My bosses can’t tell me how to live… Can they?

The economic outlook remains gloomy. Many employers are still laying off. The staff who is left is working, work longer hours than ever before. More work = less personal time. While personal time diminishes, is personal choice also diminishing? Workplace rules & laws are getting stricter all the time. They are covering more and more of what used to be looked at as personal choices.

These factors contribute to the blurring lines between work life and personal life.

Lets look at some numbers:

Nearly all companies have an IT policy preventing employees from using the companies’ resources for personal online use. In spite of these bans a study released October 14th of this year, shows that 50% of workers say they will shop while at work this holiday season. 10% of these workers will spend at least 30 hours shopping online. Company policies vary, but consequences for violations can be harsh.

Concerned about your rights to privacy in your company computer? Your safest bet is to assume you don’t have any and don’t look for federal government protection. Federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) states an employer-provided computer system is the property of the employer. California allows for some minor adjustments. In general employees can expect very little electronic privacy on company owned computer equipment. Don’t risk termination or disciplinary action; limit your personal computer use to your personal time. Make sure you are familiar with your company’s IT policy. Ask you HR department to provide you with your company’s policy if you are unsure.

Employers don’t stop with company owned computer equipment. Some employers are now attempting to ban obesity in the workplace.  The numbers behind this decision are staggering. Employers with a BMI greater then 40 (18.5 to 24.9 BMI is normal) had 11.7 workers comp claims per 100 workers, compared to 5.8 claims per 100 for normal BMI employees.

Injuries aren’t the only costs. Health benefit costs to employers has SKYROCKETED due to employees with obesity related conditions. The average health spending for the 15 most expensive obesity -related condition climbed 55 percent form 97-05.

Think you are protected against your employer’s decisions regarding obesity? Think again. Discrimination laws very narrowly define protected classes of workers. Only Michigan and DC protect overweight workers. To many employers’ credit, they are working with health care companies to design programs to help employees lose weight. Initiatives include gym memberships, discounted weight loss programs and more mundane solutions such as serving fruit at morning meeting rather than pastries.

Employers aren’t the only ones pushing change in personal choices at work. Many states & localities have a ban on smoking in the workplace. American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation says that currently 71% of the US population lives under a smoking ban of some kind. Many of these bans are administered by OSHA. Employers: ignore enforcement at your own peril.

Are the positions these employers and enforcement agencies taking too paternalistic? These statutes that have been challenged in court, and the courts are upholding the employers decisions. Whatever your personal opinion of these “intrusive” rulings, your employer is still within his/her rights to make these personal choices for you.

Q3 Survey Analysis – July 2009

Another quarter, this one shows an increasing number of establishments becoming profitable! I understand June was as usual an iffy month for many but not as bad as expected. Seems like all the positive talk and the increase in the stock markets just maybe having a positive impact. With GDP contracting for 4 consecutive quarters, the saying only the strong survive has an entirely new meaning. More than strength is required, foresight and a solid conservative bent are also needed. I suspect that keeping EQUITY within a company, enabling it to weather tough times, will have an entirely reinforced band of supporters. The practice of distributions to owners at all costs being the loser.
The first draft of the GDP numbers came out indicating the contraction was 1% in the 2nd quarter. The second and third drafts will likely show that is a conservative number. The latter part of July appears to be showing promise however!
Lets get into the numbers-
Profitability: 59% profitable definitely an improvement from the 53% profitable we reported last survey. We suspect intelligent cost cutting and controls have had an impact- those that use labor and other resources wisely win in this environment. The question regarding business increasing or decreasing over the last two weeks reflects the Independence Day holiday. From our vantage point, we suspect the reduction in sales was normal or less than normal – a positive.
One sign companies are very cautious is the caution in sales expectations- with a 4% drop in the numbers of companies expecting sales to increase this coming quarter. Time will tell if we are at the bottom or even starting the recovery of this recession, but one sign that is positive is the hiring expectations of companies has increased. Considering also the source of this hiring is referrals from internal staff, we suspect rehires are happening as demand warrants.

With all the talk on health care federally, we see for the first time in several surveys a reduction in concern for healthcare costs (in several cases we are hearing of reduced premiums per worker this renewal season!). Base pay, workers comp and state requirements all show hefty increase in concerns. When will the powers that be understand to DECREASE costs in labor will INCREASE hiring rates? Seems very simple for most to understand.
For additional results please download the survey results provided-

We have enclosed the entire Survey results below, if you have questions or would like to see additional areas explored please let me know.

daver@semperllc.com Semper

Click here to view the Survey, PDF Format (http://www.semperllc.com/index.cfm?page=president)

The case for “Why using flexible staffing makes sense”.

