Recruiter News Line

Ft. Lauderdale, FL – With Labor Department data showing the highest layoff rate in five years, related employment suits will also likely rise. “As the number of employee layoffs increases, the potential for litigation also goes up,” explained Heather Gatley, executive vice president of human resource services at AlphaStaff Group, Inc., a human resource outsourcing (HRO) company that provides HR services, training and counsel to hundreds of small and midsize companies nationwide.

Layoffs and terminations can lead to suits ranging from age discrimination to wrongful termination, and more. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported 2007 as having the highest volume of incoming private sector discrimination charge filings since 2002 and the largest annual increase since the early 1990s. Additionally, employers are facing new legal challenges as an onslaught of baby boomers trigger a new wave of age bias lawsuits.

“Employers need to be especially conscientious of legal obligations during a recession,” said Gatley. “Adopting fair employee policies and documenting your company’s termination procedures now will help prevent HR-related lawsuits resulting from wrongful termination.”

Gatley recommends reviewing the following items when considering workforce reductions:

1.  Determine the method for who will be laid off. Eliminations can be based on job category, merit, seniority, or other factors

2.  Train managers on the communications plan before performing Reduction in Force (RIF) evaluation

3.  Document everything, from the reason for the layoff to the selection procedure

4.  Have objectively justifiable statistics

5.  Don’t make false promises, or be dishonest to the employee being laid off

6.  Always have two people present during exit interviews

As a HRO, AlphaStaff sees the insides of hundreds of companies and works to ensure its clients are following best practices to prevent HR-related suits. Companies of all sizes and industries will benefit from speaking with an expert in this area. “Damages from wrongful termination or discrimination suits can be extraordinary,” added Gatley. “A little planning and procedure clarification can help pull a company through already tough times.”

(Computerworld)

— Job cuts next year are expected to surpass 1 million, outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said today, but rising unemployment will also bring about its own boom in the use of social networking and tools such as video resumes.

Challenger, a Chicago-based firm that tracks job cut announcements, said 156,000 tech-sector job cuts were announced through November, or about 15% of the just over a million announced reductions this year. That’s in contrast to the period of the dot.com bust, when tech job cuts accounted for 36% of the overall total of job cuts in 2001 and 32% in 2002, the firm said.

As layoffs continue, job seekers will increase their use of Web 2.0 tools to network and to stand out in a crowd. “YouTube could become the sandwich board of the new millennium,” Challenger said.

On YouTube, a search for “video resume” brings up less than 2,000 results; a search on “resume” alone returns 26,000 results but includes anything using the word “resume.” Video resumes may still be too new and different for most. Management Recruiters International Inc. in Philadelphia did an online poll of visitors to its Web site last spring, and out of the 500 Web site responses, 4% said they had used video in their job search.

But video is getting serious consideration from recruiting professionals, such as Kip Hollister, CEO of Boston-based recruiting firm Hollister Inc. Hollister said she may use it to market some of her clients.

“One has to be very careful using this as a tool, because the first impression is a lasting impression,” Hollister said. “If one is going to do this, you really need to do it right. And if you do it with low quality, that will, in essence, leave a cheap impression of video resumes,” she said.

Hollister’s clients range from programmers with skills in .Net and Java, to business analysts and chief technology officers. Ideal candidates for video may be those seeking management jobs who may interact with marketing and other departments. Video might enable potential candidates to demonstrate their communication skills and charisma, she said.

But sending a video link to a large company may not help.

“The average recruiter at a big company is recruiting for 20 different positions simultaneously,” said Michael Neece, chief strategy officer at Pongo Software LLC, which operates PongoResume, an online resume service. Those recruiters, “are trying to screen as rapidly as they can” and may spend no more than 10 to 20 seconds looking at a resume.

Neece also said some employers may see video as a legally risky way to screen applicants because a video may give information unrelated to an applicant’s qualifications, such as race, size and disability.

Della Giles, director of BlueSteps.com, the career management service of the Association of Executive Search Consultants in New York, said resumes will become more graphically rich and may include snippets of video as part of an overall presentation. BlueSteps is now working with VisualVC Inc. in Reston, Va., which combines multimedia elements, including video, in a resume, she said. The association represents search firms that recruit executives.

“The resume should be more than just a simple kind of paper document” that “gives you the essentials, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you a lot about the broader aspects of an individual,” Giles said.

General Blue Corporation is offering their flagship online timesheet software solution to businesses totally free for 6 months and up to 200 users.

This best offer among the Time and Attendance software providers demonstrates quality, low cost and the scalability of General Blue technology to service all sizes, from small business to large enterprises.

The offer will encourage businesses who don’t currently track employee time, use paper timesheets, or who are using an outdated system to try out our secure online timesheet system built with General Blue advanced technology.

“We know businesses will appreciate this free offer due to the recent downturn in the economy. The software will help them improve efficiency, improve processes and accurately track employee time.”

“This is a great opportunity to showcase our timesheet software and demonstrate to our partners how we can make their business run better.”

The offer is available immediately for a limited time so businesses should visit http://www.generalblue.com today for more details.

