February 2007 Virtual Staffing Newsletter - Issue #9

Virtual Human Resources !

With the new year in full swing, we hope you are finding your business booming. You may be feeling the need to hire new employees to help with the extra workload. This can be an overwhelming prospect: how do you find the right person for the job, what paperwork needs to be filled out, and what about payroll and payroll taxes? Partnering with an experienced company that is familiar with these Human Resource questions can be helpful.

What is a virtual staffing person ? As an external HR solution provider, we can provide assistance to you in the following areas:

* Customized candidate screening for searching for the right employees for your organization
* On-boarding process to be used when hiring new employees and bringing them into your organization
* Working with you to write the necessary operations and policy & procedures manuals
* Career development processes to assist you with coaching and managing your employees

Why not do it myself ? Human Resource services should be handled by someone that understands what the requirements are and is focused on doing it correctly. While a large corporation can have dedicated personnel on staff to handle this process, a small or medium sized company just can't be organized the same way. By outsourcing this work to a Trusted Advisor, you keep your attention on the tasks at hand -- your business. Your organization can utilize our existing policy & procedure templates as a starting point rather than creating your own which further saves you time. Our thorough processes are kept up-to-date; meaning they are repeatable, measurable, and predictable. Therefore, allowing the same predictability within your company.

What to look for when selecting an HR partner ? Once you have decided to outsource your HR needs, you should choose a qualified partner. Make sure that the company you use has previous positive experience working with SMBs. Having experience with large corporations is not the best fit as SMBs have unique situations revolving around personnel requirements, budgets, etc.

As your business grows you may find that it is more cost effective to hire a full time HR person. Will the company you are considering be willing to work with you on a plan to transition the HR process back in house if you choose to? You don't want to become stuck in a process that ties you to one company.

Make sure that the company you choose can create a process tailored to your specific organization and industry. Your company is unique, and you don't want to settle for a cookie cutter approach to such important processes as HR.

What are the benefits of VSI's candidate screening process ? We are not just executive recruiting -- instead we have a unique approach for finding and keeping the right people. VSI collaborates with you to develop a job description and staff expectations. This partnership will help develop an understanding of what qualities you need in a prospective employee; we often have suggestions based on past experiences with similar positions in your specific industry that you may not have thought about. We then post the job openings and receive resumes from potential candidates. The candidates will be asked to complete a candidate screening questionnaire that has been customized for this specific role. Based on answers to the questionnaire, we will conduct phone and onsite interviews as necessary. Once a final decision has been made, VSI follows up with ALL candidates -- accept and decline -- everyone will receive a response.

What are the benefits of VSI's employee on-boarding process ? After a qualified candidate has been chosen, VSI will continue to work with your organization to ensure that the hiring transition is effortless. We will formulate a customized offer letter that describes the expectations and benefits that are being offered to your new employee. We provide a personalized application to the new employee and ensure all paperwork is completed fully -- including a background check. VSI then walks through staff expectations, answers candidates questions, and ensures that all necessary paperwork and policy documents are signed. A 30 / 60 / 90 day and 1 year appraisal process is developed based on your expectations for your new employee and specific industry standards. Finally, we setup the new employee into the payroll process; this can be done in-house or out-sourced to VSI (see next month's newsletter for more information on VSI's payroll and accounting services).

How can VSI help develop an Operations / Policy and Procedures Manual ? We conduct several interviews to gather details about your process and organization. Our findings are documented and a draft manual is sent to you for clarification. Based on the additional details supplied, we create another draft manual. Final modifications are made and a final document is put together. Over the years as your company procedures evolve, we will refine the Operations / Policy and Procedures Manual accordingly.

Referrals Thank you for letting us serve your business. Our success has been based on your satisfaction with our company and your willingness to continue to provide referrals. For this reason we ask, "How likely are you to refer our company to a friend or colleague?" If you don't feel you could recommend us, please let us know how we could better meet your needs. We greatly appreciate you and are hopeful that you’ll continue to refer new business to us!

Small business tip of the month Software manufactures, like Microsoft, QuickBooks, etc. bombard us with messages to update to the newest version in order to have the best functionality. However, PLEASE consider the ramifications of these updates. Some changes that are made by an update to one program, may cause another program to stop working. Consider making a system backup prior to any software installs or updates. This will allow you to revert to an older version of software if you experience any compatibility problems.

Please call VSI or your current IT support company with any questions you may have.