Read an interesting article on one of What They Think’s blog sites about a new NAPL report. In the report, NAPL states that the decline of the print industry productivity in the first quarter of 2009 is 14.2%. What is strange to me is that payroll hours are only down 4%. I think this illustrates how important Flexible Staffing, like that which Semper offers, is a critical component to any printer’s strategy. With productive declining more rapidly than payroll, printers have still not right sized their head count the appropriate levels. Having a solid relationship with a staffing firm that can provide highly skilled printing personnel to your organization can offer areas of cost saving most companies need today. Firms like Semper not only provide highly skill people that can be relied upon, but offer key things like benefits to its flexible workers.

I recently spoke with management of a large global print focused firm and confirmed that they are still operating under a 70% internal staff, 30% flexible staff model. That this ratio has had a very significant role in helping them stay profitable during this unexpectedly long recession. Mind you, this type of strategy is not just used by large organizations, many sized firms use Semper for very similar reasons.

Please find a link to the What They Think posting I have referred to in this email message: http://blogs.whattheythink.com/printing-office

Flexible Staffing explained

These days we’ve been hearing a lot of:

 

“I’m not hiring.  I definitely don’t need temps.” 

“I’m trying to keep my payroll costs down!”

“We just laid off a bunch of staff.  We don’t need your services now.”

“We ran an ad for that position and got over 500 resumes”

 

In all of the above scenarios, a quality flexible staffing firm could not only simplify the life of the contact, but also increase the productivity and efficiency of the organization, and help keep costs low during an economic period where the bottom line is everything!

 

How?

 

Here is how flexible staffing works:

 

We offer 4 services to meet your staffing needs.

 

Flex: 

(Temp) We charge an hourly bill rate.  You bring our employee in for as many or as few hours as your production dictates.  Good for production overflow, employee leave coverage, production coverage during employee search, etc.  This service is particularly useful during economic downturns or for organizations with lean payroll models.  Keep your core staff, those few people that are a must, that you invested time and money in training and developing. Run on a lean payroll of just your core.  During times of low production, your payroll cost is also low.  During times of high production, bring in our flex team to cover the overage.  You have successfully changed a traditionally fixed business cost into a variable cost, allowing you more control over what you spend during different business cycles.

 

Flex can always and at any time become a Flex-to-hire.  So if you fall in love with the person…

 

Flex-to-Hire:  

1. Once, and if, you decide to hire, there is a conversion fee based on employee’s base annual salary and time spent as a temp.  Also useful when you would like to hire a full-time candidate but aren’t 100% sure production will continue at its current level.  Keep the candidate flex until your doubts are dispelled, providing more security for you, the employee, and the organization!

 

 

Pay rolling:  

Similar to Flex-to-Hire except this time YOU found the candidate.  Say you meet 

1. Nice huh? Additionally, payrolling could be used to manage your own freelance or contract staff.  No more headaches of adding people temporarily to your payroll or worrying about 1099 employees.  Drop them on our payroll, we’ll handle everything! Payrolling is generally done at a 40% mark up.

 

 

Direct Hire:  

1. Our fee is generally a percentage of the employee’s base annual salary.

 

Ok, that being said…There’s more!  

 

Bill rates include:  

Unemployment costs, workman’s compensation, payroll, recruitment, screening, taxes, and our EXTENSIVE LIABILITY INSURANCE!  I know you don’t want to let any schmoe near your equipment.  We’ve got the insurance to cover any mishaps to your press or work in case a schmoe gets by, however unlikely!!

 

Trial Guarantee:  

I frown upon client interviews.  We’ve interviewed them.  Why do you have to do it again?  That’s why you pay us!  So, bring the guy in for his first day of work.  While under our liability insurance umbrella, see what he can do.  If within the first two hours you realize this guy doesn’t know a press from a broom handle, send him home…NO CHARGE.  However, if you discover he is the dynamo we say he is, you got yourself a guy without having to wait through an interview process.  Production continues…life is grand.

 

Semper offers these services to our clients, but if you have an existing relationship with an agency be sure you are taken full advantage of all the benefits they can offer you.

 

PIA member? Ask about our member discount programs!

 

By working together to find a solution to best fit the need of your organization, Semper can prove to be a valuable partner during these times. In difficult times, it is essential we all work together for the good of the industry, its companies, and its workers.

 

If you would like to see who is available, please visit www.semperllc.com or call 877-377-4687 and speak to a local placement coordinator.  Whether you have a need today or want to plan for the future, we look forward to serving you!

Staffing is a leading indicator

Saving monies and being lean are on everyones radar of late. With labor being such a large component of costs what is your competition doing
to keep costs low? How do the industry leaders gain competitive advantage in this area?

