That’s the message of Brad Power, a business consultant. To speed up process improvement, human resources can do several things, Power says.

One is to hire people in HR who have a lot of experience in bettering the operations of businesses. These are people who have the know-how to work with managers on the line and talk to them about making operational changes, Power says. They have the knowledge and the credibility to confront managers over whether they are improving the skills of their employees when they redesign jobs.

As an example of this, Power cites the work of Tony Scibelli, a human resources manager at a medical center. Scibelli brought in a director of organizational development, creating a new position at the medical center to do it. This person directs the training and education programs at the healthcare complex, as well as working on problem-solving skills, team building and worker engagement.

Lowe’s did the same thing when it hired someone with a management background to lead its process improvement program from human resources.

Another thing HR departments can do to focus their energy on process improvement is to whittle down and, if possible, even outsource the traditional administrative activities. Functions such as payroll and benefits should be run efficiently and reliably at the lowest cost possible. They need to be simplified, standardized and automated as much as possible, so that HR can focus more on the operational aspects.

Also, within human resources, a group should be formed that focuses specifically and exclusively on operational improvement, Power says. The group’s sole objective should be to speed up operational change using new strategies and developing people to play new roles. This group should act as a change agent within the organization.

Naturally, Power says, HR cannot ignore its traditional administrative functions, and it won’t get very far at organizational improvement and change if it doesn’t take care of these activities. But at the same time, human resources needs to be more proactive and get out from under its traditional functions. It may involve taking some risks, but if human resources departments don’t take the risk, they will be missing great opportunities to help add real value to their companies.

If you’d like to take some of the tedious recruiting and staffing tasks from off of your plate, contact the Opti Staffing Group. We can help businesses in Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, Lake Oswego, Tacoma and Chicago find great workers for their temporary and direct-hire needs. Contact us today!

It is part of a larger trend in business where having access to resources is more and more replacing the traditional model of ownership of resources, according to Rita McGrath, a business school professor. One example of this that McGrath cites is the ZipCar, where you rent a car when you need it and then return it when you’re finished. You may need it for just one trip, or longer. Another access model is called AirBnB, where people share rooms. Another access-model company is called oDesk, which allows businesses to hire independent contractors in almost any area.

These models are changing people’s ideas about what is needed to operate a business, McGrath says. She says outright ownership of any resources, including permanent employees, soon may become an outdated kind of model. Resource-access models fit better with our globalized world, where being flexible is a big priority. When things change, it is more difficult to make changes in your business when you have to readjust everything you have, rather than simply going out and finding new resources that you can use, McGrath says. And often businesses don’t need resources permanently, so accessing the resources you need just for the time you need them is another attractive aspect of the resource-access model.

And this is where crowdsourcing comes in, which is based on the idea of using services just for when you need them. It is like outsourcing, but it is different in that you are using the labor of hundreds, even thousands, of people who each are doing a very small task, which when taken together, can do things machines cannot. The employer doesn’t have to take on even temporary contract help, let alone use permanent workers.

The obvious disadvantage of such a procedure is that it reduces the number of full-time jobs. But McGrath points to some advantages as well. It is useful for people who are just looking to make a little walking-around money, when it’s not practical for them to get a full-time job, maybe for physical reasons, for example.

McGrath contends that norms are changing in society, and that includes traditional ideas about stable working relationships. She says that in the future, more companies may be turning to things like crowdsourcing.

Contact the recruiting experts at the Opti Staffing Group when you’re looking to bring on workers for temporary, temp-to-hire or direct-hire assignments in your Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Lake Oswego, Tacoma, or Anchorage company. Contact us today!

Daniel Markovitz says that there are a number of problems with to-do lists that really make them pretty much useless. The first is that they give you too many choices. All of these choices actually create more problems than they solve because they increase our frustration. And this happens because we see the opportunity costs – the value of what we could be doing but are not – go up. Other research has shown that we can actually only handle about seven choices before we become overwhelmed, according to Markovitz. It is easier to decide and act on things when there are fewer choices. So, when you look at a long to-do list with many items on it, all it does is foster a sense of paralysis.

Another problem with to-do lists is that they lead us to focus on the things that we can do quickly, and avoid those that take some time, so the more time-consuming tasks (which often are the most important) inevitably get pushed aside.

In addition, a typical to-do lists sees you taking care of those tasks that you identify as a high priority first, neglecting the ones that are lower priority, until the lower priority tasks can no longer be ignored. But if you had taken care of the low priority tasks without delay, they would never have become urgent tasks to begin with.

