Wednesday 31 August 2011

Five Creative Ways to Recruit Staff



Recruitment processes can be lengthy and arduous affairs that are often perceived as boring and lacking in creativity. The worst part about this is that a number of recruitment processes are also ineffective, simply using valuable time and money that could be invested better elsewhere.

In order to make the most of the recruitment process it is therefore important for businesses to implement creative methods. This will attract increased attention and facilitate the process of recruitment.
Here are five great and creative ways for you to recruit staff:

1:  Use Social Networks
A great and creative way to hire people is to advertise vacancies on social networking sites. Not only can you simply update your status to something as simple as “recruiting”, but you can also post lists of job vacancies in order to attract attention. With millions of users checking their accounts on a regular basis, even multiple times a day, social networks are a key resource when it comes to recruitment.
You could even go as far as to hold the ‘first round’ of the recruitment process entirely online. This could involve getting applicants to send their CV to your contact details or even to have them submit a short paragraph as to why you should recruit them
2:  Go Public
Another innovative idea is to go public with your job advertisements by utilising all forms of media. This does not simply apply to the usual methods of newspaper and radio publications, but can include more unique and creative ideas.
Think of new and exciting ways to advertise job vacancies. For example, the daily mail reported on a college graduate in America who wore a sandwich board with the words “hire me” written across it last month. Similar ideas could be implemented by businesses in order to make themselves stand out from the crowd and create a unique image of their company.
3:  Use Events
It may seem like a traditional method of recruitment but there is no reason why using recruitment events and fairs can’t be creative. They offer a great opportunity to attract large numbers of potential staff so make sure that you make a good impression. Think of a creative way to display yourself at the fair in order to stand out from the other companies. Consider offering food or other free gifts to attract attention.
4:  Go to the Applicants
Don’t just wait for the applicants to come to you, go to the applicants yourself! Instead of posting vacancies on large recruitment sites, look at smaller and more specific ones. You could even visit local colleges and services to find out about notice boards – both in the realms of the internet and the physical world. Advertising here will make sure that you attract a lot of applicants as well as making sure they are from the right discipline areas.
5:  Be Prolific with Writing
Another great way to recruit creatively is to use a range of written mediums in order to advertise that you are hiring. Blog posts, news reports, anything that will help to make sure that you are getting noticed. Publicity is a great tool so make sure that you are as prolific as possible and put your advertisement in as many different places as possible.

This article was written by Snowdrop KCS, leading providers of HR software.

Monday 4 April 2011

Outsourcing Your Website's SEO: Why and How?


With the evolution of technology over past few decades, the Internet has grown as a platform being utilised by businesses to increase their sales and exposure. The internet can expose your business to a countless number of users from all over the world. In order to gain a competitive advantage on the Internet, you can utilise the online marketing techniques that can help establish your business as trustworthy and reputed among your target users. One of the most rewarding marketing techniques to increase the organic traffic to your website is by using SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques.
SEO companies have grown in almost every part of the world. You can outsource the SEO aspect of your online marketing campaigns to a professional company that can ensure that your website gets the maximum traffic directed from the search engines. While you can optimise your own website to attempt to help it gain good placements on the search engines, it is usually much more effective to consider hiring an SEO company to do the job for you. The following are examples of situations in which you may want to hire a business to take care of your SEO needs:
  • You are involved in the main operation of your business and are not able to concentrate on the SEO of your website, monitor its progress, or even hire a dedicated resource which can take care of it without your directions.
  • There is a learning curve involved in understanding the entire end-to-end SEO process, which can be tedious for those who hold a position of responsibility in their businesses.
  • If you are not noticing any significant improvement in the volume or the quality of traffic, you should consider consulting with experts from dedicated SEO companies. They are often well-versed with the techniques and are aware of what to expect with the given level of SEO efforts.
  • If you run a serious business and are looking to try to optimize your website for the first time, it’s worth thinking twice before you delve into the SEO process yourself. There might be risks that an expert SEO professional might be better aware of. For example, there are risks due to black-hat SEO techniques, which may even end up lowering your website’s ranking in search results.
There are many advantages of hiring a dedicated SEO company to optimise your website and generate more targeted traffic, but it's not always easy to find reliable SEO service providers. You should spend some time exploring your options when you have decided to outsource the SEO of your website to one an SEO company.
  • Do not trust the claims of those who guarantee topmost placements. This is something that cannot be guaranteed, because search results are governed by the search engines, not by the SEO companies.
  • Ask your preferred companies to send you the list of their previous clients (particularly from your own field of business) and the optimised keywords/keyphrases. Check them for their results and, if possible, try and find out whether the list of clients they provided was genuinely their list of clients.
  • Ask them about the types and frequencies of reports they would provide you. Go ahead with them only if they are capable of showing you the progress your website can make in terms of search-based traffic.
Your chosen SEO company should be able to brief you about the advantages and disadvantages (if any) of the activities they are going to perform for optimising your website. In order to be on the safe side, you should also educate yourself about the process of SEO and the effects of various activities on your website’s search engine placements.