Recruit Hospital Executives, a leader in director and c-level search solutions, today announced the launch of www.recruithospitalexecutives.com, the first dedicated recruitment website for executive level job seekers, employers, executive search firms, and recruiters within the healthcare industry.

With the recent economic downturn, hospitals across the country are looking at ways to cut costs. This difficult financial climate has led to an increasing number of lay-offs and an uncertain future for many hospital executives.

Responding to the challenging job market and the inevitable changes facing the healthcare industry throughout the United States, RecruitHospitalExecutives.com has been designed to serve as a one stop resource for hospital executives and those who hire them. Because the site is solely focused on executive healthcare management positions, it is designed to meet the specific needs of the industry.

Anthony Paris, an account manager with Recruit Hospital Executives says, “It can be a challenging task for both hiring and searching for hospital executive positions. Jobs are often scattered over a wide range of websites or not posted at all, and there simply wasn’t a dedicated site for healthcare industry professionals. With time being an increasingly precious commodity, Recruit Hospital Executives is the solution for streamlining the efforts of finding, posting, and recruiting for these positions.”

Recruit Hospital Executives offers a variety of opportunities for executive recruiters and healthcare facilities to reach qualified director and c-level healthcare executives through several affordable job posting plans.  Single job postings start at $99 per month.

Executives can post resumes, search job openings, and keep current with industry news and trends on the site for free. As well, the company is offering, for a limited time, a complimentary professional email address for job seekers. This is a valuable tool for any executive seeking to align their online communications with their professional objectives.

Confronting The Tough Stuff: Turning Managerial Challenges into Positive Results (http://www.seminarinformation.com/

qqbnfy/confronting-the-tough-stuff-turning-managerial-challenges) by the American Management Association offers some help.

Learn how to successfully manage timely real-life challenges and increase your value and effectiveness as a leader. You’ll role play real life situations that challenge your solid management skills as you handle the issues of today: team dysfunction, mediation between difficult employees and coping and working through survivor shock from layoffs, mergers and acquisitions.

Mastering Challenging Management Conversations (http://www.seminarinformation.com/qqbtdh/mastering-chall …) by the American Management Association.

Put an end to sweaty palms, sleepless nights, racing heartbeats. Stop putting it off or looking for a way out. Now you can conduct those challenging conversations with tact and confidence! Address sensitive personal issues, confront performance liabilities, persuade key players to support your ideas, disagree without sounding judgmental…and more.

Hiring and Firing: How to Do It Right (http://www.seminarinformation.com/qqbuzm/hiring-and-firi …) by Sterling Education Services.

Topics include: How to Define Legal Job Criteria and Legally Find and Qualify Applicants; Background Checks & Hiring Decisions; Contingent Employees - Joint Employer Issues with Temporary; Overview of Confidentiality Agreements, Non-Compete Agreements; The Termination Process; Information Disclosure Issues.

Users of the SeminarInformation.com (http://www.seminarinformation.com) can find complete descriptions and outlines for these seminars and thousands of others but hundreds of seminar sponsors including Skillpath, Fred Pryor, National Seminars, Cornell, Linkage, Learning Tree International and Cross Country Education to name a few.

Find a date and location and sign up for the program right online. Seminar consultants are available toll free at 877-SEM-INFO (736-4636) to assist with registrations, answer questions and make suggestions.

Call center workflow processes are often complex and difficult to optimize.  While simulating routing, staffing and contact prioritization has proven to be the most effective way to increase efficiency and reduce costs, developing a realistic simulation, using most simulation software, can take months of work.  Most simulation software is designed to be general enough to model stores, bottling plants or circuit diagrams – the effort required to adapt general simulation software to model call center processes can be extensive.

The latest release of SimzCC is designed specifically to reduce costs and improve service in call centers.  Call center simulations can be developed within hours, and modified within minutes.  SimzCC incorporates pre-designed call center building blocks, such as agent groups, or inbound calls, that are simply and intuitively placed on a workspace and then easily configured to model almost any call center work process.  There is no proprietary programming language.  Outputs of a SimzCC simulation include all the important call center metrics, such as service level, average speed of answer, longest wait, abandonment and agent utilization.

Use SimzCC to predict:
•   An improvement in service level from 13% to 89% answered in 30 seconds by adding 5% more staff
•   A degradation in service level from 79% to 22% answered in 60 seconds by adding 30 seconds more after call documentation
•   A 5 minute reduction in average speed of answer by combining two previously separate skill groups.
•   A reduction in expense of over $450,000 by cross-training a group with one skill to handle two skills.

SimzCC was designed to numerically and graphically show the results of real-world decisions impacting call centers and to predict how changes in staffing, average handle time, volumes or routing would affect costs and service levels, without experimenting on customers.
For further information, please contact info@simzcc.com or visit http://www.simzcc.com

St. Petersburg, Florida, – In the past, HR outsourcing implications could be detrimental to businesses engaged in securing outsourced solutions.  These negative implications were due to a lack of true outsourcing offers on the market.  In essence, companies were only able to outsource part of their HR needs, while maintaining a partial HR staff onsite for immediate needs.

