If a new survey is correct, about 84 percent of workers are planning to look for a new position in 2011.

If this is so (and, frankly, 84 percent sounds like a staggeringly unrealistic number to us), companies around the country are at big risk of losing their top employees.

Research on employee motivation has found that a worker’s earnings and the benefits provided by an employer don’t have as much impact on a worker’s satisfaction and engagement as job quality and workplace support.

With that in mind, we offer some ideas below that can help you engage, motivate and keep your top talent.

• Offer meaningful work. Let your employees do what they do best by engaging their top skills and affinities. This is a key to retention and engagement.
• Ask for ideas. Allowing workers to have input into decisions gives them a big sense of control and being a part of something “bigger than themselves.” Soliciting employee input also shows them that their opinion matters to you. It also helps employees accept the resulting decision once it’s been made because they had some say in it.
• Tell people where they stand. Let your employees know how things really are within your company. Ask them to set tough but realistic goals; this actually helps motivate workers, especially when things are tough.
• Keep true to your word and consistent in your actions. When leaders are reliable and accessible, trust builds in the workplace.
• Help employees create personal goals that reflect your company’s goals. This helps ensure that everyone is working toward the same outcome. It also helps employees see how their efforts really affect a company’s success.
• Provide room to grow. How effective are you when it comes to promoting from within? Really take a good look at how often employees have a chance to move up within your organization. Top employees especially want to know they will be challenged and have an opportunity to let their skills shine. Are you truly hiring from within, or are your managers, supervisors and even executives coming from the outside?

Are you prepared for a possible talent exodus from your firm? A call to The Wellspring Group may be in order. After all, if IT employees from your competitors are looking to leave, you’ll want to be ready to entice them join you.  Contact us today.

A survey conducted a short while back found that, of the 330 companies surveyed, more than half (53 percent) had a “high” or “somewhat high” degree of unease about their employees’ time management skills. In addition, 46 percent also were concerned about their staff members’ delegation skills.

Yet, for all the concern, only 28 percent offered delegation training. Companies apparently were more willing to put their money where their worries were, with 49 percent reporting that they offer time management seminars, courses, or other training.

Of those who provide time management training, slightly more than half (52 percent) do so in house, with 71 percent opting for a classroom setting. As for delegation training, 59 percent of those who do so, do so in house, with 65 percent of that training held in a classroom-like setting.

In addition, a 2006 survey by Watson Wyatt Worldwide found what sales managers the world over have long known: it’s not how many hours a sales force works, it’s what they do while they’re working that counts. That is, it’s all in how a sales representative allocates his or her time.

The survey found that sales teams at financially high-performing firms spend up to 40 percent more time with their best potential customers than did sales people at low-performing firms. In addition, these high performers also spent an additional three-four hours a week in what were deemed “high-value” sales activities.
Of note, sales teams a high performing firms spend 30 percent less time on administrative tasks.

In addition, the survey found that salespeople at the financially high-performing companies tend to have a favorable opinion of their firms, as well as of the company’s products and/or services. Eighty-three percent said they believed their firm’s products and services were among the best available, compared to just 57 percent for the sales personnel at the low-performing firms.

Our takeaway? Time management doesn’t come naturally to most of us. And, with today’s technological distractions (Facebook, Twitter, surfing the Web) available so easily (on netbooks or Smartphones), it’s sometimes a wonder any work gets done.

So invest in your IT team (whether your techs or your sales team) in time management training. Time management is a skill that just keeps on giving, and helping your staff by providing even a one-shot training session can pay you ongoing dividends for a long time.

Contact The Wellspring Group when it’s time for your firm to hire the best IT talent available for your company’s particular needs. You specify the skills and background you need in your IT professionals and we’ll find them for you. We look forward to hearing from you!

As the nation slowly recovers from the recent brutal recession, employee morale is low — very low. In fact, a recent survey of about 200,000 workers showed that employee morale is the lowest it’s ever been.

Employers risk losing workers with low morale as soon as the job market warms. Replacing an employee can cost anywhere from one-half to more than two times his or her annual salary!