Business Telephone Features Worth Paying For



 It is quite simple to understand the importance of a good telephone system for your business. Indeed, a majority of your business operations rely heavily on communication related equipment. This is why a suitable business telephone system for your business is a crucial investment that needs to be made with care. However, finding the most suitable telephone system that can address all the communication related needs at a reasonable cost can be a daunting task.
Selecting the best business telephone system for your organization is a difficult task because of the numerous providers of business telephone systems and the countless features that are offered. They all sound so attractive, whether or not they are of any actual use for your business, and of course, cost a lot. This is why it becomes very important to understand the most common features the modern business telephone systems come equipped with. Then, you should consider which of the features are worth paying for, and what additional features you would like to have in your telephone. Some of the commonly available features of these systems are:

Call Recording:

You can record any calls for a number of purposes. You can use the recorded calls for any future references, or for training your staff regarding the subject discussed during the telephone calls, or for observing the quality and performance of the tele-calling staff using the telephone system.

Call Distribution:

Call distribution is a very important feature that is required for routing calls to the desired recipients of the calls automatically without the manual intervention of a receptionist. This feature is particularly important when people of your organization are not sitting in one single hall and are, instead, in different rooms or floors of the building.

Conference Calls:

Conferencing over the telephone simulates a real conference where more than two people are simultaneously speaking to each other. It is an important feature that allows people located out-of-office to collaborate and conduct meetings without losing a detail.

Call Parking:

This feature allows you to put a call on hold, allowing someone else to resume it from any other telephone in the same system.

Caller’s Identification:

This feature requires a reasonably large screen on the telephone equipment. It allows the number of the caller to be displayed on your phone. It can also show the name and other details of the caller if they are stored in the phonebook of the telephone equipment.

Call Diverting:

Call diverting is required for diverting your calls to an alternate number when you aren't around the main telephone. For example, if you are expecting an important call on your office number after your office hours, you can divert it to your cellular phone and receive the call when you’re home.

Voicemail:

Voicemail allows your callers to leave you voice messages on your telephone when you cannot receive their calls. You can later go through each of the stored voice messages and respond to the important ones.

IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System):

If you expect your callers to follow a certain fixed set of steps, you can program this using the IVRS facility. This is a very useful feature that can save a lot of money required for hiring dedicated employees. Examples of IVRS can be seen with the customer care centres of banks, telephone companies, investment banking organizations, and various other large organisations.
There are numerous features for business telephone systems you can take advantage of thanks to the recent developments in communication related technology. However, it is not wise to go for the features that just sound interesting; instead, you should assess your current and future business needs and then choose the features that are worth paying for.
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Monday 4 October 2010

What do You Think About Developing Your Professional Skills? (Survey)

Heya guys,

Today I wanted to run a quick survey to find out what your thoughts are on professional development and to also get an idea of what the most popular forms of learning in the different fields are.

If you have a spare second I would really appreciate it if you would take my quick survey.

Thanks!

