Nearly all managers agree that referrals are the best and most effective way to recruit your workforce.  Generally, a lead referred from Jim, whose wife walks with Karen, who works for Kim, turns out to be a much better lead than a newspaper listing or online job post.  Utilizing the referral tools within Shiftboard will increase the quality of employees or volunteers you recruit and decrease the headache associated with these tasks.

How do Referrals work?

Shiftboard users can send a referral and personal message via email to anybody who may be interested in your organization. The potential candidate receives an email invitation and personal message from their inside contact.  Using Shiftboard, an interested recipient can click on the link provided to register and/or apply.  A huge bonus for managers is the ability to track and view all past and current referrals.  Managers can see which employees and volunteers are advocates for their organization and also track which referrals have been “redeemed” or have produced actual registrations.

Who uses Referrals?

•  Employee attrition at call centers is often high.  Many of our customers utilize Shiftboard not only for call center scheduling but also for the constant ability to network, attract, and grow workforces 24/7.

•  Event scheduling often requires hundreds and even thousands of workers.  Tracking the number of referrals submitted allows managers to provide incentives and reward employees accordingly.

•  Volunteer scheduling ranks top among market segments using Shiftboard’s referral tools.  The power of volunteers mass messaging and inviting their friends and family members to volunteer with them is significant.  Managers are able to sit back, relax, and watch their most enthusiastic volunteers advocate, recruit and build their organization’s volunteer database.

Get Started!

If you’re a current Shiftboard customer and have not been using Referrals it’s time to start! The process is very simple and already built into your current site.  Contact your account representative today with any questions.

-Alison J.

Not too long ago, in my research around scheduling software and flexible workplaces, I met Leanne Chase.  Leanne is the founder of Career Life Connection and someone who is deeply passionate about helping companies and workers understand the new world of work:  flexible work.  I listened to her on an internet radio program talking with another guest about work-life balance and they insisted that no such thing existed. They preferred the term: work life blend.

Leanne explains that “With 76% of baby boomers wanting to work flexible jobs as they enter retirement and 79% of mothers wanting to work fewer than 40 hours/week it is no wonder that flexibility has become a hot topic in the workplace. Companies that have heeded their workers requests are winning… ”

What this translates into is that workers are more loyal to companies that offer some form of flexibility.  Option like reduced work weeks, telecommuting, job share programs, sabbaticals and generous maternity and paternity leaves.

The part that really struck me was Leanne’s counter point aimed at the employee, which is something not often talked about:  “Flexibility cannot be a one way street…  Employees need to understand that with flexible work conditions come expectations… that work will be completed well and on time, that a reduced salary may be needed in return for reduced hours, and that employees need to be available when they say they will be,” she said.

At Shiftboard, we see that requirement on employees translated by companies of all types who use our scheduling software.  They want their employees to have flexibility, but they want them to be responsible for their commitments and their schedules.  Self scheduling. From security guard services to event management companies,  volunteer coordinators to large HR departments scheduling interviews,  the need to offer employees access to their schedules from any place at any time is what the new workplace is asking for.

-TJ M

At the Give-a-Shift blog,  we focus on the positive.  We look at the cool things that our customers are doing.  We glance at the things are competitors are doing (although we don’t write about that…).  We watch the HR, staffing, scheduling, managing people worlds out there on blogs, Twitter, social networks.

The recent popularity and usefulness of the new book:  I Hate People by authors Jonathan Littman & Marc Hershon has become an oasis for workers everywhere who are stifled, put down, weary, or looking for a way out of the corporate craziness.  It offers some funny and creative ways to process the corporate life.  I’ll admit I’ve struggled with the title.  I don’t prefer the word hate.  Don’t like the way it sounds.  But these guys don’t mean it that way:  They mean to give workers a place to find solutions.

This post caught my eye and made me laugh: 

Cubicle Exit Strategy

“On those days when it seems the entire rest of the office is focused on sawing away at the last frayed nerve you have left, the best thing to do is just bail for awhile. Get out. Go for a walk. Grab a cup of coffee. Take a nap in a park.”

We all have days where we need to escape.  The great thing about online scheduling is I can do it from anywhere.  Manage my day remotely.

Part of their book explores the concept of Flying Solo.  Of working for yourself, or as I frequently see — being part of a remote team of contractors.  That’s a growing trend and Littman and Hershon capture the reasons why people are seeking greater flexibility and autonomy.  Some of it is economy-induced, but just as much of it is people seeking a way to manage their work life in a new way.  In a way that reflects the opportunity that new web-based technologies make possible. We see volunteers, nurses, workers of all types leveraging Shiftboard in these new ways to make managing their schedules easier, online.