So it will behoove you to buck up your current employees, and you may do in two simple ways:  praise and recognition  for their efforts, especially when those efforts go above the usual.

Sixty-five percent of those workers surveyed said they had not been recognized at all for their hard work in the year prior to the survey. Of those who left an employer, about 80 percent said the main reason they left was because they felt unappreciated.

Yet — and here’s where you should sit up and take note — of those companies where employee morale is high, almost all workers said that their managers recognize their employees’ efforts.

What’s more — and really pay attention here – the survey found that those organizations who recognized their employees for their efforts usually were more profitable than those who didn’t recognize workers.

As you work to make your company’s culture one of appreciation and recognition, be sure you praise and acknowledge not only top performers, but “average” and underperforming employees — when they make an extra effort for even the smallest of things. Praise can go a very long way to helping your employees get to a level of performance where you want them to be.

If you’re in the search for exceptional, hard-working, top-notch IT professionals, contact The Wellspring Group. We will source the most talented IT workers possible. We look forward to hearing from you!

In order to select the right search firm for your organization’s next high-level position, you need to have a solid understanding of your company’s or individual department’s primary needs. Establish a hierarchy of skills and/or assets that are most vital to you and your team, then begin the process of “interviewing” search firms to determine if they are a good fit for your company, and can provide you with the type of candidates that are well-suited to your open position.

But why work with an executive search firm? Why not simply go out into the job market yourself and find that perfect candidate? After all, in these challenging times, you should have no trouble finding qualified candidates, right?

Surprisingly, it just doesn’t work that way. When an economic downturn leaves an unusually high number of highly skilled people seeking jobs, the sheer numbers can be overwhelming for most companies. Combine this with the fact that the internet has, over the past five years, completely revolutionized the way potential applicants are located, recruited, screened, and hired, and you will find yourself not only spending far more money on resources to properly handle this information overload but, even more importantly, you will waste time attempting to streamline a process that you must spend valuable time learning before you can even begin to put an effective system in place to handle it.

This is where the expertise of an established, experienced IT search firm is well worth the cost. This is our lifeblood. Our primary focus is to stay on the cutting edge of the latest recruitment and applicant filtering techniques. Our staff has the knowledge and experience to develop an effective plan for finding applicants that not only have the skill set you need, but who also is able to “fit” in your corporate culture, thus creating a synergistic relationship in your department – creating a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

We know where to find the right people, present them to you in a timely manner, and allow you to select the perfect candidate – all while you focus on your business. Take the guesswork out of finding your next employee. Let The Wellspring Group present you with the highly skilled candidates needed to take your company to the next level. We look forward to hearing from you.

One of the more prominent aspects of the job hiring process is the discussion and mutual decision-making regarding compensation. To ensure that you have a successful compensation negotiation, follow these 10 “do’s and don’ts” regarding this process.

1. DO know your potential employee’s worth. This isn’t really about the numbers in term of  a paycheck, but what kind of overall a candidate can bring to your company. Perhaps it has to do with the candidate’s excellent sales skills or her ability to turn around a company in trouble. Whatever her special skill is, be sure to determine what it’s worth to your organization.
2. DON’T bust your company’s budget hiring someone you know you cannot afford. Plain and simple, you may want this star employee, but if he is firm on his compensation price and you know you can’t afford it, let him walk.
3. DO make the negotiations process pleasant. State in the beginning that this process is strenuous, but once a conclusion is reached, you would like to put it behind you and move forward.
4. DO be firm in the compensation range instead of specific salary number. Because the process is just that – a negotiation – you have to be willing to fluctuate some. Set a range early in the process and then you can play with numbers within that range.
5. DON’T take it personal if the employee asks for something you perceive as astronomical. Remember, he’s got to eat – and potentially feed a family – so he is going to ask for whatever he can get. If he goes too high, gently explain that the range you’ve set is what you can afford.
6. DO make negotiations private. Your whole company should not be privy to this process; just a senior staffer and human resources person. Otherwise, you might see your whole company begin to become angry at the numbers being bandied about.
7. DON’T put anything on paper until you have made a final decision. You may need time to think about what you are offering for compensation. Don’t put anything in writing until you are firm on the price and comfortable with it.
8. DO put it in writing once you are done. This protects you if the employee comes back later accusing you of shorting him.
9. DO research on what the position in question pays in companies near you. This gives you some kind of barometer to make sure you aren’t overpaying an employee.
10. DON’T allow the process to play out for an extended time. Set a time limit on negotiations and stick with it.

