Hagel and Company Human Resources Blog - California, Idaho, Washington State HR News

Fifteen years ago, there were only a few outlets for placing job listings. Today, there are thousands.

Where should you place listings if you’re hoping to find qualified candidates for your workplace?
It all depends.

Here are a few suggestions, based on the type of position you’re hiring for:

For communications/PR: If you’re seeking someone for a writing-oriented position, try MediaBistro’s job board or the PRSA Job Center for highly qualified candidates. If you’re seeking someone for an internship or entry-level position, Ed2010 is a great place to find new talent at affordable rates.

For finance jobs: When seeking accountants, CFOs, or other number-crunchers, you’ll find the right fit at a specialized site such as efinancialcareers.com or financialjobbank.com.

For sales jobs: Seeking new sales representatives? You’ll find eager new candidates on large job sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder. If you’re seeking a more seasoned veteran, and are willing to provide a great pay package to someone with high-quality experience, try TheLadders.com, which specializes in jobs with salaries of $100,000 or higher.

For social media jobs: If you’re seeking someone who can give your Facebook page a jump-start, you’ll find plenty of tech-savvy veterans and newcomers alike at the tech news giant Mashable’s jobs site.

For design jobs: If you’re looking for a designer, you may not even want to post a job ad—you might prefer to look through designers’ portfolios and contact the ones who stand out. At Coroflot, you can take either approach, placing a listing on the site or browsing through the more than 80,000 portfolios by location or specialty.

For tech jobs: If you need a developer, a software engineer, or an IT manager, Dice.com is one of the most popular job boards frequented by techies of all types.

For everything else: When you’re seeking lower-skilled jobs, you’re likely to find plenty of willing and qualified applicants by posting a job listing to your local Craigslist board, which is free for most cities.

As the economy continues to straddle the line between recession and recovery, forward-thinking companies are taking action to build a better-educated workforce.  The Benefits USA 2010/2011 survey results found that 84.7 percent of U.S. companies offer tuition reimbursement to their employees.  The government allows a company to contribute up to $5, 250 tax-free per year toward tuition reimbursement, books and education fees for an individual employee.  In addition to tax incentives, tuition assistance promotes:

A learning mentality: People who are engaged with scholarship in their fields are more likely to learn new skills, generate creative ideas and feel mentally and emotionally invested in their jobs.

Employee morale: Encouraging employees to seek out and implement current techniques and industry standards can transform a position in your organization from just a job to a career.  A career is perceived as a lifestyle and a point of pride.  Offering employees the benefit of tuition assistance shows that you are concerned about their futures and perceive them as a long-term asset to the company.

More experienced leadership: If an employee starts in a ground-level position in your company and shows initiative, why not reward that initiative with education and promotion? The alternative is hiring someone else with the education, but without the loyalty fostered by longevity and consistent promotion.

A chain of knowledge:  Strong employees are usually motivated toward bettering themselves and achieving success.  Feed their ambition with educational opportunities then give them room to impart their knowledge to other employees through workshops and seminars. This chain of knowledge allows your tuition money to do double-duty.

Increased productivity:  Peter Cappelli, Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School’s Center for Human Resources, found that tuition assistance programs allow firms to hire more productive employees. He says that extra productivity from the higher functioning employees makes it economically feasible to pay a large portion of employees’ tuition bills.

Do you have trouble getting workers to stay in a position for more than a few months at a time? In the global economy, workers are often concerned with moving up and out. They are looking forward to the next big thing instead of focusing on the job at hand.  Hiring older workers is a good solution to problems with employee engagement and retention for the following reasons:

Leading by example: Older employees slide naturally into the role of mentor and trainer for younger employees—making the orientation process feel less forced and more nurturing.

Good work habits: Older workers are less likely to have young children at home, so may be more available to work overtime. They are also less likely to get rattled when problems arise because they have a sense of confidence built over years of work experience.

Pride in Work: Older workers have a pride in a job well done, an increasingly rare commodity among younger employees.  Many younger employees come in to work and do the bare minimum for the organization, then go home to the ever-expanding virtual possibilities of self-promotion and entrepreneurship.  Older employees often feel a sense of pride in the final product because they have a greater understanding of the long-term consequences of day-to-day tasks.