Here’s to a healthy and profitable cubicle exit, if you need it.  Let us know what you think of their blog.

-TJ M

Not long ago, we discovered that Alyssa Gregory (owner of Avertua, virtual assistant agency) and frequent contributor at Sitepoint, noticed us in a review of Online Scheduling Software.  Thanks, Alyssa!

Two things stood out for me about getting mentioned in this review:

1.  She found us because she’s knowledgeable about the web-based applications space.  Lots of growing companies are paying more attention to software-as-a-service.

2.  We have a number of virtual assistant, virtual staffing agency customers.  Alyssa is not yet a customer, but she saw the value. We wish her lots of luck and success with her new venture: Virtual Assistant Hub.

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/05/28/online-scheduling-systems/

–TJ M

Well, we’re still working from my list at “Let’s Talk Staffing” post.  Blogging is no place for lists.  This current list is just two posts ago, and already it feels like a piano on my back.  It’s cramping my style.  I want to write about the democratic protests in Iran, or Miley Cyrus, or a bunch of other things I know nothing about.

Talk to a small business owner, or anyone running their own P&L today, and the talk will be about available capital and cash flow.  It won’t be about Miley Cyrus, although she is the one who keeps that biz owner’s daughters demanding new clothes.  Nor will it be about Iran, that is CNN’s or the State Department’s problem, but certainly not theirs.

So let’s talk capital and cash flow instead.  Remember what I like about staffing companies.  They are about the least capital-intensive business you can find.  Which is a darn good thing in an economic environment when even Fortune 500 companies cannot borrow money.  Our staffing customers were smart enough to eliminate the need for a lot of capital based on the business they chose.  Amen to that.  You gotta love the entrepreneurial ingenuity of this country.

Word on the Street

What we hear from our staffing customers, just as you already know, is that they think a lot more about cash flow.  People sometimes ask me questions about being an entrepreneur, which I was once in a past life.  I tell them that you know all you need to know about being an entrepreneur or small business owner when have had the feeling in your gut of not having enough cash in the company bank account to make your next payroll.  And you find a way to get it done.  That comes down to cash flow, my friends, and I know I am preaching to the choir here.

One tricky issue about the staffing business, however, is that there are just not that many dials to turn in terms of improving cash flow.  You can work hard and be diligent on A/R collections, of course.  And you can stretch your staff a bit on payroll timing, but in general that is a very short term strategy because contractors really don’t appreciate banking the company.

One Secret to Improving Cash Flow

So what secrets do the best staffing businesses I talk to keep about improving cash flow?  Here’s one.  They have a relentless focus on developing a rock-steady client base.  And the thing they work on more than anything else as a means to that end is being EXTREMELY RESPONSIVE on client requests.

Let’s face it.  Your clients are always testing you.  They always want better, faster service.  And when the call to ask if you can fill a shift next week, or a couple shifts the week after next, we all know what they are going to do within a minute of hanging up the phone.  They are going to call a competitor or two and ask for those same shifts to be filled from that competitor.  Because ultimately they want someone, anyone really, to fill those shifts fast.

Which ultimately is why most of our staffing customers find us.  They started out being really responsive to that open shift by sending an email or SMS text to a list of 10 staffers immediately to see who could fill it.  As one staffing company owner explained to me over coffee one day, “I had 8 people want the shift.  So I confirmed one and then had to send 7 a note saying you didn’t get it.  Then I had 20 staffers, and I had to reply with a ‘no’ 15 times for every open shift.  Pretty soon I could not be responsive to customers or with my staffers via email anymore.  Too many messages.”  So we provide real-time response to confirming shifts, anytime, anywhere via the internet.  In short – online scheduling.  Some of our staffing customers give their clients limited access to our system, so that the client can check online to see when shifts are filled.  Short response time is an embedded part of the scheduling and business processes that flow through Shiftboard.

A Competitive Advantage for Staffing Agencies

The more responsive our customers can be with clients, the more steady their business is and the more often that client calls their firm first.  Thus, we come full circle back to cash flow, because clients that come to you first inevitably give you more business and more predictable cash flow.  And you better believe you will need it, because Miley Cyrus has all sorts of new fall and winter fashions your kids just can’t live without.