When you need help negotiating salaries, contact The WellSpring Group. We can help you discover what the “going rate” is for positions. In addition, we can help source, vet and interview promising candidates. Contact us today.

There are a number of ways in which you can recruit for new staff members for your company. After all, reduced staff through open positions can contribute to increased stress on other employees and decreased efficiency in your company overall. Hiring new employees and recruiting your industry’s stars is essential in a company’s ability to move forward.

Another way in which you can find qualified personnel is through an outside staffing or recruiting firm. There are many benefits to working with this type of service, as its staffing managers often have contacts to qualified personnel looking for gainful employment in your industry. Moreover, they can offer assistance with initial interviews, call backs and other facets of the hiring process that prove to be time-consuming for busy executives and companies already working with the minimum amount of staff.

In order to reap the benefits of working with an outside staffing firm, you need to understand how to do so correctly. The more effectively you can work together from the outset, the better your chances are for successfully finding the right fit.

To start, you must clearly communicate your needs. Draft out, in writing, exactly what you are looking for in a potential employee. Be specific in terms of skills and experience. State your terms on salary, benefits, probationary periods and anything else relevant to finding the right person to fill a particular position.

Allow the staffing company to do its job – don’t try to micromanage the search for a new employee. If you are working with a reputable company, then you must be able to “let go” and  allow the staffing firm to find you a new employee without the need to be involved in the process until you need to be (usually only for final interviews with the top candidates).

When you need the expertise to find IT professionals for the jobs that need doing and you want the search done as easily and successfully as possible, contact The Wellspring Group. We’ll make the whole process flow efficiently and effectively. Contact us today!

The staffing industry tends to toss terms about like so much candy being tossed by Iron Man costume-clad kids to in a Halloween parade to those on the sidelines. If you’ve ever wondered what “temp-to-hire,” “direct recruiting,” “long-term temporary” mean — and how they can help you — here are some definitions.

Temp-to-Hire. Bringing a worker to your company on a temp-to-hire assignment means you have arranged with your staffing service to bring someone in who, if all goes well, you will hire on to your own payroll after an agreed-upon length of time, usually 90 days. Temp-to-hire allows both you and the temporary worker to see if the position is a good fit for both you and the employee — if the worker has the skills and attitude you seek and if the assignment fits the worker’s career goals. Temp-to-hire is wonderful when you want to see how an employee really works on the job without having to make a full-time commitment.

Long-term Temporary Assignment. These often are used by employers who need skilled professionals for long-term work but are leery of bringing someone on to their own payroll, often due to the fact that the employer is unsure of future needs. Will the work still be there for the person to do six months from now? Or will business droop, meaning the employer may have to let someone go. Hiring employees is costly, as you know, and most employers understandably are loathe to hire someone just to have to let him or her go a few months down the road. Bringing in someone for a long-term assignment (two months to a year), can help you get the work you need done before you make the huge commitment of hiring someone on to your payroll. If it turns out you find the temporary worker to be an excellent member of your team, you can hire the person from your staffing service at any time. Your service will charge you a fee for this.