Sunday 26 September 2010

Using Skip Hire to Manage Site Waste

When it comes to working on site, the last thing you want is for waste and rubble to be lying around everywhere. This waste can clog everything up, causing potential danger to workers on your site and generally slowing down your work. You can get around all of that though just by getting yourself a skip. For getting rid of high volumes of waste Skip hire has always proved to be a popular solution. There's nothing that can really compare when it comes to disposing of materials in huge volumes. It’s a really simple process. Made all the better by having your skip delivered and then collected, with the skip hire company taking charge of disposal.

The only thing you have to concern yourself with is hiring the thing in the first place and then filling it, the rest is done on your behalf. Of course you also have the benefit of having a central container to throw away all of the rubbish you’ve collected on a job. This means that you don’t have to wander around aimlessly, collecting debris in black sacks or just leaving it lying on the floor. The skips themselves come in a variety of sizes. With sizes ranging from between 2 and 16 cubic yards capacity shouldn't be an issue. This gives you plenty of scope to find something that will suit your needs.

Being sensible with your budget is one thing, but you have to make sure that you have the a skip with the capacity to deal with your ongoing requirements. You aren't limited to the amount of skips you can hire, but getting it right first time can help save you a lot of time, effort and money. This will save you time and ensure you don’t find yourself with a full or undelivered skip. When you're dealing with huge quantities of waste, you could always choose a roll on roll off skip as an alternative. Space is hardly an issue when it comes to these vast containers, some can reach in excess of 40 cubic yards of usable space. Many will have the option to lock and seal the main container, which makes them extremely secure and prevents any issues of theft or injury.

Despite slight aesthetic differences and a significant size shift, the fundemental duties of both remain exactly the same. In the most part you can discard any kind of standard site waste in a skip too. . Invariably you tend to get a lot of different types of rubbish build up whilst working on a site, but the good news is that you can dispose of it in exactly the same way. When it comes to hazardous materials though, you will need to be a little more careful. Asbestos and other similar things will need specialist waste removal to ensure that it doesn’t harm or come into contact with anybody. A local authorty permit may be required if you have to position your skip on a public road or other space that isn't owned by you. These are usually easily obtainable from your local authority, although you should always make sure that you contact them first to discuss your intentions. If safety and ease of access is a priority for you, then you could certainly do a lot worse than hiring a skip for your site. It’ll keep everything out of the way and takes out much of the fuss associated with waste management.

Creating an HR Department is a Staff Retention Program

While most small and medium companies don’t even consider using human resource function, it is not uncommon to find larger companies ignoring this potentially beneficial area as well. Human resources can be a very useful way to improve your business. If properly implemented, it would keep your staffs happy and productive while making your business run smoothly.

Why Use Human Resources (HR) ?

The primary reason for using HR is to provide significant support and advice to management.

Its primary function is to assess the need of the firm in terms of recruiting, preservation of top-caliber people and providing employee benefits, training and other similar packages that would motivate staffs to work with the firm rather than for the firm.

Happy staffs mean loyal staffs and if you give them a good reason to stay loyal, you can avoid the turnaround that many companies are experiencing these days.


Uses of Human Resource Department

The most valuable resources of a firm are its employees. They play a crucial role in the attainment of the firm’s mission and vision and the bottom line of the firm as a whole. There are numerous benefits of Human Resources. Outlined below are some of the most important ones.

1. Recruitment and Training – This is one of the most important responsibilities of the human resource management group. The human resource section head work out plans and strategies of recruiting the right kind of people. They create the criteria suitable for a specific job description. Their responsibilities also include formulating the obligations of personnel and the scope of tasks assigned to him. Based on these two factors, the contract of an employee with the organization is developed. When required, they also provide training to the staffs according to the requirements of the organization. An organization cannot build a productive group of working professionals without the assistance of a good human resource management group.

2. Performance Appraisals – Human resource management encourages every staff in the organization, to work according to his potential and also helps him increase his potential. The management group communicates with the employee, all the necessary information regarding their performances and also defines their respective roles from time to time. This helps the employee to form an outline of their anticipated goals in much clearer terms and thereby, helps them execute the goals with best possible efforts. Performance appraisals taken from time to time also help in motivating the staffs.