Did you know flex staffing s a “leading indicator? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_Indicators#Types_of_Indicators)

Have you ever noticed how orders tend to come in clumped together? Like cars at a toll booth or a pocket of traffic on a highway?

How can you use these observations and tips to your companies advantage???

Email me your questions and I would be  more then happy to respond  Always@semperllc.com

Dave Regan 

CEO

Semper

Semper’s quarterly printing industry survey results.

Hi, Thanks to all of you who participated. Please find the results of the survey.

Q1 Survey Analysis – January 2009

Thank You again for your responses – this was the first time we posted on twitter and other Social Networks and the response was trebled.

Let us get right to it- WOW. Glad the fourth quarter is over, but the first could be just as interesting.

The highlights: 

Profitability seems to have increased again- clearly this indicates the cost cutting measures and the reduced costs of raw materials and fuel are helping.

The question regarding how you find employees was interesting. Notice that many more of you are using online resources like printworkers.com or Gain’s job bank than help wanted ads in newspapers. I wonder about the reasoning behind that fact, considering the parallel decision our clients must face between print and new media expenditures.

The hiring section – the Staying the same percentage is continually dropping, with laying off increasing but hiring actually started to show an increase. This would indicate that companies top lines are still being squeezed; they lay off but then find they are unable to meet demand when it comes in. So they have to rehire- A shameless plug but this is a classic temp staffing utilization situation.

Again, we suspect the GDP numbers to be released on Jan 30th 09 will have to be revised even in six weeks lower than even the shocking contraction they first indicated. We are glad to see many of you understood the severity of the situation and took the steps needed to reduce costs last quarter.  All the doom and gloom from Davos aside, we feel that the upturn will start sooner than later. The speed of its improvement is the question. It seems that most responded that business was stable  the last two weeks and expected things to stay the same for the quarter. Lets hope we start to see improvement top line wise shortly there after.

The number one concern of respondents was the economy and it’s impact on clients budgets followed by predatory competition for those budgets. The Fed calls that deflation. Let us all hope that trend and fear is fleeting.

We have enclosed the entire Survey results below, if you have questions or would like to see additional areas explored please let me know.

daver@semperllc.com

Survey Charts: CLICK HERE

Twitter Backgrounds

There are many Twitter clients out there that help you stream line your Twitter experiences. Yet at the expense of seeing the many wonderfully designed backgrounds people do. Here are a few cool ones that help give Twitter a better visual feel.

http://twitter.com/PrintWorkers

http://twitter.com/Semperllc

http://twitter.com/aGEEKspot

http://twitter.com/CustomTwit

http://twitter.com/eddiebreen

 

The richness the backgrounds add is well worth viewing Twitter using the actual Twitter site.

 

The two things I would like to see added in the near future.

 

1) Ability to add links within your background

2) The various Twitter apps allowing full view of backgrounds.

 

My $.02 Twitter view point

Who is John Galt?

The question “Who is John Galt?” — John Galt is a man disgusted that non-productive members of society use laws and guilt to leech from the value created by productive members of society, and furthermore even exalt the qualities of the leeches over the workers and inventors. He made a pledge that he would never live his life for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for him, and founded an enclave, separate from the rest of the country, where he and other productive members of society have fled.

The Key here is the prospective of what is NON productive – It is very important that you fairly way and view a given issue- There is a reason our Founding Fathers wanted each voter to be a person of means or with a stake in society (yes they messed up by on the race and gender issues I gather from my readings they felt the battle they faced was big enough). The point is that it is assumed if you have something at risk you will strive to make a wise choice.  Is Darwin’s view correct, Those that can change and be flexible will most likely survive? 

In a company it would seem since the roles are so specialized and each person becomes an expert on their own area that management with buy in from the whole team should make the calls about who is productive- BUT with the help of the team means that if a team mate is proven to not be contributing the group has a right to act in self defense depending on the severity of the situation.

Rand argues that independence and individual achievement enable society to survive and thrive, and should be embraced. But this requires a “rational“ moral code. She argues that, over time, coerced self-sacrifice causes any society to self-destruct.

The Rational MORAL code is a critical component in the entire argument- So given the facts, people can decide for themselves to sacrifice or not to the survival of the group and it’s goals – critical to this is accurate facts,  a just endeavor and belief in a fair response to situations.

Who is John Galt.

