The NCCI, or National Council on Compensation Insurance, is a research hub that manages the largest U.S. database of workers compensation insurance information. The data collected, aggregated and managed by the NCCI is made available to 900 insurance companies and 40 state governments to help draft and shape policy initiatives and company decisions. According to the organization’s description of its own services, the NCCI “analyzes industry trends, prepares workers compensation insurance rate recommendations, determines the cost of proposed legislation, and provides a variety of services and tools to maintain a healthy workers compensation system.”

As of May, the NCCI 2012 Workers Compensation Issues Report has now been finalized and made available to the public, with an opening update and summary provided by Stephen Klingel, the organization’s president and CEO. Business owners, managers, HR pros, staffing experts, and those who handle responsibility for insurance benefits and general compensation may be interested in investigating some of the key findings in this year’s report. The most eagerly awaited aspects of the report in 2012 deal with recent legislative changes and snapshots revealing the state of the insurance marketplace.

The NCCI Issues Report: Key Findings

As the workers compensation insurance market struggles to recover from a climate of recession, progress is occurring faster on some fronts than others. In Klingel’s opening document, titled “Worker’s Compensation Market Struggles to Find a Direction”, he mentions a few key observations. For example, after six years of decline in the residual market, signs of an increase are now beginning to appear. Also, direct written premiums are showing signs of growth.

Of greatest possible importance for business owners, investment returns are not yet keeping pace with underwriting losses. In Klingel’s own words, “With investment yields at historic lows, the current levels of underwriting losses are not sustainable. Even with what appears to be a temporary increase in investment gains, the combined ratio needs to decline substantially to earn a reasonable return on capital.”

The document also hesitates to make strong forecasting statements, citing “wild cards” like the outcome of the 2012 election and the long term effects of economic recovery. To download PDFs and read the details of the report, visit the NCCI website. In the meantime, to gain further insight into what this means for your  staffing and retention strategies, contact the HR experts at Pace.

Congratulations Liana Garret – a true PACESetter.  Liana just completed 3398 hours working for the PACE Staffing Network on five different assignments with three different clients.  She’s been a Document Writer/Editor, an HR Assistant, and an HR Recruiter.

Liana is also one of our employees who is a part of our “Place a Vet” initiative.   Not only is she an Army Veteran, but also a proud mom of two newly enlisted members of the Army and Marines.

A special thank you to the Garret family for your years of service to PACE and our country!

When it comes to employee pay, don’t be fooled by everything you read.  While there are several issues that rank higher as reasons for leaving jobs, (unresolved issues with bosses or co-workers often ranked highest on the list), what you pay your employees is still a big deal!

First of all, nothing says more about how a company or an individual manager “walks its talk” around employee “value” than the decisions made about pay.  How important is the work I do?  How am I performing?  Is success being shared?  Are they being fair?   These are the questions employees will “read between the lines” to answer.  And it is not just the decisions that create unrest, but also how those decisions are made and communicated.    

We’ve learned something about what employees believe about pay by talking to job candidates; listening to their reasons for leaving jobs when the issue is rooted in concerns about pay.  Here are some communication tips we’ve gleaned from what we hear.         

Have Something to Say.  Employees want their employers to take the pay issue seriously.  If you or your company is too casual or unstructured in how you approach pay, it is going to be difficult for employees to make sense out of what they see as seat-of-the pants decisions.  A job candidate will say – “I finally got the raise I was asking for, but I don’t want to work for a company where I have to beg to be treated fairly.”

When a company has policies that state when an employee can expect their pay to be reviewed, and how pay decisions are made, their employees tend to have more confidence in the process, even if they disagree with the decisions.         

Communicate the Whys Behind the Whats.  Many employees are confused about how increases are determined. While employers tend to give (or not give) pay increases for objective reasons…

• To respond to changes in the employment marketplace
• To reward performance/contribution
• To reflect a change in their “ability to pay”

…they do not always clearly communicate those reasons to their employees, leaving room for misunderstandings and unmet expectations.

Context is always important…

“This year, our company will be awarding increases a bit higher than what we have given in the past or will be able to give in the future.  It is a year where our benchmarking pointed out we needed to adjust rates of pay upwards in all job categories.”