Direct Recruiting. Sometimes, you really do need to get someone on to your company’s payroll quickly, without placing him or her on a temporary, long-term temporary or temp-to-hire assignment. Also known as executive recruitment or direct placement, companies tend to engage recruiting firms to source, vet and perform preliminary screening for harder-to-find positions. Staffing services and recruiting firms constantly recruit for positions within their staffing niche (such as IT, The Wellspring Group’s recruiting focus) and so can send two or three completely screened top candidates to a company within days or even hours for final interviews by the company’s principals or managers. Most recruiting firms, such as The Wellspring Group, receive no pay until and unless a company hires one of the staffing firm’s candidates. The fee then usually is about 30 percent of a candidate’s first-year salary, although this fee is negotiable. Some companies also prefer to hire recruiting firms on a retainer basis, paying the firm a set amount each month to conduct on-going recruitment.

If you need reliable and skilled IT professionals for temporary, temp-to-hire or direct placement positions, contact The Wellspring Group. We are the source for top IT talent and we look forward to learning more about we can help your company find exceptional employees.

If you’ve ever hired someone who had a terrific resume, who came to you via an in-house referral, who interviewed exceptionally well, but who then turned out to be a bad hire either because he or she couldn’t do the tasks necessary or was a poor personality fit for your company’s culture or your department, you’re not alone.

Most hiring managers have at least one “bad hire story” to share.

Yet the number of your poor hires could well be decreased with the help of one or more of the many candidate assessment tests and tools available today.

These tools allow employers to measure a candidate’s personality, sales ability, even his or her customer service skills. Tools also exist that can help you determine if an employee is truthful or even a hard worker. You also will find assessment services that will help you in pre-employment screening, as well as what are known as 360-degree employee performance evaluations. And let’s not forget background check services as well as job simulation screenings, in which your potential candidate is scored on how well he or she will actually perform the skills necessary to succeed in the position. (These tests are particularly helpful for vetting potential sales people, helping you to see how a sales candidate deals with objections and closings.)

If you’re a fan of benchmarking, many assessment tools are available that will allow you to set benchmarks for certain positions and then compare applicants’ skills to the requirements you set. This then allows you to take the guesswork out of making hiring decisions.

The companies and services offering assessment tools often will send you reports that detail how candidates scored in areas you deemed critical to on-the-job success. The reports can give you assessments regarding applicants’ skill sets, personalities, even their critical-thinking skills.

If you use assessment tools on one candidate, you should use them on all candidates. This will allow you to put into writing how you select your employees and will help you justify hiring or not hiring certain candidates. This can come in very handy should you ever be at the wrong end of a hiring discrimination lawsuit.

Let The Wellspring Group take the guesswork out of sourcing, vetting and hiring your IT employees. We can provide you with experienced IT professionals on a contract, contract-to-hire and full-time basis. Contact us today!

Many people in the human resources and staffing industries believe that hiring is more of an “art” than a “science.”

We disagree.

We believe there are proven steps you can take to make your hiring process more efficient and successful, each time you need to hire someone.

Here are the five key steps we believe constitute an effective hiring process:

1) Probably the most important step, and one which is relatively easy to do well: write an effective job description. This should take you some time, at least a couple of hours. But it’s time well spent in the long run. A good description states clearly what the position’s responsibilities are and the minimum background and skills needed to perform well in it. A good job description also acts a marketing tool for your company, so include a bit about your company’s background and future, focusing on this part of the description on the “what’s in it them” for an applicant.

As you get ready to interview, put together a grid that allows you to evaluate candidates based on your hiring criteria. This not only will help you remember who’s who, it will help you rank candidates objectively.

2) When you’re actually conducting interviews, remember to flush out three key things:

• the applicant’s career and how it fits or doesn’t with your needs;
• a candidate’s skill sets, as compared to your needs; and
• the reasons why a candidate would want to accept a job at your company.

Here are some questions to consider asking:

• Tell me about your career so far.
• Why did you make a career shift (if applicable)?
• Why did you get this college major (if applicable)?
• Why did you leave your previous employers?
• Tell me about a project that best demonstrates how you were able to use the skills you have to your best ability.
• Give me an example of how you responded to [a relevant problem].

Don’t be afraid to ask “challenging” questions. You want to hire the type of people who rise to the occasion. Be careful not to ask questions that are too challenging or just plain weird: “If you could be a plant, what type would you be?”