Semper International™ Introduces Google Lively To Interactive Media Job Recruiting Services

First multimedia job staffing firm in Second Life™ expands services at Semperllc.com/lively

 

    Semper International™, a leading printing, graphics and interactive media staffing firm, today announced its use of Google Lively, the latest web-based virtual environment and social networking application.  Semper was the world’s first staffing firm to use Second Life ™ as a recruiting platform and its entry into Lively confirms Semper’s commitment to cutting edge interactive and multimedia job recruiting.  

    “Virtual worlds continue to draw our attention,” said Brian Regan, president of Semper International LLC. “At Semper, we look at them from a marketing standpoint; but we’re also using them to enhance our internal process and how we interact with ourselves as well as our clients and candidates.”  

    Google Lively (www.lively.com) is a user-friendly virtual world described by Google as “a chat experience in which you can communicate and express yourself using avatars in your very own space.”  Semper has created a variety of rooms in Lively for conducting interviews, as well as integrating a main public room into the Semper website (http://www.semperllc.com/lively/).  Semper recognizes the importance of meeting the needs of a new breed of job applicants and is committed to matching staffing profiles in a compatible landscape.  As they’ve accomplished with their Second Life™ location, Semper will utilize Lively as an internal collaborative tool as well as establishing its external role as an interactive space for multimedia and video game job seekers.

    “Virtual spaces like Second Life and Lively create interesting opportunities for social interaction. Lively and its chat-room style approach will enhance initial interviews and eventually help our recruiters work with interactive media job applicants as they register through our website,” says Regan.  Semper refuses to play catch-up with major technology shifts, preferring to map new ground, establishing new industry templates along the way.  While Regan is quick to point out that Lively is “not quite advanced enough to be used as a business grade application,” he recognizes “a clear potential for consolidation. The ease with which we can integrate the chat room to a web page makes its widespread use a no-brainer – especially when interacting with Digital Natives.”

    Semper’s global strategy is to continue to identify and establish new and better ways of reaching the widest spectrum of online multimedia job applicants.  The integration of virtual worlds like Google Lively is only the beginning of a long term adventure.  

 

 

Semper's public Lively room

 

 

Semper’s Q2 Survey Analysis – April 2008

First, Thank You all for the huge number of responses. 

We honestly use this survey as a benefit for the industry in general 

and not for commercial reasons.

 

I think we all can be glad the first quarter is over; except for the fact that the 

second quarter, so far, seems to be even worse then the first. The last 2 

months have seen a severe contraction in most areas of the economy and 

in all geographic areas. The Fed’s actions last Summer came several sessions 

too late to avoid this contraction. The relentless negativity from the media over 

the last two years reached a crescendo of hysteria in August that has scarcely 

abated till just recently. We all are grateful for the news media’s recent more 

positive bias!!

 

A Big question now is have the stock markets hit bottom? If so, then the 

recovery will be approximately six months from that bottom. If you look at the 

current stock charts for Apple, the Dow and the NASDAQ over the last two 

years, It appears that we have hit the bottom and are on the upturn (barring 

another terrorist shock). If the charts are correct, then we should start to see 

improvements as early as September – October. Flex Staffing tends to be a 

leading indicator, like the stock market, so we at Semper should see improvement 

three to four months after the bottom. We will let you know. 

 

Another BIG change in the Industry this year was the demise of Annual report 

printing. One manager I spoke to, mentioned that last year they printed 100 Annual 

reports- this season only four. The result of the SEC allowing companies to post 

the reports “online.” This single change has had a huge negative impact in that 

segment of the industry. I think of what will happen to Blockbuster and the movie 

theatre chains once the movie studios release first run movies directly online. It 

will likely be a similar issue- MAYBE I should sell any holdings.

 

Now to the survey results:

 

As you recall, the results are in the new easier to read and understand format 

which reduces the need for commentary.

 

The question on profitability I am sure is high on everyone’s list. The trend line is 

clearly indicative of the stress we would expect to see ; this is a MACRO issue 

not just your firm.

 

The question on profitability I am sure is high on everyone’s list. The trend line 

is clearly indicative of the stress we would expect to see ; this is a MACRO issue 

not just your firm.

 

The hiring question reinforces the above two responses. Hiring has dropped off, 

but it seems staying at the same staffing level is the course most firms are going 

with. Maybe others agree that things will improve sooner than later. (br>

Clearly, keeping expenses limited is on everyone’s mind, with base pay and benefit 

costs showing big jumps in concern from respondents. Supply costs in general are 

now the largest percent concern of firms as opposed to technology issues.

 

In closing, we see positive news here in the expectations of sales for this quarter. 

Take a close look at the actual results and feel free to ask questions or give 

feedback – daver@semperllc.com

 

Click here to view the Survey:

http://www.semperllc.com/printing_survey/Semper_Survey_2008_Q2.pdf

                                                                  

Thank You