Workshops

Operations and Customer Service

Selecting and evaluating effective sales and recruiting employees for your staffing firm is crucial. In this workshop, staffing firm owners and managers will discover how to overcome fatal flaws in staff selection, such as hiring staff strictly based on job or sales skills.

Industry trainer and consultant Bob Lanza will help you identify the attributes, behavioral styles, and value structures of top industry recruiters and sales professionals. Learn how to train, coach, and manage for peak performance and retention.

Lanza is a 23-year staffing industry veteran. As president of Sales Team Solutions, he consults with staffing firms across the country on staff recruitment, training, and management. While working for one of the country's largest independent staffing services, Lanza successfully recruited and trained a nationwide team of business development specialists. He was instrumental in driving revenues from $5 million to more than $200 million through acquisitions and growth.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Employment Law (But Didn't Want to Pay a Lawyer to Ask)
Thursday, 3:15-4:45 p.m.

Employment law questions keeping you awake at night? Worried about the costly consequences if your firm inadvertently violates any of the myriad employment laws and regulations?

Two employment law experts, Manpower's Mark Toth and ASA's Stephen Dwyer, will put your mind at ease as they give you a rundown on all the major changes in the law and answer the most frequently asked questions about compliance, discrimination, harassment, per diem, overtime, family leave, disabilities, and much more.

This lively, interactive workshop promises to be both educational and entertaining. What you take away won't be legal advice, but it will be valuable information to protect your business.

Toth is vice president, chief legal officer, and chief compliance officer of Manpower's North American operations. Before joining Manpower in 2000, Toth was a partner with the law firm of Michael Best & Friedrich in Milwaukee, where he represented management in all aspects of employment law. He is a frequent lecturer on a variety of legal topics and is a member of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the American Bar Association. He serves on the ASA board of directors.

Dwyer is ASA deputy general counsel. He counsels ASA members on legal and regulatory compliance issues. He also monitors and serves as an advocate for the staffing industry on federal and state legislative issues that may affect member companies. Dwyer has written many articles on legal and policy issues relating to the staffing industry, and has spoken on workplace issues to business groups throughout the country. He is a member of the bar in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia.

Vendor Management Systems: Can They Work for You?
Thursday, 3:15-4:45 p.m.

Within the next two years, 40% of large staffing industry customers will be using automated vendor management systems for their contingent work force needs—from job orders to time tracking to supplier performance reports—according to Staffing Industry Analysts.

To cultivate such customers, staffing professionals need to learn about and plan to work with these vendor management systems. Find out from this panel of staffing industry professionals how to incorporate these systems into your sales plan and learn about the benefits to be derived from a vendor-neutral system that offers all companies that participate an opportunity to compete for business.

Manage the Credit-to-Cash Cycle: Lower DSO and Increase Cash Flow
Friday, 1:30-3 p.m.

Nothing slows growth quicker and makes you more uneasy than a cash crunch. Get ideas to improve your credit and collection processes from a panel of credit experts and staffing company executives.

You'll learn how to free up the cash you need for growth by collecting faster from your customers and lowering DSO (days sales outstanding). The panel will outline the steps you need to take, including initiating the credit approval process, establishing relationships with your customers' accounts payable departments, using statements wisely, and establishing positive collection procedures that help you get your money and keep your customers.

Jim Rothman, president of Capital TempFunds, the largest independent lender to the staffing industry and a division of Capital Factors LLC, a large, specialized commercial finance company, will facilitate the discussion. His career in lending spans more than 20 years, and he has held senior positions with Bell Atlantic Tricon and Fidelcor Business Credit (now part of the CIT Group). Rothman was also the chief financial officer and director of Equivest Finance Inc., a publicly traded consumer finance company.

Diagnose and Prescribe: Case Studies in Health Care Staffing
Friday, 4-5:30 p.m.

Fierce competition. A shortage of qualified nurses. Customers looking for penny-pinching recruiting methods. These are just some of the challenges facing health care staffing professionals. Discover how to overcome these and other issues in sales and marketing, recruitment, and daily operations with health care staffing consultant Jason Meyer, Ph.D.

In this workshop for owners and senior managers of health care staffing companies, participants will share solutions, engage in small group discussions, work through case studies, and benefit from the compiled ideas of all participants.

Meyer is president and founder of Medical Staffing Consultants. He has been a professional manager and trainer in health care staffing for 21 years. He previously was the national director of new business development and training for Health Force, a $100 million division of Accustaff. Meyer's firm specializes in helping staffing companies launch health care staffing, and also provides consulting services to existing health care staffing division companies. He holds a doctorate in psychology.

Technology: The New Efficiency Expert
Saturday, 2:30-4 p.m.

What technologies should you use to work more efficiently? How can you streamline payroll and billing functions? What advantages do Web-based applications offer for the staffing industry?

Find out what to look for, what to avoid, and how to make the best decisions to enhance operational efficiency and achieve success. A panel of technology experts who evaluate and put in place systems and software for their staffing companies share insights about electronic time sheets, electronic billing, Web-based reporting, new-generation search engines, and more.