Don’t forget to tell your candidate why your company is a great place to work. After all, you’re selling your company just as much as your candidate is selling her services.

3) Take your hiring grid and discuss your candidates with either your search/interview team or with colleagues in your company whom you trust. Discuss each interviewee in depth, not only talking about how well their skill sets fit your needs, but also how their personalities might “fit” in your department/company.

4) Now’s the time to vet your short list of candidates. Verify past employment and check references. Instead of asking the candidate for a short list of three or so references, ask your top candidates for a list of several people for whom the candidate now or once worked. Ask for bosses, subordinates, colleagues, even customers. If your candidate prefers you not contact her current supervisor, ask her if there’s anyone in her company now she feels could speak with you in confidence.

The reason this approach works so well is that you get third party confirmation of the candidate’s abilities. Aim for balanced, not perfect references.

5) The offer. Call your top candidate first and make a verbal offer. Aim to know what the candidate is earning now before you call. Tell your top candidate the reasons you’re making her the offer. Aim to get verbal agreement before putting your terms on paper.

Be prepared for salary negotiation. Top candidates at any level increasingly are looking to negotiate. If you can’t budge on salary, consider offering such benefits as more PTO, a different title, a salary review in six months (instead of a year), etc.

When you’re looking to hire right the first — and only! — time, contact The Wellspring Group. We will source and do the preliminary interviewing and vet high-quality candidates for your firm. Contact us today!

This post isn’t going to be one of our typical posts where we offer advice to an executive on how to find good people or how to manage her workforce, followed with a final paragraph touting The Wellspring Group’s services.

No. Instead, we’re going to be upfront and tell you how our flexible staffing and the several recruiting options we offer can help you and your business.

If you’re OK with middle-of-the-road recruiters finding you middle-of-the-road talent then we’re not the recruiting company for you. We specialize in sourcing what we call “Top 3″ talent: those skilled IT professionals who continually over-perform in any assignment or project on which they happen to be working. We send only the “Top 3″ candidates to our clients for their consideration

In addition, if you can see how hard we’re working for you, we’ve failed, for our goal is to make the finding of top talent for your IT needs to be as stress-free and “invisible” as possible.

Here’s the bottom line. Using The Wellspring Group to help you find contract, contract-to-hire and full-time professionals will do the following:

In a search for a full-time professional: We can and will find you the stars, the exceptional and experienced professionals who aren’t looking for work. They’re not unemployed. They’re not surfing the job boards looking for a better opportunity. They are now doing exceptional work for their employers, employers they’ll leave if they are presented with the right opportunity.

We will save you money. We also will save you time (which will save you money) because doing a search in-house with your own employees conducting the search takes them away from what doing you’re paying them to do — make sales, managing a team or projects, creating product for your customers — while they cull resumes, call candidates, assess applicants, conduct preliminary interviews and final interviews, conduct background checks, and so on.

Instead, The Wellspring Group will take over the whole search process, except for interviewing the final “Top 3″ candidates. From sourcing candidates, to conducting background and reference checks, and everything in between, our seasoned recruiters will do it all.

We begin by speaking with you to discover the exact requirements you seek for an opening. Your assigned recruiter will take the time to find the skills and personality traits of your top performers, which helps us discover the IT professionals who will excel in your company’s unique environment.

Once we’ve sourced who we believe to be the top three best candidates, we’ll provide you with a detailed profile of each one and will help arrange for those candidates to meet with you. We even can help with salary negotiation, if you desire.

The Wellspring Group will partner with you no matter your recruiting needs. We constantly source and identify top talent and we keep a database of their availability. If you need an IT professional in a hurry, we can bring an experienced individual to your site within days or even hours on a temporary basis, contract-to-hire or direct-hire basis, allowing you the flexibility and efficiency your company needs.

When you need strategic IT staffing solutions and high-level consulting expertise, contact The Wellspring Group. We look forward to showing you how cost-effective, efficient and successful working with us can be. Contact us today.