3. Maintaining Work Atmosphere – The performance of an individual in an organization is largely driven by the work atmosphere or work culture that prevails at the workplace. A good environment can bring out the best in an employee. A congenial atmosphere gives staffs job satisfaction as well. A good work environment is one of the benefits staffs can get from human resource management.

4. Managing Disputes – There are several issues on which disputes may arise between the employees and the managers in an organization. In such a scenario, it is the human resource department, which acts as a consultant and mediator to sort out the issues in an effective manner.

5. Developing Public Relations – The management of establishing good public relations lies with the human resource management to a great extent. They organize business meetings, seminars and various official gatherings on behalf of the firm in order to establish relationships with other business sectors. Sometimes, the human resource department plays an active role in preparing the business and marketing plans for the organization too.

Any organization, without a proper setup for human resource management is bound to suffer from serious problems while managing its regular activities. For this reason, a lot of stress is given these days for the establishment of an effective human resource management system.

To ensure that small and medium companies improve their business performance and suffer lesser stress, take advantage of the Staff Value Program (SVP) offered by Accelerated Outcomes Pty Ltd (http://acceleratedoutcomes.net) based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. This staff retention strategy has been created as a simple program that, as soon as implemented; most firms can ‘self manage’. Invariably each client will ‘add to’ and enhance their SVP over time. The SVP is a framework that systematically guides Participants through a comprehensive series of topics so that they can assess their key workforce issues and create a program that effectively suits their needs and culture.

For more important information about Staff Value Survey and Staff Retention Strategies you can check Brisbane, Australia's acknowledged business management consultant or visit http://acceleratedoutcomes.net .

Friday 24 September 2010

Much More Than Just One Or Two Reasons Why You Might Not Wish To Quit Your Job

Are you exasperated with your job? Whether you hate your manager, your coworkers, your work hours, or the pay, you could be interested in giving up your job. Of course, the decision to give up your job is your decision to make, but there are some examples in which you might want to give your call a thought. Particularly in the current's economy the decision to give up your job should not be treated trivially. A few of those examples are outlined below for your convenience.

Before we get into the numerous reasons why you should not take giving up your job gently, I'm sure you're aware you should be doubtful of sites saying that somebody stumbled onto enormous wealth - the very popular Rich Janitor comes to my mind as a good example of something you wish to be cautious about.

One of the many eventualities where you might need to hold off on giving up your job right away is if you latterly got a new director. If you've got a new supervisor, you are inspired to give it time. Most new supervisors are difficult initially, as they believe that they must be. However overtime, you'll find that most of those in management will let a new side of themselves show, possibly a rather more pleasant and friendlier side.

Another one of the many scenarios in which you might want to rethink giving up your job is if you're annoyed by one of your coworkers, namely the one who may have a desk or an office next to or near you. You should never let some other person make you give up or get downsized, particularly if it is just because you do not like them. Of course, you are advised to take your safety under consideration. If one of your colleagues is showing actions that can cause you harm, you might need to do something immediately. This action may involve resigning from your job, nonetheless it should also involve contacting a supervisor first. You should never have a quit your job because someone else is in the wrong.







A poor review is another situation in which you may not wish to give up your job. Even though it may appear shaming and maddening if you receive a bad review, it is important to recollect that it can happen to the very best of folk and the toughest of workers. No one is ideal all the time and this is something that you need to recollect. Instead of giving up your job due to a poor review, you'll want to use your review as an opportunity to better yourself. You can set the point of improving your workplace actions, which should result in a better review the next time around.

Being passed up for a promotion is another reason why you may not need to quit your job. There are a number of different factors to take into consideration, when it comes to promotions, specifically being passed up for one. Why were you passed up for the promotion that you wanted, did you know? Was there another employee who was more qualified or who had more seniority than you? You may also use being passed up for a promotion as a way to enhance your work skills by setting goals for yourself. With that noted, if you frequently find yourself being passed up for promotions that you are more than qualified for, you might need to consider seeking work elsewhere.

The previously mentioned scenarios are all eventualities in which you might want to refrain from giving up your job, particularly without consideration. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances to the scenarios discussed above, such ones which will involve sexual persecution or other dangerous scenarios in your workplace.