Whether you are staffing IT professionals, clerical candidates, or light industrial workers, your clients have all sorts of screening needs and requirements. Plus, you’re probably selling potential staffing buyers on your superior process, which includes all sorts of screening: interviews, reference checks, skills testing, background checks, drug testing, and credit checks. Your prospects and clients have varying pre-employment screening demands: one client requires 10-panel drug testing, while another client does not require drug testing.
The last thing you want are staffing coordinators to place a candidates that have not been properly screened for particular clients. At the same time, you don’t want the screening process to be any more laborious than it already is. This is where your staffing software can streamline the process and set- up of automatic checks to make sure candidates meet client credentials during the placement process.
Here are some steps you can take to improve your credentialing process in your staffing software:
1. Identify all the screening requirements your clients have.
For instance, many of the professional, commercial, and industrial staffing firms who use our staffing software have clients that require:
Criminal background checks: Some do not accept candidates with any misdemeanors or felonies on record. Others will, but the offense must have occurred at least a certain number of years ago.
Drug testing: Some staffing buyers require specific types of drug testing, i.e. 5-panel or 10-panel. Also, some of your clients may not accept candidates that haven’t been drug tested past a certain number of years and months.
2. Design and create a way to track your clients’ pre-employment screening requirements in your staffing software.
You’ll probably need to get your staffing software provider or systems consultant involved.Here are some of the data screens and fields we’ve created for staffing agencies that use our software. It is important to note that we didn’t have to use expensive customized programming to create this; instead we used the standard workflow and data customization tools that come with our software.
In this example, a blended staffing firm had us create fields to indicate if the client requires drug testing, the type of test, and if a criminal background check is required.
Indicating the type of drug testing the client requires in AST’s staffing industry software
We also created additional data fields to track the clients’ credentials regarding misdemeanors and felonies that may turn up from background checks.
Indicating the type (if any) of criminal history a client would allow.
3. Create the corresponding pre-employment screening fields in your staffing software’s candidate database.
The following print screens show the additional data fields we created to track whether or not the candidate had a drug test, the type of drug test, and date of the test.
Indicating type of drug test candidate received in the front office side of AST's staffing software
We also added the corresponding criminal background fields to make sure felony and misdemeanor specific requirements of certain clients are met.
Defining candidate criminal history.
4. Set up checks during the placement process in your staffing software to ensure that candidates meet all the requirements and credentials of the client during the placement process.
For instance, when a staffing coordinator tries to place a candidate that has not had the background screening that the staffing client requires, the placement is automatically blocked and the following message is displayed.
Make sure you can setup these types of checks in your staffing software solution
5. Test customizations and automation you put in place within your staffing software and get feedback from your staffing coordinators.
Once you start automating and customizing your staffing software system, you can actually “over-automate” and put rules and messages in place that actually don’t work with the way you do business, and become a hindrance. So be sure to test out your automation and get buy-in from the people who use the system on a daily basis.
Applied Systems Technology, Inc. (AST) has developed email and contact integration between their fully integrated staffing software system and Microsoft Outlook. This integration greatly increases the productivity and mobility of the salespeople and and staffing coordinators of staffing companies using AST’s software.
Cornwall, NY July 7, 2010 – Contacts and e-mail communication are now easily synchronized between Microsoft Outlook and AST’s fully integrated staffing software system.
Easily move contacts and email between Outlook and AST's staffing software system.
With the touch of a button, e-mails sent and received within Outlook are automatically documented in AST’s staffing industry software and associated with the applicant/candidate/employee or client contact to whom they were sent. If the relationship does not exist in the software, a short form pops up in Outlook allowing you to quickly create the relationship in your staffing company’s AST system. This integration with Outlook is part of a larger initiative to make AST’s staffing software easy to use and adapted to the way people naturally do their daily tasks.
In addition to the ever expanding web interface throughout AST’s software, this feature allows AST to provide the power of a sophisticated fully integrated staffing software system in a package that is easy to use and highly functional.