Another rule of thumb is to link pay to performance.

“Even though this year the company’s profit challenge means that raises will be less than what they have been in the past, I am able to give you the higher end of the increases available because of your personal performance.  You were ranked in the top 25% of all employees.”

Communicate the Details and the “Big Picture.”    Sometimes supervisors get so hung up on what they can’t do for their employees in terms of pay increases, they don’t communicate effectively about the big picture of what they already have done.   For example, an employee who is already earning at the top of their pay range can be disappointed with a low rate of pay change, IF they don’t know where their pay level ranks compared to others.

“I know this percentage of pay increase isn’t the same as you have enjoyed in the past, but that is because you are now earning at a much higher rate than you have before.  You are still in the top 20% of what we are paying for people doing your job.  I’d like to schedule a meeting where we talk about how best to get you prepared for a different, higher paying job.”

On the flip side, an employee who is starting at the bottom of their pay range and therefore earning a larger percentage increase needs to have a context for what to expect down the road.

“I am able to offer a nice increase in your rate of pay this year because you are doing a good job mastering your job.  You are likely not to get this same level of increase next year, but our intent is to keep rewarding you with increased earnings as you are able to contribute more.”     

Mixing the Pay and Performance Discussions.  Pay and performance are related, but different topics that are best discussed in separate conversations.  Employers who mix the two, often end up in places they don’t want to be – 1) defending their assessments of performance, or 2) disappointing high-performing employees who didn’t get the raise they felt they deserved.

Pay and performance need to be linked, but the decisions that link them should be presented to employees in separate conversations.  They have different goals; they need to be focused on different issues.

Explaining Pay Differentials.  If you use pay ranges and place employees within the range based on a defined set of criteria, employees need to fully understand those criteria.  This is particularly important where employees are part of large or diverse work groups, making them ripe for perceptions of favoritism or discrimination. For example, a female employee who wonders why she is the lowest-paid employee in her mostly male work group might assume her employer is treating her unfairly because she is a woman unless she knows that her ranking is based on objective measurements of experience or performance.

Prepare for “Next Time” – Empower Employees to Impact Pay.   Compared to the more interactive performance review meeting, the pay change meeting can be much shorter and to the point.  A common sequence is as follows…….

• The pay change.  What the employee earns now; what they will earn in the future; as of __________ date.
• The specific reason(s) or context for the pay change.  On what basis was the pay change earned?
• An explanation of how the pay changes for each individual in a group were arrived at.

We suggest you follow up these discussion basics with a discussion on how the employee can impact future pay increases.  This part of the discussion can range from…..

“Right now you are ranked at the lower end of the pay range for your position because of your limited experience in the job.  That will change over the next 12 months.   The main thing about your performance that impacts your rate of pay is_____________________.”

To……..

“You have done a good job of putting yourself at the top of your pay range for the job you are in.  Your pay increases going forward will be based more on how effectively you prepare yourself for increased responsibilities.  The most important thing you can work on in the coming year to earn a job change or promotion will be_____________________________.”

Factoring in the Company’s Financial Position.  Wage increases are always contingent on the company’s ability to pay them – the financial facts of life that cannot be avoided in any pay conversation.

At the current time, surveys show that slightly less than 50% of U.S. workers have not had a merit increase since 2010, and less than 25% have not had a merit increase since 2008.  Most employees are willing to forego pay increases as long as they believe their employer is being truthful about their financial circumstance, and that the principles by which pay increases will or will not be given, are universally applied.

“This year, there will be no pay increases for any employees, management included.    Because our goal is to retain the employees we have, we are freezing all wage increases so that we retain jobs.  We will be reviewing our financial situation every six months, along with polling our industry peers to see what is happening in our industry at large. Our intent is to pay our employees fairly and consistent with the current job market stands.”

The “Total Comp” Approach.   One of the mistakes many employers make is not presenting a comprehensive ‘story’ of their employee’s pay package – benefits, perks, and other costs they pay on their employee’s behalf.  We see it all the time, often helping employees take a second look at their current comp package to recognize that it may not be easily replaced.  Most employees, absent a full understanding of their pay, will focus only on their paycheck, which in some cases can be only half of the total costs their employer is paying on their behalf.