Lower Risk of a Bad Hire: A longer work history often reflects a clear pattern of work performance and offers a more diverse group of former employers, making reference and background checks easier to perform.

Reduced Labor Costs: Workers who are 65 or older are entitled to Medicare, so they may not need access to the company health plan, saving costs on benefits. Additionally, many older workers aren’t in it for a paycheck, but for the challenge of trying something new—so they may be willing to sacrifice a bit of salary for the chance to try a new career that they enjoy.

What is your reputation as an employer?  A company’s intangible assets, including its brand, may represent up to 80 percent of its corporate value, according to the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Report 2011.  Less attractive employers may have to pay a wage premium to recruit top employees, whereas a well-branded organization will not.

The development and maintenance of an employer’s brand starts with an Employer Value Proposition (EVP).  An EVP is the result of researching the potential employee pool, the global job economy and the needs of the company.  The goal of an EVP is to create a brand that merges image, identity and profile into one coherent narrative.  While the EVP can provide an accurate picture, implementing that picture is often easier said than done.

Here are some concrete ways to ensure that your company’s brand attracts ambitious employees:

Demonstrate innovation: Google was voted the top place in the world to work for the fourth year in a row by Universum, an international branding firm.  The current generation of students wants to be on the cutting edge of technology.  Five of the most attractive workplaces on Universum’s list are also featured in Thomson Reuters’ top 100 most innovative places to work.

Humanize company culture: Social media, blogs, videos and other real-time updates allow your company to impart a feeling of “what it’s really like” to work at the organization.  Employees want to know how leadership inspires, if their talents and strengths will be valued, and if they have the personal potential to excel.

Maintain a strong consumer brand: Having a name that consumers know and trust is another sign of an attractive employer.  Employees want to be on the popular team.

Offer a unique work environment: Sought-after employees no longer have to work 9 to 5 jobs in a cubicle.  They are looking for flexible positions that favor work performance and quirky work culture over stodgy, traditional environments.  Make sure your Web site reflects the most unique and contemporary aspects of your office environment.

It’s no secret that automated systems can help reduce errors, cut costs, and offer easier access to critical business information. Organizations can also enjoy significant time savings by automating regular human resources tasks.  Though many HR responsibilities can be routine and require daily effort, these tasks are important to the overall health of the company. From recruiting and hiring the best candidates to managing employee time and maintaining compliance, it is critical to protect your workforce investment.

One of the benefits of a Human Resources Management System (HRMS) is to automate day-to-day administrative work and increase productivity. Here are six ways you can save time with automation:

1. Resume Searches – Web-based solutions streamline the entire recruiting process so you can fill open positions faster and more efficiently. You can quickly search and organize resumes to find the right candidates for your open requisitions.
2. Online Job Applications – Automatically post open positions to your company’s career page and online job boards, gather applicant information, and generate email responses during appropriate points in the recruiting process. Enter information once and your online recruiting tool does the rest.
3. Online Benefits Enrollment – Eliminate paper-based processes and reduce time delays with online benefit administration. Employees can enter their own benefit elections and view benefit plan information over the Internet or intranet.
4. Electronic Timecards – Enterprise time and attendance solutions help you automate the collection, calculation and reporting of employee work transactions. Simply set up your company’s rules and requirements and the system will accurately calculate time information needed for payroll.
5. Time-off Requests – Give your employees the power to view and request time off through self service technology. Because employees and managers can access personal information and make changes directly, HR saves time and expense associated with paper forms and manual processes.
6. Paperwork Approval Routing – Web-based workflow solutions take automation a step further by eliminating the clerical aspect of maintain your HRMS. By automating transactional processing, you can improve service delivery to and productivity of the entire organization.

Human Resources Management Systems (HRMS) can help your HR department increase productivity and become more efficient. More than that, it can increase your effectiveness in managing your workforce and deliver a competitive advantage and positive impact on your bottom line. Please contact Hagel & Company if you would like more information on how to increase your productivity. 253.572.2439 x305 or 408.470.0459

On June 28, 2012, the United States Supreme Court voted 5-4 to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). For those businesses that were taking a wait and see approach to the law, it’s time to get to work before major employer provisions take effect. Organizations must also look closely at the complexities of the law and figure out how this decision will affect their healthcare strategy moving forward.

