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Hiring

When to hire temps

September 13, 2019 by Lisa Huang No Comments
By definition, temps are workers who step into your business to help out when you’re understaffed or have a special need such as a project. You know the length of time this person is needed, the skills required, and you’re willing to bring them on board for a set amount of time.

In this regard, a temp worker could a seasonal hire for a retail store, a contractor for an IT project, or even a substitute teacher.

Traditional management wisdom says you should keep your talent in-house. There are many reasons to do this, you want the best and brightest talents in-house for instant access, who are familiar with the process, who knows the business down to the cogs and gears, and can be relied upon to complete complex projects, and for executive decision-making.

In such an organization, why would you ever hire temps?


There are a number of reasons to consider temporary workers, even for large, established, and non-seasonal companies. They typically call these “Contractors” who are knowledgeable individuals brought in to enhance the in-house teams to complete large projects. But that shouldn’t be the only time a temp is required.

Currently businesses hire “Contractors”, but it can be so much more…

For example, a business has needs for certain reports which are largely distilled information on industry trends and analysis. This is required daily and is done by senior analysts who spend hours researching, gathering data, and writing the report. Now this could be done by a junior team member, however, the company cannot justify the added headcount, and therefore the senior analyst continues to spend precious time on a task that can be offloaded after some minimal training.

This decreases productivity for a senior member whose time should be better spent on more strategic tasks. With some training, a temporary worker (who can even work remotely) familiar with the industry can easily take over this task on a daily basis. Since all information used are public, there are no privacy issues at risk in this case.

Reasons to hire temporary workers

  1. They are cheaper. No need to explain this one, everyone knows the costs of pension, benefits, vacations, sick days, shares, warrants, bonus, commission, etc, make hiring permanent staff a very pricey endeavor.
  2. They are flexible. Temp workers can be assigned to tasks on an as-needed basis. They are more prone to be flexible, since they know this task or project has a pre-determined end date, they’re more likely to give it a chance compared to someone who has been doing the same thing day in and day out.
  3. They bring in new perspective. Temp workers or contractors have been around the block. They know what your competitor is doing better, and can advise you on how to improve efficiency and process.
  4. Less bullshit. Let’s be honest, office politic sucks! However, it’s a fact of life in the modern workplace, with more people jostling to move upwards than positions available, there are bound to be some negativity and finger-pointing. Not so much for temp workers, they know they’re there to perform a specific task in a specific time-frame. They’re not there to get a promotion. So there’s less bullshit, and let’s face it, we can all use less bullshit.
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Hiring

Outsourcing the hiring process

June 28, 2019 by Lisa Huang No Comments
You’re running your business and have a million things to do. On top of everything you now have to make a new hire. You post the job on job sites, and in a few days a flood of resumes come in. You don’t have an HR department (as so many small/medium enterprises in the country, you’re both the CEO and the Janitor), so you roll up your sleeves and get to work.

In what little time you can spare, you peruse the resumes, ponder on qualifications, make the phone calls, do the interviews, and in most likelihood, only 10–20% of candidates will fit your requirements, and of those, perhaps only half are available and interested enough to show up for an interview. If you’re lucky, you’ll find the right person, make an offer that is accepted, and voila, back in business!

However, if you’re unlucky, which many business owners will find that stars are not always aligned, that after weeks of searching, vetting, phone interviews, in-person interviews, they either could not find a good fit (for both sides), or they make an offer to a good candidate which is rejected, or even worse, accepted but the person quits after a short while. Back to square one. All that effort wasted.

In the meantime, you’ve spent a lot of time and effort, and not on running and growing your business.


Is there a better way?


You might think, only I know about my business enough to make the right hiring decision. That might be the case. However, there are many obvious qualifications that must be met for the role to be successfully filled.

  1. Availability and Location (or willingness to relocate). This is obviously a first filter for any position. “But I’ve already put those requirements in the Job Description”, you think, “Surely a candidate will not apply unless they meet those requirements?” Don’t be surprised when you find out that job sites make it so easy to apply that many candidates just read the Job Title and click to apply. This requirement still needs to be properly vetted.
  2. Experience and Knowledge. No two people are alike, and no two experiences are alike. Often simple questions such as “Tell me about your responsibilities at your last job” will be able to flesh out the differences in experience.
  3. Communication and Characteristic. Often in the first minute of a conversation the character traits will appear. If the person is an effective communicator, a patient listener, or a motivated individual, it’s often discernible within the first few seconds of conversation.
  4. The “Je ne sais quoi.” The often unexplainable, but immediately-obvious traits that we all look for. Sometimes you find out a lot of information from asking simple open-ended question as “Why did you leave your last job?”

All of these can easily be offloaded to a third party.

A person who understands the job requirements, and is skilled with quickly filtering information during phone conversations can easily filter candidates down to the last 10%-20%, and set up in-person interviews for these candidates directly.

Instead of spending hours and hours filtering through resumes and making endless phone calls, leaving countless voicemails, and trying to remember who this was when the person calls you back, the business owner can now directly interview a few qualified candidates and make a much-easier hiring decision within a day or two.

Workholler is already offering this service to businesses in Canada. By offshoring the majority of the vetting process, it frees up the business owner’s time and allows for a much smoother and easier hiring process. For those managers swamped with the task of having to find new hires, Workholler comes to the rescue.

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General

Why some people just don’t seem to care?

June 27, 2017 by Lisa Huang No Comments
I care. I care a lot. I care about my family, my friends, my business and my clients. I care intrinsically about my family and friends. I care about my clients because they will make or break my business. So I care.

But it seems some businesses are having trouble hiring someone like me. We met with companies who are looking to hire, who encounter the following problem. They find a great resume, call the person to chat, then set up an in-person interview or even make an offer, and the person just straight doesn’t show up. All that time and effort wasted.

This is especially prevalent in the part-time space, where we most frequently see this attitude of non-caring. Now don’t get me wrong, not everybody does that, many are very professional. But even a few seems too many. Why is it that some people just don’t seem to care?

No Consequences…

I don’t believe it’s because the person is inherently unprofessional. Rather, it is perhaps a symptom of the belief that: a) this job is not important enough for them to care; and b) even if they don’t show up, there are no consequences to bear. The hiring manager has never met the person, and probably won’t remember his or her name after a few days, and if they don’t ever apply to a job at this business again, then where’s the harm (other than wasting a lot of people’s valuable time)?

This is where WorkHoller comes in

At WorkHoller, we hold our candidates to a high standard of professionalism. We will not allow anyone to hide behind anonymity. We will help our workers find the best jobs that suit their needs, but in return, we set the bar high.

We have a rigorous vetting process, with several rounds of calls and interviews, including the requirement of a video resume. We check the references for each worker that we add to our list, and can even perform criminal checks if required (for a nominal fee). We will hold training sessions as well, in order to help workers with basic skills.

In an on-line world where anonymity is prevalent, sometimes we forget that there is a real person and a real business behind the screen when we click on “Apply”. Don’t click on it if you’re not serious about going through.

WorkHoller’s technology platform will have the ability to rate and filter candidates that have “No Shows” or “Late without Notice”. A candidate that has more than two “No Shows” will automatically be banned from our system for 6 months.

This way there’s no hiding behind the computer screen. Unprofessional behaviour will be called out and the consequence will be that the next Employer might think twice before extending an interview or an offer. There will be accountability, and at the end of the day, people will care.

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