To request a copy of a “comprehensive pay presentation” worksheet you can use to lay out and present an employee’s “total comp,” contact infocenter@pacestaffing.com.

Recent news reports, survey data, and buzz from within the smartphone industry suggest that mobile applications will soon transform the way most of us access and receive healthcare. Are these reports well-founded? And if so, what will these applications look like, and how will these fundamental healthcare industry transformations take place?

Improved Access and Receptivity to Care

In our current healthcare landscape, access to care is unevenly distributed and is typically concentrated in areas of higher population density. Rural and isolated patients don’t often have easily available health- care services at all, and when they do, they don’t have a broad range of options or much control over the doctors and hospitals they turn to for treatment. But what if patients could be treated without requiring a doctor’s presence in the room? Doctors and their services will always be necessary, but new visual communication formats and data transfer capabilities will soon allow doctors to provide safe and reliable care without actually meeting patients in person.

Remote healthcare visits can also allow service providers to reach patients who are reluctant or unable to travel to clinics for scheduled appointments. In-home treatment was a common aspect of healthcare in the distant past. Now, home visits may be experiencing resurgence…but in an entirely new format.

A Shift in Provider Business Models

The methods by which hospitals and medical professionals receive patient data will likely become far more efficient in the near future. Rapid data collection through multiple sensors and inputs will make diagnosis and treatment more effective, but it may also streamline the business of healthcare provision. Hospitals will be able to manage records, share necessary information with insurance providers, collect payment and distribute healthcare resources in a way that reduces costs while optimizing patient outcomes.

Better Patient Safety and Patient Follow-Through

Outcomes are often compromised when patients lack the tools and resources to follow up on their own care plans. New mobile healthcare apps will remind patients when to take pills, provide information regarding wound care, and help patients monitor side effects. Digital reminders can keep care tasks on track, and can even help with the scheduling and maintenance of follow-up healthcare appointments. After treatment or surgery, patients often leave the clinic with incomplete or quickly forgotten instructions. Eliminating this problem can help speed recovery and prevent relapse and complications. It can also conserve resources, since doctors won’t be called upon as often to reverse the negative effects of poor patient self-care.

For more information about specific mobile healthcare apps and how they stand to transform the future of the industry, contact the healthcare staffing experts at Pace.

According to the US Dept of Labor’s monthly statistics, the number of temporary workers increased by 25,000 workers in June…just under a third of the 80,000 new jobs that were added in the same month.

While increases in the hiring of temp workers traditionally precedes decisions to add permanent staff,  in the last three years the growth in temporary jobs is clearly lasting longer, slowing down employer’s needs to hire directly.  This is true in Washington state as it is around the country.

Most observers are concluding that employers still consider the economy rocky; employers are nervous.  Businesses use temporaries, contractors and other versions of the flexible workforce to 1) retain their capacity react quickly to fluctuating demands for their products and services (i.e. deal with the stuttering economy) and 2) to get quick access to employees with specialized, hard to find skill sets (think ahead).

The number of temporary workers placed by staffing firms is up 20% since June 2010.  While many temporary employees are still being hired directly by their (former) customers, not as rapidly as they were being snatched up in 2011.

The holiday season may seem like the most critical make-or-break moment of the year for retailers and consumer electronics manufacturers, but industry insiders recognize that this assessment is off by a week or two. True financial success or failure is actually measured during January and February, when companies deal with an avalanche of returns.

Returns are serious business. The high cost of transportation, handling, product disposal, lost sales revenue, and the complex logistical details involved in the returns process can knock the foundations out from under a business already faced with tight competition and very narrow margins. And these challenges are notorious aspects of the consumer electronics manufacturing industry. So when it comes to returns management, what’s exactly at stake? And where can companies target potential improvements?

The High Cost of Returns

As of 2012, retailers and manufacturers in the U.S. are now spending approximately 100 billion dollars each year on returns management alone. 17 billion of these dollars are spent by the consumer electronics sector, which has experienced a 21 percent increase in returns expenses since 2007. According to survey results, most electronics manufacturers see these numbers trending steadily upward, not downward, in coming years.