Beginning in 2014, the employer mandate and related penalties will take effect. The new provisions generally require business owners with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance to their workforce or pay a penalty. This means that your organization must find ways to decrease healthcare costs as soon as possible.

Attorney Steve Friedman, chair of the employee benefits practice at Littler Mendelson urges employers to “ ‘get off the fence,’ start implementation plans and confront the larger question of whether to continue offering health insurance coverage to their employees.”  Here are three tips to get started:

1. Determine the costs of coverage and costs of fines. Employers with more than 50 workers will be required to offer health coverage or pay fines ranging from $2,000-$3,000 per employee per year. Don’t make your decision purely based on the financial – be sure to think about how your decision will impact employee morale.
2. Review the law and seek help to maintain compliance. PPACA is complex and has staggered effective dates beginning last year through 2018. For example, an additional Medicare withholding tax will take effect in 2013. Many small and medium size businesses will need help understanding and complying with the law. Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) can help you maintain compliance with changing regulations. If you already have a HRMS system in place, make sure you install updates from your solution provider.
3. Monitor developments. PPACA will continue to face challenges. There’s a possibility that individual states could refuse to set up exchanges or even not uphold the individual mandate if they choose. This could cause increases in state-wide premiums and the number of uninsured notes Larry Levitt, senior vice president of health-policy research at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Make sure your organization is ready to respond to a variety of scenarios.

It’s up to HR to make sure your organization’s healthcare policies are compliant with the law. A HRMS system can help you stay on top of changing requirements and avoid incurring costly fines and penalties.

This year, state and federal payroll tax laws changed and new provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act went into effect. It’s important for payroll professionals to understand the latest revisions and to let employees know what to expect.

Here are three changes that may affect your business and your employees:

• Minimum Wage Changes—Last year, state legislatures passed laws to change their minimum wage rates. These new rates took effect on January 1, 2013. Some states increased the rate, but a few states also changed the way the law applied to certain employees. Read this article for a summary of changes and become familiar with any stipulations that accompanied a rate change.The federal minimum wage remains the same as last year, but there is an effort underway to lobby for an increase. Since it’s been three years since the last rate change, these efforts might gain momentum, so stay tuned!
• Payroll Tax Cut Expired—For the past two years, employees paid a reduced Social Security payroll tax rate of 4.2%, but that provision expired. The rate returned to the regular 6.2% on January 1, 2013. Your company’s employees will take home less money this year, so you need to communicate to employees about why their paychecks changed.
• Healthcare Reform – We are inching closer to 2014 when the healthcare reform act will be fully implemented, but employers have already been affected by law. New for 2013, employers must begin reporting the value of employer-sponsored group health plan coverage on W2 forms for the 2012 tax year. This provision applies to larger employers who filed 250 or more W-2 forms in the previous calendar year. Employers who filed less than 250 W-2 forms for 2011 will not be subject to this requirement at this time.

If you haven’t already, make sure to communicate with your employees about changes to their paychecks for 2013. Compensation is the biggest benefit your employees receive, and clear communication will help to avoid confusion and concern.

As businesses plan and prepare for the New Year, what will be the top priorities in human resources? As the economy continues on a slow path toward recovery, HR professionals will have to work hard to keep a workforce in place that is capable of meeting corporate objectives, without raising costs.

To remain competitive today, companies rely on the talent and skill of their employees. But it is becoming much harder to attract and retain employees with the skills their organizations need to succeed. Towers Watson reports that nearly 75 percent of organizations surveyed have difficulties attracting critical-skill employees, and over 50 percent have a hard time keeping their best employees.

To tackle this growing challenge, HR managers are taking advantage of another growing trend: HR technology. By using the right solutions to manage employee recruitment and growth, HR administrators can not only bring more efficiency to an organization, but also ensure that employees have the right skills to support an organization’s strategic plan and future goals.

