Workshops

Operations and Staff Development

Money talks, but employees still walk from jobs for many other reasons. With today’s candidate-driven climate and the ever-increasing costs to hire and develop employees, companies must make every effort to select, maximize, and retain good people. The key to retention is recognizing the factors that are most important to your employees.

IT staffing executive Kevin Knaul shares what motivates employees to leave their current jobs or stay with their current employers. Whether your interest is in retaining contract employees or sales representatives, you need to know the basic factors that contribute to overall satisfaction. Keep your top talent by learning strategies to fill the gap between what you provide and what your employees expect.

Build a World-Class Team—Recruit, Hire, Train, and Motivate Winners
Craig Silverman, executive vice president, HireAbility.com
Wednesday, 2:30–3:45 p.m.
Also in professional learning track

Based on practical application rather than research, Craig Silverman’s proven techniques will help you choose and develop your best team. Discover how Silverman achieved zero turnover in his own firm for more than two years, and learn about the rating system he created, which includes a minimum threshold in each performance area to weed out the wrong people and pinpoint the best candidates for job offers.

Uncover the do’s and don’ts of the interview process and improve performance for low producers. Share creative ideas for awards and staff recognition. Learn to build a team based on sales experience, aptitude, attitude, the right match between candidate and position, and that sense we all need to learn how to trust your gut reaction.

Disaster Recovery: Prepare Now to Prevent Loss Later
ASA Technology Advisory Group
Wednesday, 2:30–3:45 p.m.

Do you have a disaster recovery plan in place? Downtime due to natural disaster, power failure, or fire may be too high a price to pay. What if your database is unavailable or your power is out for days or weeks?

To establish a disaster recovery policy, you need to consider two questions. First, what is your recovery time objective—how quickly do you want business to resume after a disaster? Second, what is your recovery point objective—the maximum amount of data or property loss you are willing to accept as a result of a disaster? Get advice from colleagues who have experienced disasters firsthand and discover what low-cost preparations you can make now to protect your business tomorrow.

The Technology Advisory Group was established by ASA to advise the association’s board of directors, members, and staff on how to adopt technologies to improve industry productivity.

Pay Now or Pay More Later—Costs of Noncompliance
Joel Klarreich, Esq., partner, Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt LLP
Thursday, 1:30–2:45 p.m.

Failure to comply with federal law may result in costs and consequences that far exceed the money saved from cutting legal corners. The choice is yours. You cannot avoid or dismiss the statutes and regulations that govern staffing firms, such as privacy laws, discrimination statutes, unemployment insurance requirements, immigration statutes, and more. Every staffing firm owner needs to understand the repercussions of noncompliance.

With more than 30 years of experience in labor and employment law, Joel Klarreich will increase your awareness of statutory and regulatory responsibilities and explain the risks of noncompliance.

Legal Jeopardy: An Employment Law Game Show
Mark Toth, Esq., vice president and chief legal officer, and compliance officer, Manpower Inc., and Stephen Dwyer, Esq., deputy general counsel, American Staffing Association
Thursday, 3:30–4:45 p.m.

Employment law questions keeping you awake at night? Back by popular demand, industry attorneys Mark Toth and Stephen Dwyer will put your mind at ease as they address discrimination, overtime, family leave, co-employment issues, and much more. The issues are presented in a game show format—with prizes.

What you take away won’t be legal advice, but it will be valuable information to protect your business.

Take the Coach Approach to Great Leadership
Scott Wintrip, founder and president, StaffingU
Thursday, 3:30–4:45 p.m.

What does it mean to be a great leader in the staffing industry? Discover the distinction between coaching and managing and how the coach approach transforms people into highly effective leaders.

Use coaching skills to empower your employees to solve their own problems, create sales and recruiting action plans that work, and attract and retain high-quality employees. You’ll leave this workshop with a game plan for implementing these ideas in your organization.

Five P’s of Perfect Matchmaking
Michael Santo, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, RembrandtAdvantage
Thursday, 3:30–4:45 p.m.

The most important services of any staffing firm are sourcing, selecting, and placing the right people for the job. Research shows that organizations that spend more time recruiting high-caliber people earn 22% higher profits than their industry peers. Are outdated, ineffective interviewing and hiring techniques preventing you from achieving those numbers?