Taking advantage of Microsoft’s Add-ins feature, AST added a button-bar in Outlook that their clients use to intuitively select and move e-mails and contacts back and forth between Outlook and their staffing industry software. Since Outlook is used as the primary communications tool for many business users, AST has automated the process of keeping e-mails and contact information synchronized between both applications. Existing or new contacts in Outlook can generate new applicants/employees/contacts and customers in the AST system’s database.
We are expecting these features to substantially enhance the productivity of the service and sales departments in our clients’ staffing companies. Contact us or email me if you have further questions about Outlook integration, and other ways staffing companies are saving money and gaining efficiencies through our fully integrated staffing software.
Dave Reiss
Founder and CEO
Applied Systems Technology
845-534-7100 X1101
dave@astusa.com Connect with me on:
About Applied Systems Technology (AST):
In 2010, AST is celebrating 25 years of helping staffing firms improve profitability by combining automation and best practices within our fully integrated front and back office staffing software. With Persona, our web-enabled role based software, you can reduce workers comp and unemployment, and go paperless.
A Word About Outputting Reports to Excel from Your Staffing Software
While “being Green” or “going paperless” (as you sip a Starbuck’s Iced Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha) seems to be the rage these days, many temporary staffing firms are still printing reports on paper.
And you know what – that’s OK! You can still enjoy your beverage-of-choice to the rhythm of your printer. It is worth noting that with the ability to output reports to Excel, PDF files, web pages, and text files from with our staffing software, many of our clients have gone paperless.
Nevertheless, whether you’re a “paper-printer” or a “file-saver” there probably are some reports that makes sense for you to export to Excel, since you often end up compiling data from various reports into one or more Excel workbooks. Perhaps you already can and know how to quickly output reports from your temporary staffing software into Excel. For instance, in our staffing software, some reports (e.g. financial statements) give you the option to export into Excel, and all reports that our clients make or have us make can be exported to Excel.
If you have a report that you’d like to get into Excel and aren’t sure how, talk to your staffing software provider and they should be able to show you, or setup such a report for you.
An Easy Macro that Combines Multiple Excel Workbooks from Your Staffing Software into One Excel Workbook
Once you are able to get the reports you need in Excel from your staffing software, you may find yourself copying data or sheets from multiple Excel workbooks into one workbook. Or perhaps you have Excel workbooks from other sources that you’d like to quickly and easily combine into one workbook.
In a recent situation, a client of ours has over 10 different financial statements setup in our system – one for each profit center along with a summary statement. Through our system, they are able to export one, two, or all ten financial statements into Excel. However, each financial statement is outputted to a separate file, so they were manually copying the worksheets into one workbook. This became time-consuming since there are numerous iterations of their financials each month.
So they asked me to find a solution. Here’s what I found: Watch the video above to see how you can easily add a macro to your Excel workbook that quickly combines multiple workbooks into one Excel Workbook.
Google Some Other Macros to Slap onto Repetitive Time-Consuming Office Tasks
Think of some other time-consuming tasks that you regularly do in Microsoft Office products. Chances are you can automate some part of the process with macros. To find the solution I demonstrated above, I simply googled “combine multiple workbooks into one workbook” and found my answer in the fourth result, VBA Express: Excel – Combine All Workbooks From One Folder.
I hope this saves you some time, and inspires you to experiment with some other macros. Remember, if you think there’s a way to save time and money by doing something faster, then there probably is!
Contact us to discuss the reporting features or any other aspect regarding our staffing software solutions. Also, feel free to email me if you’re a staffing executive or professional with further questions about macros in Excel.
If you didn’t experience it last week, you probably heard about the massive snowstorm that hit the Northeast, which took out our power along with that of the rest of our county. You can read more about the details of the storm and how we managed to support our clients in the previous post, Staffing Software Firm Weathers the Storm to Support Clients.