Another problem with the list is that sometimes you get no idea from it how long a task will take or how much time you have to devote to the task, which prevents you from making a good decision on which item to work on. And the to-do list really provides no incentive to do the more important task over the more pleasant task.

What Markovitz recommends instead is to first estimate how much time you think each task will take, and then transfer it to your calendar. This will force you to decide which task you will handle at what time – and will alleviate the problems mentioned above.

By doing this, you also get a better picture of what time commitments are involved, and whether you can meet them. You will be forced to decide whether you can do a certain task, or even if it is worth doing.

If you need help with recruiting, place the “task” of contacting the Opti Staffing Group at the top. We can help source, vet and place terrific workers for your Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, Lake Oswego, Tacoma and Chicago company’s temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire assignments. Contact us today!

If you just take a scattershot approach, making as many calls as you can to whomever you can, without thinking about who you are calling and when to call them, you will be squandering opportunities, says career strategy specialist Bill Barnett,  who adds that you need to think strategically.

Figure out when the best time is to talk to people in different areas. You can’t do everything all at once, or allow things to move at their own pace, Barnett says.

The first thing to do is to get moving. Don’t overanalyze the situation, or allow your reservations or fears to get in the way. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you need to prepare more, or wait for the best time to call – there is no best time.

Things usually take longer than you think they will. The people you call may not be able to get back to you right away because of their schedule. So, Barnett says, don’t wait; begin now.

Barnett says that when you begin calling, first call people you know the best. This is the best way to get off to a good start. You can test your pitch on them – test out your presentation of your personal brand, the skills and accomplishments you want employers to associate with you. These people also can give you ideas, as well as names of other people to call, other things to emphasize – or not emphasize.

Then, as you become more confident in your direction and your delivery, you can branch out to people whom you have not met to begin testing the waters about what opportunities are available. You can start doing some networking through social media as well.

Next, you want to consider which companies to approach first. Do you want to start with the ones you really want to work for, or do you want to begin with companies a little further down on your list? It might seem like common sense to go with the companies you really like first, and that might be the way to go because you allow more time for job openings to occur at those places.

But starting with places not so high on your list also has advantages, such as allowing you to hone your delivery before you approach your high-priority target companies.

If you’re looking for work in Chicago, Anchorage, Lake Oswego, Portland, Tacoma, or Seattle, make your first phone call to a recruiter at the Opti Staffing Group. We can help your job search by selling your skills to these cities’ top employers. We look forward to hearing from you.

This has become a more common problem in business generally, according to business consultant Ron Ashkenas.

The amount of information people have to deal with has exploded, while the amount of time available to analyze it and make decisions has dwindled. Because of this, it has become more important than ever to be able to get to the core of an issue quickly, to be able to boil down all of the information into a bottom-line type of statement, the takeaway.

Why has this become such a problem?  Ashkenas points to several reasons.

One is the fact that managers often deal with problems that have no one right or correct answer, so in an effort to gain more certainty, or a clearer understanding, they compile more and more information, without ever attempting to reach a conclusion.

Another reason for this type of problem is that even if a manager reaches a conclusion, he or she may not have the self-confidence to state it directly, wary that it might anger a more senior person, so the manager couches the findings in a flurry of qualifications or even ambiguities.

How can you overcome this problem? Ashkenas provides some tips.

He recommends that when planning a presentation, you start at the end. Begin with the key point you want to make, your conclusion, and then work back from that. Pretend that you are sending your presentation on Twitter, and you have to boil it down to 140 or fewer characters. Once you have determined what the key point is that you want to make, you can then figure out what other information you will need to support it.

Another way to boil things down is to give your presentation without any PowerPoint slides or other visual aids. Practice giving your talk in less than six minutes. This will help you get clearer about what you want to say. In fact, you should begin with that very question, – what is it that I want to say about this issue, or this policy, or whatever you are talking about. Then say it.

Another helpful thing to do is to put yourself in the place of your audience when preparing your presentation. Think about what they know and don’t know, what they want to find out, and what kinds of questions they will have. This can help guide you as well.

We’ll get right to the point. Whether you’re looking for great workers or you looking for great work in Portland, Anchorage, Lake Oswego, Seattle, Chicago, and Tacoma, contact the Opti Staffing Group. We look forward to hearing from you!

