruiting the best IT talent the next generation has to offer:

1. Take a viral approach. Develop Flash videos and other materials for your organization (think interactive, entertaining and hip) that young people will want to send on to their friends. For example, Facebook allows you to develop apps that sit on other people’s profile pages. They, in turn, can invite friends to include the app on their own pages. A viral approach can enhance awareness, properly position your IT organization with millennials, and increase job referrals.

2. Leverage industry blogs, forums and social network groups. The best Gen Y professionals stay on top of their game by constantly seeking out new information. Become a trusted source they turn to. Write and post articles that are ahead of the curve in your area of technical expertise, and you’ll attract the IT performers you need.

3. Put your best foot forward. Like it or not, millennials judge organizations by their technology acumen and arsenal. In many cases, millennials even research your IT portfolio before agreeing to sit down for a job interview. So if you haven’t already, develop or update your IT profile. Outline your current platforms, software and hardware; create a review of your company’s cutting-edge projects (current or slated); show how your organization incorporates Web 2.0 tools.

4. Beyond your technology profile, you should also be prepared to demonstrate your company’s CSR (corporate social responsibility). Gen Yers place a high importance on an employer’s ethical standing–show them how your ethics and beliefs match their own.

5. Use your current Gen Yers. Millennials are particularly peer-influenced. As a result, your Gen Y employees may be your best choice for connecting with Gen Y candidates–especially on college campuses. As already devoted members of your IT staff, your current millennial employees can tell potential candidates what life will be like “in the trenches,” and serve as “IT ambassadors” to address individual questions and concerns.

6. Market your company to parents, too. Many millennials were raised by hyper-involved parents. Now, these “helicopter” moms and dads hover over every life decision their children make – including career moves. To win over Gen Y, you must win over their parents as well. Consider offering family site tours, hosting a Parent’s Day, or including information on your website that parents would find helpful (plain-language overview of your business, review of benefits and extras that emphasize company support, training and/or mentoring programs, etc.).

7. Consider a virtual job fair. Some companies have used Second Life to recruit talented millennials for IT slots. By creating avatars to conduct virtual job seminars, these employers have attracted a subset of talent not easily recruited by traditional methods. While the start-up cost is moderate, your organization may want to consider a virtual job fair if you have the internal talent to handle scripting, avatar development and recruiting video creation.

8. Enlist the help of specialists. Recruiting millennial IT talent is a daunting task, under the best of circumstances. To help save time and money, while minimizing your frustration, consider working with an IT staffing service.

At Bayside Solutions, our Technology Solutions division maintains a database of highly qualified candidates, and can quickly deliver the tech-savvy candidates you need.  To discover more please contact us today.