Returns Management: Identifying the Source of the Problem

Surprisingly, the most common reason behind consumer electronics returns isn’t related to product flaws or customer dissatisfaction. Only about five percent of returns are cited as defect-related. Instead, customers tend to return electronics due to buyer’s remorse. Customers also demonstrate a very light commitment to an electronics purchase if they experience frustration or a lack of support as they attempt to install the product, start it up, or use it for the first time.

Providing more aftermarket support may reduce these “no fault found” returns, but this represents just one of many possible solutions. Others include focusing on the design stage, improving operability, and making products more user-friendly.

Returns Management: Handling Customer Complaints

A strong customer service strategy can also cut into the losses generated by annual returns. Educate your CRM team and develop a service call avoidance program. This will reduce your total number of complaint and service calls and increase your overall rate of first call completion, or issues resolved after just one call.

The key to exceptional customer service may lie in your hiring strategy. Carefully screen (and train) every member of your call center staff. Your customer service staff should be able to understand all relevant consumer electronics issues and communicate assistance clearly and effectively.

Returns Management: Reverse Logistics

Are you outsourcing the services of a company that specializes in return logistics? If so, you’re not alone. But if possible, consider partnering with or directly acquiring companies that specialize in return services and asset disposal. Remarketing, refurbishment, and IT recycling are becoming increasingly specialized industries and you may generate greater efficiency by fully incorporating the services of established firms.

For general business news and guidance with HR strategy and human capital management, contact the experts at Pace Staffing Network. Put our experience to work for you.

For a job candidate, the interview process is fraught with tension and uncertainty. On the other side of the table, hiring managers face their own stressors; finding a good fit for an organization represents a major business decision, and hiring managers need to choose wisely.

The interview is among the more personal and comprehensive ways to evaluable a job candidate, and hiring managers can take note of the following five things to be aware of about the candidates with whom they meet.

1. Why is your job searcher searching?

Figure out what has prompted your candidate to apply for your open position. Is he looking for more responsibility? A shorter commute? A different industry? Is she looking to get out of a toxic work environment? To find a position with less stress? Knowing this piece of information gives you insight as to what makes the candidate tick, and it’s a question that you should have no problem asking the applicant directly.

2. Past performance through references

We study history as a way to better understand our present and our future; looking into the applicant’s past performance offers a window onto what he or she would offer to your organization. Go beyond what is stated in a resume, and ask for key references who would be able to speak not just to one’s character and work ethic, but directly to their past performance and results.

3. How do they like to be managed?

This is a difficult question for many job applicants to answer. However, people who have taken an honest and reflective approach to why they are searching for a new job should have this question covered. Are they looking for a micro-manager? A hands-off delegator? Armed with this information, you can match their skills and experience with an appropriate manager who would offer a mutually beneficial supervisor-employee relationship.

4. Fact check public information.

This statement shouldn’t shock you, but people have been known to exaggerate – or even fabricate – information on a resume and application. Guard against such misinformation by doing some basic fact checking of a candidate, especially for more high-profile positions. The time for surprises – good and bad – comes before someone is offered a job, not after they are in a position.

5. Why this job, and why now?

This ties in strongly with question number one, and speaks to how much thought and consideration your potential employee has devoted to making a positive career move. In this response, you are looking for enthusiasm and details that relate back to either the mission of your organization or the details of the job description.

The PACE Staffing Network team can assist your company’s hiring managers in reviewing and interviewing your job candidate pool. Call our office to get a sense of what our experience in the hiring and staffing fields can offer you.

As individual freedom lovers come to grips with the reality that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) just might become  the rule of the land, a more neutral topic is to anticipate the impact of the current debate on what might occur down the road in the world of work.  While for many, the ACA is too complex and overreaching to be the “right” solution, it does contain some features that policy makers from both sides of the aisle have embraced and will likely end up somewhere in the final solution, regardless of the outcome of the ACA as currently crafted.  One of those provisions is a side product of the individual mandate which is the increased portability of insurance coverage – insurance policies purchased more and more by individuals, not employers.

For those of us in the flexible labor industry, we predict that individual mandates will actually create more demand for employees who want to move more freely from job to job – the types of employees we represent.