AST, Staffing Software Developer’s Snow-Covered Headquarters in Cornwall, NY
While I can’t say we had an emergency “snowicane” protocol established, we had progressively put things in place that helped us act quickly to: #1 Notify our clients in the staffing industry of our situation. #2 And offer an alternate way to get support for our staffing software.
Here are three things our staffing software firm had in place that you can easily do to prepare your staffing company for some type of natural disaster or act of God that renders your office temporarily inoperable.
Record your staff’s cell phone #s: At the very least, two or three of your office’s top decision-makers should have everyone’s cell phone numbers programmed into their phones and on hard copy hanging up at their homes. If the phone lines go down, cell phones are typically the best way to get in touch with the staff and tell them what’s going on and what the plan is.
Keep your client email database in an online email application: If the power goes out at your main office where your servers are housed, then you’ll have no access to your company email or to any contacts that are on those servers. Therefore, having a company Gmail account or other free online email service is a simple way to give your clients an alternative way to get in touch with your staffing company. However, if you send out a mass email to your client database notifying them of your situation through your free email account, your email may be flagged as spam. Therefore, I suggest you have your client email database loaded into an online email service like Constant Contact or Mail Chimp, through which you can send out mass emails that are spam compliant. Make sure two to three people know how to access and use the mail service and it would be a good idea to have an “emergency” email notification template setup and ready to be modified and sent out.
Make sure there’s a clear distribution of responsibility: This makes things a whole lot simpler once the unexpected strikes. Here are the main responsibilities that should be doled out ahead of time:
Decision-making regarding how your staffing company is going to react to the current situation.
Phone calls to staff letting them know what is going on.
Email to clients and candidates notifying them of your situation and how to best get in contact with your company.
Monitoring and responding the available support-channels for your clients and candidates to get help.
Being able to support your candidates and clients through extenuating circumstances goes a long way in their eyes. After sending an email through Constant Contact to our client-base notifying them our office was down and to email our Gmail account as an alternate way to get support, I received numerous emails (once my power came back on and our servers were restored) of appreciation for our commitment to keep support going. Also, Frank Salustro, owner of a temporary staffing firm in Jamaica, NY, was extremely grateful that he was able to get a hold of Chantel, the manager of our support department and one of the few people who had power in our county. She helped him print payroll checks from our staffing software after he had run into a snag.
To help other staffing firms prepare to support their clients and candidates through the unexpected, email me, ev@astusa.com, some other ideas you have and may have put into practice. If you are interested in talking to us about our staffing software, go to our Contact Us page.
Remember that taking these simple steps ahead of time will go along way with your clients and candidates and make your company stand out in the staffing industry when it matters.
Everett Reiss Project & Account Management and Internet Marketing
Applied Systems Technology
845-534-7100 X1102 ev@astusa.com Connect with me on:
Recently went to Hudson Street Cafe, one of my favorite breakfast haunts, to treat myself to Donna’s oat bran pancakes with REAL maple syrup. Donna owns the café and creates all the incredible recipes and dishes; checkout their website: http://www.hudsonstreetcafe.com/. As I placed my order with the attentive waitress, this guy named Klaus at the next table broke into my space, affirming what I already knew – my bent for healthy eating. Maybe it was the oat bran pancakes or the poached eggs that triggered his comments, but regardless, my peaceful breakfast was quickly hijacked as Klaus then proceeded to go ‘Oprah’ on me sharing all the ‘miracle working, get rid of your aches and pains, lose 30 lbs in a week, gain untold vitality’ hope and benefits of the acai berry, a palm fruit cultivated for its widely touted health benefits. Yup, you guessed it, Klaus was a distributor and I could become one too!
What can the acai berry do for your staffing firm?
Klaus actually was a nice guy and seemed to believe in the little berry and its miracle working cures. I held off on placing an order, since a case of four bottles of MonaVie juice pulls about $130 a month out of pocket; I could probably lease a Kia for that much! But Klaus and the berry got my attention and I figured there are some things that we could all learn from the acai berry and its tempting promises:
Lesson # 1: Be suspicious of anything that looks like a quick fix to your staffing business issues, no matter how popular the broader business or staffing industry trend may be. Big improvements take big deliberative changes implemented in smaller manageable steps.