When people in business talk about competencies, they usually are referring to the skills, knowledge, and behavior that are needed to be successful, Svare says.

Skills can involve a lot of different elements, depending on the situation. They can include, for example, the ability to do computer programming, operate machinery, or conduct a medical procedure.

Knowledge as it pertains to human resources is fairly straightforward – it means knowledge about the specialty areas in human resources, such as benefits, training, compensation, and employee relations.

Behavior applies to the behavior that is needed to be successful in a certain job. This might relate to an employee’s decisiveness, focus on customers, attention to detail, or creativity

Competencies can apply to more than just an individual. You can have competencies for a job function, such as human resources or marketing, or for an entire company.

In human resources, when you look at competencies, you want to look at the skills, knowledge and behavior that are needed to make the department successful, according to Svare. You not only need to look at the competencies that will be necessary to deal with the needs you currently have, but also the needs that you see arising in the future, Svare says. As an example, in the near future, you see the need to reduce costs, even though that may not be a need now, but when developing competencies, you will want to look possibly for an attribute such as creativity, which might be helpful in looking for ways to cut costs.

Sometimes, human resource departments will look at updating their competency model when they recognize that there is a need for change. If this is the case, make sure you get input from your best workers and other key stakeholders in the operation for their ideas of what competencies are needed, according to Svare. Once you have developed the competencies, you need to be sure you communicate to the department exactly why these particular competencies where chosen, why they are important to the department as you move forward, and how they will be used to select and develop workers in human resources, Svare says.

Speaking of competencies, the Opti Staffng Group has the expertise you need to find you reliable and skilled temporary workers for your Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, Lake Oswego, Tacoma, or Chicago business. Contact us today!

Getting people to do the right thing involves overcoming hurdles that may be higher than generally thought, Paskoff said. We all like to think we would do the right thing if we saw someone doing something wrong, but there is too much historical evidence to the contrary to believe that would inevitably happen.

Paskoff cites the experiments of psychologist Stanley Milgram to show how human nature, how our very makeup, leads us to sometimes blindly follow authority, and how this can thwart the aims of compliance programs. Such programs, which spell out what is right and wrong, and set up complaint processes, often are not enough to overcome our natural disinclination to buck authority.

In the experiments, people were asked to deliver electric shocks to subjects when they answered certain questions incorrectly. During the experiment, which was designed to see how far people would go in obeying authority in getting a job done, the person running the experiment commanded the people to deliver stronger and stronger shocks for wrong answers, even when subjects cried out in agony. (The cries were all fake; no real shocks were given.) What Milgram found was that almost everyone obeyed the experimenter and continued to deliver more severe shocks.

What the experiment showed was that doing the right thing was overshadowed by the desire to follow organizational rules and norms of behavior.

Another problem, Paskoff says, is that companies may themselves form cultures that encourage people to obey authority and accept wrongdoing, even when they don’t mean to. Often compliance programs focus on setting up the maximum of what can be done to enforce correct behavior, when they should be spelling out the very minimum of what should be done to address improper actions.

So, people do the least they can get away with and consider that to be enough. Their natural inclination to address a wrong is overshadowed by their reluctance to challenge authority.

Paskoff argues that compliance processes need to be reconsidered so that they don’t encourage inaction or the barely adequate response. To do this, he says the company leaders need to communicate the importance of compliance, that it is not merely a nice thing to do, but necessary for the very survival of the company.

If your Anchorage, Lake Oswego, Seattle, Portland, Tacoma, or Chicago company expects to thrive in 2012, you’ll need a great staffing firm to help you find workers for temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire assignments. Call the Opti Staffing Group today to learn more. We look forward to hearing from you!

It’s no secret that there is a trend among businesses toward using more independent contractors, especially with the uncertainty in the economy. But a new report by MBO Partners, which provides business services to independent contractors, has predicted that by 2020 more than half the U.S. workforce — which now is 70 million people — will be working as independent contractors.

According to the company, about 16 million people work as independent contractors now, and 28 million are considering becoming independent workers within the next two years. Also, according to research by MBO, more than half of workers who are currently independent said they became so by choice. About half cited the need for more flexibility as the reason for going independent.

Independent workers include those on fixed-term contracts, independent consultants, those working through temporary agencies, workers on an on-call arrangement, and those who own a business with fewer than five employees

The MBO report also noted other trends that it said would continue. One is the growing demand for experts and experienced, skilled workers. According to the report, in the future, most independent workers will be experts or skilled workers. These will include older workers, over 55, who will be going out on their own as independent contractors based on the expertise they have gained during their careers.