Here are three HR technology trends that can enhance your company’s stability and growth potential:

1. Acquiring the best possible employees with better recruiting systems—By the time you’ve finished shuffling, sorting, and reviewing paper resumes, your best prospect may already be training for a new position elsewhere. An online recruiting solution can streamline the entire recruiting and hiring process, helping you fill positions faster with the applicant most suited for the job. As social media takes a larger role in recruiting, it will be important for your recruiting system to reach social channels as well as traditional recruiting tools such as job boards and websites.
2. Engaging employees with talent management systems—Talent management solutions can manage an employee’s entire lifecycle with your organization, from onboarding to evaluation to succession planning. They also facilitate employee engagement, productivity, and satisfaction because they empower managers to match the right people with the roles most appropriate for their talents. Because employees are engaged and productive, you improve your return on employee investment.
3. Developing employee skills with learning management systems—Your organization is unique and so are the skills your employees need to meet your business goals. A learning management system will give you the ability to plan a personalized training track for each individual, providing your employees with opportunities to grow and ensuring your organization has the talent it needs to succeed.

As HR departments strive to find and develop the most talented employees, they are increasingly leveraging the power of recruiting solutions and talent and learning management systems. This technology can make it easier for HR to ensure they are attracting the top talent and using it most effectively. With these systems in place, HR managers will have the information needed to empower managers to make better decisions, guide organizational strategic planning, and positively impact the company’s bottom line.

For more information on Halogen Software or Cyber Recruiter, please contact Hagel & Company today!

Americans change jobs, on average, every four years. In a poor job market, an employee can spend years with one foot out the door.  Here are some easy strategies for improving employee retention rates:

1. Communicate your business’ mission. Cultivating a common narrative builds community around football teams, consumer products and presidential candidates—why not a company? Being consistent about your organization’s mission is one way to keep employees mentally and emotionally tied to your organization.
2. Conduct “stay” interviews. It’s too late by the time an employee gets to the exit interview.  Meet with employees once or twice a year to keep a handle on what engagement drivers are working.  Ask questions like: Why did you take this job? How has the company changed during your tenure? What do you like best/ least about your work? Are there things you would like to change about your team or department? What is your dream job, and what can we do to support your progress toward it?
3. Promote from within whenever possible.Give a straightforward path toward advancement.  Employees start looking for a new job when they cannot picture their future at the organization.
4. Offer financial rewards. Consider offering stock options or other financial rewards for employees who meet specific performance goals.  If you set a performance goal for three or five years down the road, you are demonstrating a long-term investment in the employee.
5. Set clear company expectations. It’s the first rule of management, but employee expectations can easily become obscured, especially in a small company where one employee may wear many hats.  When an employee doesn’t understand his or her own job responsibilities and doesn’t meet those responsibilities, morale can drop causing the employee to seek a more stable position elsewhere.

Studies have shown that employers that provide their employees with flexible schedules end up with happier employees, which leads to lower turnover and higher productivity—a win-win all the way around. So what steps can your human resources department put in place to help your company’s employees create a better work-life balance through flexible scheduling? Here are some options.

1. Create a “daily flextime” policy. In a daily flextime policy, each employee has the opportunity to set his or her schedule for each day by moving back or forward from the office’s standard hours. That way, an employee who wants to pick up his kids from school can arrive at the office at 7 and leave at 3, or someone who prefers to sleep in can arrive at 10 and leave at 6. In order to ensure that all employees are available for important meetings, many offices have “core” hours in which all employees are expected to be present.
2. Allow compressed workweeks. Some employees may prefer to work four long days and take a long weekend each week. Consider allowing staff to work 10-hour days Monday through Thursday, and take Fridays off (making sure that no important meetings or events are scheduled on Fridays).
3. Build a “results only work environment” (ROWE). In a ROWE office, employees can spend as much or as little time in the office as they want—all that’s important is that they are meeting the work milestones that have been set for them. In this type of workplace, employees are free to telecommute as often as they like, so it’s important to set up online communication tools to help them collaborate on projects. Though this approach is a big switch from the traditional workplace, it can have significant payoffs in terms of labor costs: One ROWE workplace estimates that it cut out 2,000 hours of meetings in its first 90 days.

Laying out options for your staff to work in a manner that fits them best can not only benefit them but benefit your company as well!