Lesson # 2: Hope is important, we need it. Hope is what gets us out of bed, it motivates us. It becomes sustained if it puts us on a path of believing that our problems can be solved; it puts us on a path of discovery. And if it is the right path, it will yield even more reason for hope, which you should generously share with your salespeople and staffing professionals.
Lesson # 3: Fad diets and fad foods do not sustain change. They do not bring about substantial long term results, but we do need to get rid of and keep the fat off.
Lesson # 4: When the fat goes, vitality and energy show up. Our resources are precious – the right amount of cash, the right amount of employees, the best and most efficient processes and tools within and outside of your staffing software are all important. The top performing staffing operators create vitality and energy in your staffing company and in the marketplace by carefully managing these four key ingredients in your organizational recipe.
Lesson # 5: Google anything or anyone you’re suspicious of. This was initially a joke, but actually is a good habit to get into; when I got home and googled “acai berry,” Google showed me that “acai berry scams” was a popular search term, which yielded many results including this article on CNNhealth.com, Group challenges acai berry weight-loss claims.
AST, which has been providing fully integrated staffing software solutions to the staffing industry for 25 years, has teamed up with the New Jersey Staffing Alliance (NJSA) to help put on a series of six seminars on “Web 2.0 and the Staffing Industry.” NJSA, founded in 1960, is an industry trade association of direct hire, contract and temporary staffing firms. NJSA represents members professionally engaged in all areas of personnel services including search, recruitment, placement and temporary help services.
Edison, NJ February 4, 2010 – Last week Everett Reiss, project and account manager for AST, was the main speaker for the first of six seminars that NJSA is presenting at the Sheraton Edison Hotel, in the Raritan Center. Reiss spoke on “Social Media Success Stories in the Staffing Industry” and gave the 70 plus attendees three action points to use in formulating a social media strategy for their staffing firms. To engage the attending staffing executives and professionals, Reiss used a video interview with Tracy Tillapaugh, technical recruiter for Contemporary Personnel Staffing in Liverpool, NY; and a panel consisting of Elaine Balady, Co-Owner of The Assurance Group, Robert Derbabian, Vice President at Wells Fargo Capital Finance, and Steve Isenberg, President and Founder of ASJ Partners. Find highlights of the interview with Tracy Tillapaugh at AST’s Mad Staffing Blog.
NJSA’s next “Web 2.0 and the Staffing Industry” seminar is going to be presented by a Northeast Account Executive, John Hassett, on “How To Use Linkedin for Staffing Firms” on February 23, 2010 from 5:00-7:30pm at the Sheraton Edison Hotel. You can register for this evening forum on the ten easy steps recruiters and sales staff can use to build community on Linkedin on the NJSA website.
NJSA’s remaining four forums, all of which are at the Sheraton Edison Hotel are:
“How to Use Social Media to Bolster Your Recruiting Efforts” presented by Everett Reiss, project manager for the staffing software firm, AST on March 23, 2010 at 8:00-10:00am.
“How to Twitter and Source Candidates” presented by Rob Tyson, CPC, President and CEO, Bonifield Associates on April 20, 2010 at 5:00-7:30pm.
“Building Awareness, Influence, Reputation, and Authority Using Facebook for Staffing and Recruiting Professionals” presented by Tracey Madden, CPC, CTS, President of McIntosh Staffing Resources, LLC on May 18, 2010 at 5:00-7:30pm.
“Building Profitable Web 2.0 Activities Into Your Daily Work Lives” presented by Everett Reiss, project manager for the staffing software firm, AST on June 22, 2010 at 8:00-10:00am.
For more details on the “Web 2.0 and the Staffing Industry” seminar check out NJSA’s 2010 Business Issues Expert Resources Forums e-brochure that Patricia Koziol, Executive Director & Recording Secretary of NJSA put together.
