Valliere: The Demonization of Barack Obama – It’s Not Just Religion – CNBC.

So, new claims for unemployment rose this week and freaked everyone out.  Yet the numbers of people continuing claims dropped unexpectedly (no one heard about that).  Our staffing business has openings for entry level people – we have recently found it challenging to get the spots filled.  We continue to hear the unemployed workers say that they “make more on unemployment”.  I have work for them but our Government would rather they stay on the welfare system.  This is crazy.  Stop extending the unenmployment benefits and watch the unemploment numbers drop!  This will result in more positive news which will cause consumers to start spending which will cause the factories to start producing and put more people to work (a virtuous cycle).  Instead we are battling our own Government which is fueling this  “doom loop” when it could save money and create a “boom loop”.  The upper end jobs won’t come back until the boom loop is allowed to happen.

We have used temp agencies strategically so that we can respond to sudden increases or decreases in demand.  It is possible for me to get “qualified temps” in your place of business faster than you can get the raw material for a uptick in sales activity.  By qualified, I mean right behaviors, right experience, right attitude, and “day 1″ pre-trained.  That can save you lots of money.  And, satisfy your customers. 

When you use New Era you don’t pay payroll tax, Unemployment Insurance premiums, L&I premiums, health insurance benefits, and you don’t have to worry about W2 wage reporting, the threat of a workers comp claim, unemployment claim, or employment liability claim.  Here is the math:

Your employee costs you:

Hourly Wage = $15.00

Taxes and other costs =$3.75

Benefits at 30% = $5.62

True Hourly Cost of your employee =$24.37

Hourly cost of my employee working for you = $22.00

Direct Labor Savings of $2.37/hour or 9.7% labor cost reduction!  If you want to add other “soft costs” like the time and money you will be spending on advertising, reviewing resumes, interviewing, calling, e-mailing, and waiting; you can pay a lot more.  WASTEFUL.  It may take 3 weeks for you to find the “right person”.  In the meantime, stuff is not getting done (like producing a quality product or service safely).  That sounds expensive.  It is, I know, first hand.

New Era – Isn’t it time?

So … what is a behavior?  A non-judgemental description of an activity that someone does.  “Asks questions” is a behavior.  “Put’s on safety glasses” is a behavior.  “Arrives 10 minutes early” is a behavior.  “Lazy” is not.  “Great attitude” is not.

The key to it all is “job behaviors”.  Ask your self: What are the “right” behaviors we want in our employees doing this job?  If you hire someone that has the right behaviors for the job you have begun to build a high performance organization.  The right hire will be more productive, safer, quality minded, and will likely be more reliable and dependable.

It is possible to determine who has and who does not have the “right behaviors” for the job BEFORE hiring.  And I am not speaking of “behavioral based interviewing” – which is so heaving relied on and so yesterday.

65% of the people we interview will never, ever make it to the shop floor of my clients.  It’s not that the 65% are bad people – they are simply the wrong people.  We use an assessment tool that (as part of our total process) can help us find the right people.  It works.