Workforce Mobility.  
How many people do you know who take new jobs or stay in the jobs they have just because of the health benefits?  Because individual health insurance policies are expensive and paid for with after tax dollars, most employees don’t even consider the option of purchasing healthcare insurance on their own, relying instead on the healthcare plans selected by their employers.

One of the components of the ACA is a provision that by 2014, each state will have created health insurance exchanges to offer “affordable” alternatives to individual and company-sponsored insurance plans. While the jury is still out as to whether or not tax subsidized premiums can ever be “affordable,” or if government should be empowered to set insurance coverage standards, both conservatives and liberals see value in individually purchased insurance options that would make employees better consumers – less dependent on their employers for healthcare coverage.  

Some predict that the shift from employer to employee purchased insurance coverage will free up employees to move more fluidly between jobs and careers.  One of the biggest hurdles we face in the temporary and contract help industry, for example, is providing our interim workers with access to reasonably affordable insurance coverage.  Any policy or business practice that expands insurance options for mobile employees is good for our business.

Will fewer concerns about getting access to healthcare coverage create higher levels of turnover?  Less retention?  More fluidity in how people move from job to job?  Right now, there are large numbers of job vacancies in certain job categories and/or geographies, and yet the mobility within the existing workforce is at an all-time low.   Having portable benefit packages that stay with the person, not go with the job, is one of the ways this issue might be addressed.        

The Strategies Used to Attract and Retain Your Best Employees…
may no longer include the quality of your healthcare benefit plan.  One of the side products of an ACA implementation is the “sameness” of all insurance policies that will evolve out of the high costs of meeting government mandates.  This means fewer choices for both consumers and employers.

High value plans, for example, are targeted to be excessively taxed, and by most accounts, will simply go away or becomes fully employee funded.   Even if the ACA is repealed and we move to a more free market alternative, many of the social policy solutions (coverage for preexisting conditions, for example) will likely stand, and must be funded by limiting consumer options in other areas.

In 2010, two thirds of the employers surveyed in a Towers Watson study said that they plan to continue to sponsor health care plans for the foreseeable future – primarily as a way to compete for the best talent.  If the government is given the right to dictate what services all qualified benefit plans must cover,  that competitive landscape will change.  And for some employers the lure of low cost insurance packages available through the state exchanges will be compelling.  These employers will simply opt for the lower cost solution – abandon current coverages, pay the penalties (oops taxes).

More Temporary and Contract Workers – But at What Cost?   
Anytime the costs or complexity of hiring and retaining core employees increases, the popularity of temporary and contract staffing solutions increases.  Although the provisions of the ACA applies to temporary and contract workers in the same way it applies to core workers,  we suspect employers will increasingly turn to professional staffing companies as their labor source as a way to avoid the complexity of administering the provisions of the ACA on their own.

Make no mistake, the ACA is complex, and for any form of flexible, part-time, or interim work requirement, it is likely going to be too complex to warrant an employer’s time to figure it out.  The temporary and contract staffing industry has been preparing to implement the provisions of the ACA since it first passed in 2010, and while it isn’t going to be easy, by 2014,  we will be “ready to go.”

As for lowering employer costs, not so much.  Many of the healthcare plans currently provided to temporary workers will be replaced by more expensive plans to meet government regulations.  Some staffing companies will simply elect to pay the penalties and eliminate coverage altogether.  Still other staffing companies will elect to abandon current programs but increase their employee’s pay to allow them to purchase coverage through their state exchanges.

All options will increase your staffing providers’ direct costs, and for most at a rate they cannot afford to absorb, making these increases pass-throughs to their clients.  We are beginning discussions now to prepare our clients for what lies ahead in price adjustments created by the mandates associated with ACA.    

The Employer’s Role in Healthcare.
If who pays for healthcare insurance shifts from the employer to the employee, the question becomes what role will the employer play in terms of influencing their employee’s healthcare habits?   What becomes of all the wellness programs, lose weight, stop smoking campaigns that have become so popular amongst US businesses?

One of the primary criticisms of the ACA is the claim that it does nothing to address the fundamental issue of our current healthcare system which isn’t access to healthcare services, but the high costs associated with unhealthy life style choices.   While the political hot potatoes of who should have what entitlement and if government or the private sector is best equipped to set healthcare standards, remain the focal points of public debate, critics of the ACA are pointing out that it fully misses the cost containment issue.