About New Jersey Staffing Alliance (NJSA):
The New Jersey Staffing Alliance (NJSA) is an industry trade association of direct hire,
contract and temporary staffing firms. NJSA represents members professionally engaged in all areas of personnel services including search, recruitment, placement and temporary help services. All levels of employment and vocational disciplines (from warehouse and distribution staff to scientific and medical personnel) are served by specialists among the members. We are an affiliated chapter of the American Staffing Association and the National Association of Personnel Services, the national organizations representing direct hire and temporary staffing firms in all fifty states.
About Applied Systems Technology (AST):
Applied Systems Technology provides fully integrated staffing agency software to mid market staffing agencies throughout the United States. Its unique ‘outcomes’ approach to automation starts with helping senior management align the projects around very specific measureable goals relating to the operations of their business. By fusing their business processes to automated tools, the client companies are able to grow their businesses with significantly improved operating ratios. The ability to script business rules around desired outcomes in the staffing software itself provides staffing operators significantly greater control over the business.
We don’t only know staffing software, we also know a bit about social media in the staffing industry.
After 25 years of helping staffing companies use staffing software and other technologies to make and save money, we’ve partnered with the New Jersey Staffing Alliance to help staffing companies use social media to increase sales, recruit, and fill orders.
I’m going to be facilitating the first of six breakfast/evening forums on how staffing agencies can use web 2.0 and social media tactics to increase sales and improve recruiting. The free breakfast session on “Social Media Success Stories in the Staffing Industry” is at 7:30a Tuesday, Jan 26, 2010 at the Edison, NJ Sheraton.
I will be showing an interview I did with Tracy Tillapaugh, a lead technical recruiter for Contemporary Personnel Staffing based out of Liverpool, NY. Click on the video below for highlights from my interview with Tracy, which will be used as the basis for our discussion.
We will also have a panel of staffing industry professionals answering additional questions and sharing how they are using social media to expand their businesses:
Big thanks to those mentioned above who are helping make this happen, but in addition Jack Wellman, President and COO of Joule Inc., Patricia Koziol, Executive Director & Recording Secretary of NJSA, and Christina Grenga, VP of Business Development for AST are largely responsible for making this series happen on the Staffing Industry and Web 2.0.
Feel free to connect with me on Linkedin, Twitter, or email if you have any questions.
Last year the government completed another one of its ingenious ways to stimulate the economy – the cash for clunkers’ program. A number of people actually made out pretty well trading in one of their old jalopies for a newer fuel efficient model with the Federal government contributing $4000. Since all of us were not able to benefit from the program, we came up with a clunker program of our own that will produce some real hard cash for you and your staffing companies – stuff you can put in your bank account, or buy one of these babies…!
A not-so-fuel-efficient clunker replacement!
First let’s define what “staffing industry clunkers” are – activities performed by your staff that suck precious time and resources away from the activities that produce money and value, and accelerate the success of your staffing business.
Clunkers leading the way in staffing industry trends include:
Trying to fill orders for clients who care about you, but not enough to give you profitable business (Yeah, I’ve heard that they cover your overhead – forgetaboutit, drop ‘em).
Getting into long phone conversations when an e-mail will do. Or slaving over a tedious email when a quick phone call would clear up everything.
Not having automated ways for clients and employees to get answers to the repetitive questions they ask, which takes up everyone’s time to answer; and you can never answer fast enough.
Manually attaching timeslips to invoices – check with your staffing software vendor to see if they have this capability.
Making sales calls to unqualified prospects that are not using staffing and never will.
Here is a big one – hiring the wrong person for a position – especially in sales because it takes months to find out you’ve got a dud.
What additional clunkers do you see topping the list of staffing industry trends? Add them to the list by commenting on this blog – we’d love to hear from you!
Indicating the type of drug testing the client requires in AST’s staffing industry software
Indicating the type (if any) of criminal history a client would allow.
AST, Staffing Software Developer’s Snow-Covered Headquarters in Cornwall, NY
What can the acai berry do for your staffing firm?