Corban OneSource has engineered an outsource product that circumvents these HR outsourcing implications and helps businesses attain the dramatic savings that they expect from these solutions.  Corban OneSource offers every service possible through an onsite HR department, ensuring compliance with local and federal guidelines, accurate employee benefit tracking, document management and creation services and much more.
Corban OneSource’s HR solution offers businesses the opportunity to have a fully functional HR solution offsite, without the traditional drawbacks this once entailed.  By outsourcing HR solutions, businesses are able to save much-needed business capital and produce immediate ROI on the outsourced programs.

This is ideal for larger companies in need of additional capital, as well as smaller companies who would otherwise be unable to benefit from an HR department.
For additional information about HR outsourcing implications and benefits, visit http://www.corbanone.com or call (727) 803-1800.

About Corban OneSource – Corban OneSource was founded more than a decade ago with the mission of relieving companies of time-consuming tasks that resulted in increased operational costs and other drawbacks.  Through their unique, innovative product line, Corban OneSource is able to help any business engender greater savings, immediate ROI and the capital needed to expand, ensuring future growth and stability.

The speed at which business is changing combined with new employment trends is why companies need to build a workforce that is flexible and focused. TrueBridge Resources, a leading professional staffing company, has opened for business to address this need and the increasing demand for professional contract staffing.

According to Workforce Management (10/20/08), the current performance of the U.S. staffing industry has been a tale of two sectors. Demand for skilled, professional workers has remained strong even as cutbacks hit the commercial sector, populated by lower-skilled clerical workers. The need to find the right skills to fill critical jobs could continue to bolster demand for certain types of professional temporary workers even if the economy worsens.

Information technology (IT) professionals are among those who are most in demand, partly because they are assigned to more important and integral corporate tasks and projects, so companies are less likely to immediately let them go.

TrueBridge Resources focuses on helping organizations identify critical needs in IT and professional back office staffing, then bridges the gap with professional candidates who can be immediately effective within an organization. TrueBridge partners with clients across a broad spectrum of industries to help find professionals on a contract, contract-to-

hire or full-time basis.

“We saw the growing need for organizations to use contracted professionals as a human resources and overall business strategy, especially in today’s dynamic work environment,” says Scott Kriscovich, president of TrueBridge Resources. “The biggest issues facing U.S. companies now and for the next two decades are a shortage of talented professionals and the growing costs of recruiting and training employees. We help companies engage candidates with proven professional experience for specialized skills. While perhaps needed only for a certain project or initiative, trained and highly-proficient support is critical during that period of time.”

By bringing in specialized talent on a contract basis, companies can be highly competitive. Barry Asin, chief analyst of Staffing Industry Analysts, says that one of the reasons temporary staffing is so popular with U.S. corporations is because of its flexibility. Companies can use temporary help to expand or shrink staffing levels to respond to economic conditions without the complications of hiring and firing permanent employees.

TrueBridge Resources helps companies make sense of these profound workplace changes. Its particular expertise is in placing skilled resources as business analysts; instructional designers and trainers; data architects, modelers and analysts; ERP (functional and technical); application developers (e.g., Java, .Net, C#, UI Design); project analysts, coordinators and managers; quality assurance professionals and testers; and financial analysts and accountants.

The need for top talent is greater than ever, yet this is the most challenging environment for filling critical, senior-level positions. Working with a professional staffing company like TrueBridge Resources allows organizations to better manage and reduce costs by paying for the right talent at the right time.

VIENNA, VA - In these turbulent times, the right decisions will result in a fabulous payback, while the wrong bets could prove to be disastrous.  Leaders are now recognizing that the margin for error is now very slim when executing a business plan.   The top concern for executives at the moment is excellence in execution.

“With fast action, smart leaders can actually turn the difficult economic times into opportunities.”

says Jeff Rocha, CEO of The Millennium Group International, a management consulting firm based in Virginia.  “We have been hearing concerns from our clients about the impact of the recession.” says Rocha, “We are recommending to clients that they move rapidly to adapt their strategy, cut costs and restructure operations.  Our clients who are doing these things will emerge from the slowdown stronger than ever.”

On Tuesday, The Millennium Group International (TMG) announced a set of solutions, called Recession Busting Solutions, specifically geared towards assisting clients through these difficult economic times.   Organizations will utilize these services to stay nimble in order to rapidly change to meet the unprecedented challenges we are seeing.   These solutions help businesses, non-profit and government organizations plan for success, refocus priorities, cut costs and improve accountabilities.

All attention is on accountability given the recession, the financial crisis and the various bailouts for companies such as General Motors, AIG and Citigroup.  “Stake holders have very little patience for ill conceived plans and poor execution.” says TMG CEO Jeff Rocha, “A good strategy process involves how to keep people and organizations on track and accountable.”

More can be learned about TMG’s Recession Busting Solutions at www.tmgi.net.  The TMG customized services available now are: Leadership Recharge, Change Strategy Now!, Financial Success Model, Facilitation for Quick Decisions, Lower Training Costs, Non Profit Outreach, Enhancing Customer Relations, and the Human Resources Tool Kit.  This announcement follows the recent launch of TMG’s new online e-learning platform for low cost training and development.