Why should companies use a staffing service? Let us count the ways:

1. Your cost per hire will decline. Many companies don’t have a dedicated human resources department, let alone experienced recruiters on staff. A staffing service has a laser focus on recruiting trends, is completely up to date on hiring laws, uses the latest in recruiting tools and, because of its focus only on recruiting, tends to know “where the good guys are.” A staffing firm will take on all the expense of advertising, resume screening, interviews, testing and background checks.
2. You’ll find that your overtime costs also go down. When business is booming but you don’t have enough staff, partnering with a staffing firm will help you ramp up production with temporary employees rather than paying your regular staff overtime. In addition, the staffing firm is responsible for all temporary employees’ benefits and payroll expenses.
3.  Have you ever ramped up your hiring due to increased business only to see the business decline, yet you still have employees to keep busy? A staffing service can bring you temporary employees to work only when there’s work to be done. Once you’ve no need for their services, you needn’t worry about having to pay laid off workers unemployment insurance.
4. We can recruit for just about any type of position. Many smaller companies need certain types of professionals most of the time, such as accountants, administrative assistants, sales people, electricians, etc. But what happens when you need to hire someone outside of your experience? It will be harder for you to source these individuals. A staffing service, however, knows how and where to find professionals in all job sectors, saving you time and money in your search.

The recruiting experts at the Opti Staffng Group can help you find workers of all kinds for your Anchorage, Seattle, Tacoma, Chicago, Lake Oswego, or Portland company. Contact us today!

It’s a struggle for all who work in human resources or anywhere else for that matter. Having willpower is more than just resisting the temptation to do the things we shouldn’t, it’s also about establishing good habits and getting a handle on our behavior so that we can be more effective at work and in life as a whole. It’s something that can separate the best performers from the worst.

The bad news is that many of us don’t really believe we have much willpower. A recent survey of more than one million people revealed that willpower is the trait that most said they lack. And what we are confronted with today in our daily life only makes self-control more difficult. We surf the Web, jumping from one site to the next, checking out Facebook or Twitter, or checking our smartphones.

But willpower is something we cannot do without if we want to maintain our effectiveness at work and reach our lifestyle goals as well. Here are a few things you can do to increase your willpower, taken from the book Willpower by John Tierney and Roy Baumeister.

One way is to practice your willpower on small things. For example, by making yourself sit up straight at your desk, you are exercising the same willpower force you use to discipline yourself to lose weight or stop smoking. So, even keeping after yourself to sit straight can gradually also increase your self-discipline in other areas. A daily exercise routine works the same way to improve self-control.

Another piece of advice is to focus on just one thing at a time. For example, focus at first only on reducing the number of times you check your Facebook and Twitter feeds. Then, once you have that bad habit under control, move onto your next item, such as a new diet. You only have a certain amount of willpower and attempting to do too much all at once actually will exhaust it, impairing your ability to get anything done at all.

Another important thing to do to improve self-discipline is to keep track of what you do. If, for example, you want to reduce the number of times you look at Facebook, keep track in writing of the number of times you look at it each day.

Also, give yourself time to recover. Take some downtime, and make sure you are eating enough and sleeping enough. And finally, stay organized. If you work in a messy atmosphere, that may infect your self-discipline as well.

It takes no willpower at all to contact the Opti Staffing Group about available positions or for help with your staffing needs. If you live or staff a company in the Anchorage, Portland, Lake Oswego, Seattle, Tacoma or Chicago areas, contact us today!

Discrimination in the workplace against pregnant women is still a problem, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The bias persists even though there is a federal law prohibiting such discriminatory practices. The information is a red flag for human resource departments to take a look at their related policies and enforcement.

The EEOC investigated 20 cases in 2011 where there were indications that discrimination against pregnant women was happening. The number of discrimination claims filed by workers during the same year, however, was nearly 6,000, a 15 percent increase from 10 years ago, according to the agency.

On major discrimination case involved a security company that provides services to the federal government. In 2010 the company, Akal Security Inc., settled with the government for $1.64 million for allegedly forcing pregnant workers to take leaves of absence or being let go because of their pregnancy.

Discrimination can also take other forms, such as harassment. Those at most at risk for discrimination are low-wage pregnant workers who have few sick days, according to the EEOC. These women often are not given any consideration because of their pregnancy.

According to the law, discrimination occurs when a woman is treated unfavorably because she is pregnant or has a medical condition related to pregnancy. According to the EEOC, if a woman cannot perform her job because of a medical condition that is related to her pregnancy, she must be treated the way any other disabled employee would be treated.

Even though employers have policies relating to pregnancy discrimination, it still happens. Managers who may not be aware of the law and are just looking at job performance may discriminate against a pregnant employee if they assume she will not return to work and give her job duties to someone else, or assume she eventually will drop out of the workforce to raise the child. These kinds of attitudes have to be eradicated through better training and enforcement of policies, according to officials.

The biggest problem with discrimination seems to be at smaller companies, who don’t have the training needed to inform employees about the law. Women report that they were fired as soon as they informed the company about their pregnancy, and were told they were let go specifically because they were pregnant.

When you’re looking for reliable and professional temporary workers for your Chicago, Anchorage, Seattle, Tacoma, Lake Oswego, or Portland firm, give a recruiter at the Opti Staffing Group a call. We look forward to hearing from you!

In order to make a greater contribution to business, human resource departments need to focus more on speeding up improvements in the operations of business, and less on its usual administrative and compliance duties.

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!

If you work in human resources, a trend to keep an eye on is something called crowdsourcing.

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!

If you work in human resources, you probably have the ever present to-do list. Everyone has them, and they may think that using them is helpful, but one business analyst says get rid of them – and he offers an alternative.

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!

Many career counselors say that networking is the best way to find a job, and the more people you contact, the better. But it is also important to consider how you go about networking.

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.

Have you ever sat through a business presentation and, after it was over, were not sure what the point of it was?

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!

Developing a competency model for human resources is essential, but it doesn’t have to be hard or complicated, according to human resources expert Patsy Svare.

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!

As cases of malfeasances and fraud continue to occur in corporate America, human resource departments need to readjust and rethink compliance programs to insure their effectiveness, according to Stephen Paskoff, a human resources specialist.

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!