This means that even if the ACA escapes the repeal promised by Republican campaigners, there will be an ongoing need for the key stakeholders in healthcare – employers included – to continue to help all Americans learn to eat better, exercise more, and make personal decisions to minimize stress.  Even though employers no longer have an immediate stake in the costs of providing healthcare, our guess is that the good health of an employer’s workforce will continue to be an issue that employer’s will want to address.

The newest classroom for industrial workers isn’t actually a classroom. More and more companies are switching to eLearning environments to train their employees. In an eLearning, or online learning, situation, information that ordinarily would be delivered in person from a qualified instructor or trainer is instead communicated through a web site. This new format has its own mix of advantages and disadvantages, but on the whole, once you familiarize your employees with the purpose and the format, you will have created an efficient and effective way to train your employees – both those who are new to the job, and those who have been with you for years.

Delivered as Needed

Especially in industrial settings, the cost and the hassle for scheduling multiple training sessions across different shifts and in distant locations can be a challenge. With an online learning option as a one-stop-shop for your training needs, you can reduce the cost of instructor time and manage the progress of all your employees as they make their way through trainings online. These online learning programs also generally remain available to the students for later reference, so they can refresh their memory or refer back to certain information as needs arise.

Customized and Focused

There are hundreds – if not thousands – of online learning options available for industrial training. Whether it’s a general overview of a manufacturing process or a high-level focus on safety on a specific machine, as an employer you have the opportunity to tailor and customize your worker’s learning materials. As your manufacturing processes or safety needs change, simply update the materials in one place online, and invite your employees back to review them – on their own schedules and at their own pace.

Interactive Formats

While other training packages you have worked with relied on papers and pencils, eLearning opens up a world of video clips, multimedia presentations and audio files. For workers who are more comfortable learning by seeing and hearing instead of reading and writing, eLearning has a distinct advantage. And, many eLearning options have a built-in interactive component, where students (employees) can pose questions to qualified and experienced instructors, and receive answers – quickly.

PACE Staffing Network can help your business establish its online learning options in ways that make sense for you and for your employees. Talk to our team today and we can get you started in this new field of employee training.

For anyone who wants to predict what sector of the economy will have the fastest growth, the field of healthcare stands above the rest as one that is poised for a strong and prosperous future.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a report in 2012 outlining occupations that it expects to see the strongest growth. By the Bureau’s estimate, all occupations within healthcare will see a 14.3% increase, or approximately 20.5 million more jobs, overall. Those numbers by any understanding are strong.  When looking at individual job functions on the list, it’s easy to pick out the ones related to healthcare; when you look at the list as a whole, it is astonishing to see exactly how prominent a role that healthcare will play for the jobs of the future.

You might ask what is causing healthcare to become a leading industry for job creation. Some of it stems from legislation, such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, which mandates changes in healthcare and its associated industries. Advances in medical technology and information technology are another factor, with entire new fields of research and technology being created overnight. And then, there are the demographic shifts that will lead to more retirements among current healthcare staff, and more patients, especially among baby boomers, who will require care. Fewer workers and more patients equal a higher demand for qualified workers.

Some of the associated salaries for these fast-growing occupations are equally strong. Take the job occupation of registered nurse, for example. It is already a well-paid occupation, with an average salary of $64,690. That is expected to see a 26 percent growth, adding over 700,000 registered nurses to the healthcare economy. Physicians and surgeons, who appear at 29 on the list, have an average salary of over $111,000 – a very rewarding salary. For positions like home health aides and personal care aides will see about a 70 percent increase. Other occupations documented in this report include nursing aides and orderlies, medical secretaries, licensed practical nurses, physicians and surgeons, and medical assistants.

As a special note for Job seekers: qualifications for many healthcare roles require specialized skills and certifications that cannot be obtained overnight. Work toward that training now and get in on the ground floor of these emerging growth occupations.

Navigate the changes in healthcare staffing and placement with PACE Staffing Network. We bring a deep knowledge of the entire healthcare playing field to the table and make it work for you and your business.