The growing independence of workers is being made possible by the rise of social media and new technology that allows collaboration, such as cloud computing. These new tools will allow workers to find jobs, create teams to work on projects, and also allow for continued learning. Cloud computing and mobile technologies also allow these workers to do their job from just about anywhere.

However, because of these big changes being driven by technology and the changing nature of the workforce, MBO is also predicting more regulation of independent contractors as well. In 2011, for example, seven misclassification laws were approved in six states, and 14 bills are under review for 2012.

If you need reliable and skilled workers for your Anchorage, Portland, Seattle, Lake Oswego, Tacoma or Chicago company in 2012, give the Opti Staffing Group a call. We’d be happy to discuss different staffing and recruiting strategies with you. We look forward to being of service.

According to health experts, companies can get a lot of benefits by looking at the data in the company’s health plan. Such data can be used to spot trends that could help the company improve the design of the health plan, improve the health of workers and hold down costs.

For example, tracking workers’ most common health problems can help determine health plan strategy. Tracking the cost and number of these problems, as well as the drugs and medical procedures required to treat these problems, can help the business focus its resources in these areas, and promote prevention ideas, as well as healthy lifestyles, according to Marcia Wright, director of medical affairs for Pfizer.

Also, companies should use the collection of data to see what kind of care employees are receiving for their conditions, and how effective the care is, according to attorney Peter Rosene. This will help the company design healthcare plans that are more effective and cost efficient, and do a better job of promoting healthy living.

A business can get overall data from its health insurer, and because no individual information is exposed, there are no legal problems.

Waste has been built into the healthcare system, according to consultant David Blumenstein. Providers get no reward for good outcomes, and there is no penalty if the results are bad, he said.

Companies can be more proactive in helping to improve the health of their employees. By doing this, they prevent health claims from ever arising, saving money in the process. But to be effective in doing this, they need information about their employees’ health, information that is stored in the data.

Moreover, the data collected should be used to help the company design its healthcare plan. By looking at the data, the company can determine what services are being used and what services are not. The company can better determine what services should be covered but are not.

To better understand the health coverage situation, companies need to know who is enrolled in their plan and who is using it, along with the age, gender, and contributions of members.

If you’d like help in finding great employees for your Anchorage, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, Lake Oswego, or Chicago company, contact a recruiter at the Opti Staffing Group. We look forward to hearing from you!

But the news isn’t all bad for job hunters, depending on what field they are in, because in some areas, employment prospects are actually very good. Just looking at the overall employment picture tells little about the specific areas where companies are actually looking very hard for people.

The job market is going through a period of heightened turbulence because fundamental changes in the economy are taking place, according to business experts. Unsure when demand will gather steam, companies are taking a cautious approach to hiring, asking their workers to do more than in the past, and relying on contingent workers to fill gaps.

The manufacturing and service sectors are especially weak.. About 25 percent of recent layoffs came from the manufacturing area, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Society for Human Resources Management is forecasting that hiring in manufacturing will only increase a little more than one percent each year. Hiring in the service sector is expected to drop by more than 10 percent annually.

But while the manufacturing and service sectors struggle, companies report continuing difficulties in finding people with skills in particular areas, most notably in areas like engineering, healthcare, and IT. In fact, a recent survey revealed that six out of every ten companies are having problems finding skilled workers. Moreover, the number of companies having trouble keeping skilled workers has climbed five percent since 2010, to about 36 percent.

This two-tiered job market is also split along educational lines. People with college degrees or specialized skills training have relatively low unemployment rates. The unemployment rate for people with a college degree is now a little more than four percent. But for people with less than a high school diploma, the unemployment rate is more than 14 percent.

For high school graduates, the unemployment rate is about 10 percent. The employment rate for people 16 to 24 years old stands at under 50 percent, the lowest ever recorded. Business analysts predict the problem will only become more severe. There are plenty of lower skilled workers, they say, and not enough job growth to handle them. There is a problem in the economy now where the skills or lack of skills of many workers do not fit the skills employers seek.

If you’re looking for a new position in Anchorage, Portland, Seattle, Lake Oswego, Tacoma, or Chicago, give the Opti Staffing Group a call. We have many temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire assignments available – and we also offer skills training! Contact us today!