HRMG Blog – Sage Abra Payroll, HR, & Timekeeping News

HRMG customers have asked us to help them look into ways to advertise job openings and tackle the thorny issues of effective hiring in today’s market.

You are probably familiar with advertising jobs the old-fashioned (but expensive) ways in newspapers or on Monster.com or CareerBuilder, but did you know one of the hottest places getting results right now is Indeed.com.

Indeed is a “mashup” site, which means it remixes data from more than one source. Another “mashup” site is SimplyHired.com, which combines job opportunities from individual LinkedIn sites and displays them on the web.

We’ve done our homework and found it well worth a visit to these sites to check out cost effective alternatives to traditional advertising.

If you are planning to hire in 2010, you may also want to consider a strong recruiting system to handle the waves of resumes, applications, interviews, letters of rejection and acceptances that will need to funnel through your chain of command.

Filtering through everything and finding exactly the right candidates to interview could possibly be done manually – but who has the time to get it right?

If you would like to know more about recruiting systems to manage your next hiring wave, we have options to suggest. To get started, we have information on our website.

Email back or call Paula at 610-941-2176 for more details.

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Can’t come to grips with using social media to attract talent? Take a look at how one world class company does it.

This is a terrific presentation by Starbucks on “Using Social Media to Attract and Engage Passive Candidates”. It offers great statistics, real examples, and tips on how to get involved in this revolution of collaboration. The great news is that no matter how big or small your organization is, social media levels the recruiting playing field.

Are you currently using Social Media to attract talent? How is it working?

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The HIRE Act, an $18 billion dollar bill that was passed by the Senate today and the House in February, will provide incentives to those organizations that are looking to hire in 2010.

The Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act will offer tax credits and exemptions to companies in an effort to reinvigorate the workforce. Here is a summary of what will become a law once President Obama signs the legislation:

• Employers who hire people who have been unemployed for at least 60 days will get an exemption from Social Security payroll taxes through December for each of those workers.
• Employers can take an additional $1,000 tax credit on their 2011 tax return for every new worker retained at least 52 weeks.
• Small businesses can write off $250,000 of the cost of new equipment purchased this year, instead of having to depreciate those costs over time.

Do you think the HIRE Act will be a positive change to our economy? How do you think this will effect your hiring decisions?

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Making sure your “C” Team knows HR “Get’s It”.

Be someone who makes recommendations on how to accomplish organizational goals.
Example: Downsizing? Review candidates targeted to leave and provide opinions on the best use of their skill sets to filter and keep the best talent in-house.

Recognize what people do best in your workforce and reward them.
- Be willing to educate yourself in the ways of your organization
- Select, mentor, train and develop great people

Be someone who volunteers to work on special assignments. Stay attentive to changing strategic goals.

Be someone who understands the competitive space in which the organization works.

Understand the risks and liabilities involving your workforce and recommend actions to avoid them.

Be someone who doesn’t think of HR responsibilities as just a calendar of events – think about matching up results from workforce reports, designed to track those events, with the objectives of the organization.

To be sure you “Get It”, know it’s not about tasks – it’s about selling products and providing services to customers. Don’t bog down the process with requirements, which slow workforce progress.

Explain clearly the benefits and priorities for any actions which take time away from productivity.

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We here at HRMG Solutions are practicing what we preach, that is, we are actively involved in a number of Social Media outlets. Here are some ways we are working to better communicate and collaborate with our customers.

• We have a company site on LinkedIn. From our company page, you can connect to each of us!

• We’ve partnered with others to create an “Alliance for Workforce Management”. Join our discussion group.

• Follow us on Twitter.

• We also have a YouTube channel, where we discuss Abra and provide tutorials.

How are you using Social Media?

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As I travel along the webiverse, I always look for ways to better the advancement of Social Networking in organizations. Truth be told, Social Networking is here to stay, and unfortunately the majority of companies in the U.S. are not harnessing the potential power of Social Media.

Manpower Research released a terrific whitepaper that outlines research on social networking, and itemizes positive business uses for this emerging technology.  The whitepaper suggests that organizations should develop policies that, rather than controlling employees social networking behavior, channel social media in positive, creative ways that can help both the employee and the company. They provide a number of business uses for social networking, each with examples of Fortune 500′s that have moved in this direction.

You can download the whitepaper here.

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Social Networking is an ever increasing subject for Human Resources professionals. I am speaking to various local SHRM organizations throughout the year on this very topic, and hope to educate, enlighten, and enrich organization’s capabilities in this arena. HR departments, now more than ever, need to embrace this major shift in the way we do business in order to increase value to employees, provide increased knowledge to those that need it in the organization, and become more efficient at their jobs.

As I continue my research on social media in the workplace (this thing evolves daily!), I am continually amazed at the speed of growth of social networking sites. There were 250 million Facebook users in September 2009, today there are over 400 million. And what these users say about companies and their brand determines who will win and lose in this experience economy. Whether people like it or not, the future is here – social media is as big a business revolution as the industrial age.

You might tell already I’m a social media activist. I enjoy visiting organizations of all sizes and discussing this topic, and as I question them on their current social media strategy, I sometimes hear a pang of disbelief to the pro’s of social media in the workplace. “Is social networking really necessary in the workplace?” “Won’t social media hurt an organization more than it will help?” “How can I deter the plague of social sites from our company?” Yes, there are potential negative side effects to social media, but when harnessed properly, social media is a very powerful and useful tool.  In reality, whether you like it or not, your company’s customers and employees are already using social networking. What are they saying about your brand?

Throughout the next few months, I’m going to leave tools, tips, and advice on social networking in HR. Hopefully as you read my commentary on the subject, you can take at least one idea and begin implementing it immediately.

In the meantime, test your initial knowledge on social networking sites. Can you name the nine social sites from their icons at the top of this entry?

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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