News Tag Archives for Employment News

Say Yes to Temp!

“I’ve always been hired directly by the company”, “I will only consider permanent work”, “A temporary job isn’t a real job.” Recruiters everywhere, including us, hear phrases like these almost every day.  Getting candidates to consider temporary work is tough.  A lot of the time candidates just simply don’t understand or have not been educated as to how the market has changed and how temporary work can benefit them. 

According to a survey done by CareerBuilder and the American Staffing Association, less than a quarter of employers intend to hire full time, permanent employees in 2012.  However, the same survey revealed that 36% of employers intend to hire contract and temporary workers.  Of the employers who plan to hire temporary or contract workers, 35% of them say they plan to make the temporary role permanent if everything works out.

To translate that into City Personnel terms, 35% of the employers surveyed intent to hire for temp-perm positions in 2012.  A temp-perm situation makes a lot of candidates nervous, however there is less reason to be nervous than they think.  A temp period really isn’t so different from a probationary period and as we tell all our candidates, if you do a great job you’ll have a job.  The huge upside of this arrangement is that both candidate and employer get a change to evaluate one another before making any long term costly decisions.  A good job, as everyone knows, is important in one’s overall happiness.   For an employer the benefit is clear, no great financial risk until you know the candidate is exactly what you want.

Fortune's Top 100 Companies to Work For

The results are in.  Fortune has released their list of the top 100 companies to work for in the country. Kudos to RI based Hasbro for being the only company in the state to making the list!  Below are this years top 10.  Anyone else surprised to see that Facebook didn't make the cut?

Every Day is a Vacaction Day

Vacation, you want one, I want one, everyone wants one.  It is what we all spend the rest of the year looking forward to, a time to kick back and relax.  Most companies have a very clear policy on vacation. That policy is that it is limited.  Limited by both the amount of time you are allotted and by how far out you need to put in for permission to use your allotted time. In essence it means that for most people that last minute travel deal to Jamaica that just landed in your inbox is not going to work out.   Now the question becomes should it be able to work out?

Cutting edge start-up companies believe you should be able to take advantage of those deals or even just be able to take a vacation day to do errands without worrying about wasting the precious commodity of vacation time or losing pay.  They in fact believe in unlimited paid vacation days, no strings attached.  I’m sure some of you are now wondering what on earth are these people thinking and even more why are we even humoring this idea.  Well the reason is simple, its work place culture debate. 

What will result in increased productivity for the employer?  The unpredictability of unlimited no strings attached vacation, or the predictability and limitability of structured vacation time.  The pro-unlimited vacation side thinks that it increases productivity for a few simple reasons:

• Happier Employees: allowing people downtime that isn’t so rigidly structure gives them a case to recharge and start every day with a fresh outlook.
• Employees are Adults: your employees are adults and should be treated as such. They know what needs to get done and if they can get it done right in 4 days as opposed to 5, why not let them have that extra day to enjoy?
• It reduces costs: larger companies need the resources to track vacation time.  Without structured vacation time there is no need to track it.
• It Shows Appreciation: your employees make your company run and this is a great way to show them how grateful you are for that.  It will also keep them working hard for you to return the favor.  Companies that practice this format find employees are happy to work extra hours and go above and beyond what needs to be done.
• It’s a Great Recruitment Tool: how many companies offer this? Not many. How many people would love this? Just about everyone. By implementing you would have not only a larger pool of applicants, but also a higher retention rate among those chosen.

As an employer where do you stand? As an employee which environment do you think you would be more successful in?

Taxes Spiked for the New Year

With 2012 peeking at us from around the corner its no surprise that this morning we received the latest tax increase memo.  I wish the news were better folks, but it looks like we're going to take a moderate hit in the new year from our friends over in the division of taxation.  They always get what they want don't they?

The Social Security Administration announced recently that as of 2012 the Employee social security rate will increase to 6.2% of all taxable earnings.  All the employers out there can breathe a sigh of relief though.  Your taxes will not be raised, they will stay at the current rate of 6.2%.  In additional the maximum amount of earnings subject to said tax will increase to $110,00.

While no state will be exempted from this tax, some states will have some happy employed citizens come January 1st.  The following states have announced a minimum wage increase: (Spoiler Alert: RI is not on the list)

• Arizona, to $7.65 per hour for non-tipped employees and $4.65 per hour for tipped employees
• Florida, to $7.67 per hour for non-tipped employees and $4.65 per hour for tipped employees
• Montana, to $7.65 per hour for non-tipped and tipped employees (applies to employers with annual
• sales exceeding $110,000)
• Ohio, to $7.70 per hour for non-tipped employees and $3.85 for tipped employees (will apply to
• employers who gross more than $283,000 per year beginning in 2012)
• Oregon, to $8.80 per hour for non-tipped and tipped employees
• Vermont, to $8.46 per hour for non-tipped employees and $4.10 for tipped employees
• State of Washington, to $9.04 per hour for non-tipped and tipped employees.

National Disability Employment Awareness Month

In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month we at City Personnel have taken the initiative to find some statistics on disability in the US just for you. I know, you've been wondering why has it taken us this long?  I mean we're already 11 days in!  Well I apologize for the delay, and fully blame it on Columbus and his holiday, but without further a due here are the stats:

• In the US 54 million people have a disability
• West Virginia has the highest percentage of people with a disability at 18.8% of the population
• Utah has the lowest percentage with only 8.9% of the population having a disability
• Hearing difficulty is experienced by 10.2 million people, of these 10.2 million, 5.8 million are 65 or older
• Visual problems account for 6.5 million people
• Roughly 13.5 million people struggle to concentrate or make decisions, of these 2.1 million are aged 5 to 17.
• Approximately $35.3 billion has been received by veterans for service connected disabilities for 2008
• Around 21% of the population over 16yrs old with a disability are below poverty level
• Nearly 72% of disabled people over the age of 16 are not in the workforce