Michael Santo gives you practical insights into five P’s of selecting the best person for the customer’s position: preparation, purpose, performance, people skills, and process. Learn how to use behavioral-based questions to evaluate an applicant’s past behavior so that you can match the right candidate with the right job.

The Supreme Power of Customer Empathy
Ross Shafer, Ross Shafer Seminars
Friday, 10:15–11:30 a.m.

After his Staffing World keynote, Ross Shafer expands on his assertion that customer empathy is a profit engine for small business. Your company’s success is a direct result of your ability to identify, understand, and respond appropriately to your customers’ emotional states before, during, and after transactions.

Shafer discusses the evolution of the post-Sept. 11 customer and the new work force. He connects his customer empathy solution to the development of your brand promise, your purpose (not just your mission), and the ever-changing state of the staffing industry. Shafer will change the way you think about dealing with co-workers, customers, and candidates.

Professional Development: Identify, Train, and Retain Internal Top Talent
Panel moderated by Linda Carchidi, CSP, president, JFC Staffing Associates
Friday, 10:15–11:30 a.m.

Groom good employees for advancement within your staffing firm and keep your pipeline of capable people from running dry. This panel of staffing company training and education professionals shows you how to develop an internal training program as a tool for staff retention.

In this interactive workshop, explore case studies and real-life situations based on the experiences of colleagues who have successfully implemented internal training programs. Receive advice on the necessary steps, procedures, and processes—such as the benefits of providing continuing education and how to use mentoring programs—designed to help you build a retention program from the very first day of orientation.

The Customer Is Always Right: Lessons From Staffing’s Largest Buyers
Barry Asin, executive vice president and chief analyst, Staffing Industry Analysts Inc.
Friday, 10:15–11:30 a.m.

Research from Staffing Industry Analysts shows that staffing buyers are not thrilled with the level of service they receive from their staffing suppliers, giving the industry a B– overall. Although this industry grade represents an improvement from previous surveys, individual staffing firms can still take several steps to differentiate themselves from others and move to the head of the class.

In this workshop, Barry Asin provides an overview of detailed research recently conducted among the largest buyers of staffing services by Staffing Industry Analysts Inc. Learn what’s on their minds, why they buy (and why they don’t), and what you can do to build customer satisfaction and loyalty. Attendees also explore how some of these findings apply to specific industry segments and how to take advantage of growth opportunities ahead for staffing firms.

Move Beyond the Job Order to Become a Strategic Partner
Scott Weston, author and founder, HR Excellence Network
Friday, 1:45–3 p.m.

Becoming a strategic partner requires truly listening to your customers. Learn how to think like hiring managers and human resource professionals. Scott Weston’s structured process for understanding what customers need and want has demonstrated success in the field of quality management.

Drawing on his book HR Excellence, Weston shows you how to apply his process to deepen the relationship between your customers and candidates. You will learn how to develop specific action plans to improve your operations and meet customer requirements.

VMS or Not: Do I Really Have a Choice?
Panel moderated by Jesse P. "Jay" Schaudies, global vice president, e-commerce, Manpower Inc.
Friday, 1:45–3 p.m.

Although the explosive rate of growth in the adoption of vendor management solutions may be slowing, the dollars and sales volumes reached with these systems continue to grow, according to research from Staffing Industry Analysts. The type of offerings and the functional capabilities are expanding too. What does this mean for your business? How can these technologies and market demands be managed so that VMS is a plus for your business rather than an added cost and burden?

Join Jay Schaudies and a panel of staffing professionals who offer VMS to gain a better understanding of the market, the need, and your options as the growth of e-commerce continues to change the way we all do business, forever.

Staffing 101: Fundamentals for New Professionals
Donna Mallard, CSP, chief executive officer, Staffing E-Trainer, and president, Mallard and Associates, and Amy Munroe, CSP, chief operating officer, Staffing E-Trainer
Friday, 1:30–4:45 p.m.

Do you have internal staff who are new to the staffing industry? This orientation session is perfect for the novice recruiter or sales representative. The three-hour interactive workshop offers an overview of business practices that are important to the success of those who have recently entered the industry. Show your staff you value their potential.

Topics to be explored include

• Common terminology, facts, and trends of the staffing industry
• The value staffing services provide
• Approaches for cultivating relationships with customers
• The difference between staffing firm core and noncore positions
• Business strategies within the staffing industry

Donna Mallard and Amy Munroe demonstrate how these business practices can be applied to daily operations by reviewing case studies.