Our new tag line is “Setting the Standard” and that is exactly what we have always aspired to do and it is exactly what we will continue to do.

We have come a long way since the company started, having helped thousands of people to find satisfying jobs and at the same time working with hundreds of businesses to keep them running with quality staff.

Today Signature Staff provides a full range of employment and recruitment services, including full time, part time and temporary placements.

Our Human Resources advisory service is growing daily as more businesses turn to Signature Staff to provide the right advice in a complex, heavily regulated environment.

We have also developed an extensive range of templated HR ready-to-use documents. These include everything from industry specific job descriptions to performance reviews, employee induction forms and much more. These are very cost effective resources.

Last but not least, we have also launched a new company called All About Safety. This is a specialist Workplace Health and Safety (OHS) business that is offering direct advice as well as ready to use, online documents.

So when we say we are setting the standard, we really mean it. We would love the opportunity to work with you to provide the very best employment solutions available.

To view our brochure click here Signature Staff Profile

Have a look inside to see our service offering.

So spending time and effort on your networking can be a worthwhile investment.  It can be seen as part of your Human Resources Management. There are two ways of networking with people – online and offline.

Offline Networking

The importance of offline networking is often under-appreciated in today’s fast-paced world where people’s attention is focused on their BlackBerry, i-Pad or other gadgets meant to improve the quality of our communication. But if you want to reach a certain person within the Human Resources Management department of a company you wish to work for, offline networking could be your best approach.

There are methods that the Human Resource Management department uses to promote offline networking among its employees. However, you as a job seeker (whether you are currently employed or not) can network with professionals too. Some of the ways of doing so include:

Familial Gatherings

Maintaining family connections is important to our wellbeing. The friendly faces of aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives at family gatherings enables everyone to catch up on each others’ lives – both personal and professional. By maintaining positive relationships with your relatives, they may be able to help you with your job search.

Public Events

Conferences and Summits attract professionals from specific industries such as pharmaceutical, banking and IT. Most of the attendees were probably sent and paid for by their employer.  However, these events are often open to any individual who wishes to register.

Attending such events can increase your offline networking. Conferences and summits offer both formal and informal settings which enable you to interact with professionals on different levels. Visiting events that are relevant to the industry in which you wish to work gives you contact with people you may be working alongside at a later date.

Online Networking

Online networking is one of the most efficient and effective ways of finding a job. Recruiters working in the Human Resources Management departments of companies often search for professionals online. Joining a variety of professional online networks can get you noticed.

LinkedIn provides an extensive platform for professionals of similar industries to interact and strengthen their networks. Facebook too is used by smart individuals to portray themselves positively before potential employers.

Both online and offline networking is important to optimize your job hunt. So use a balanced combination of the two methods to achieve your goal!

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In this month’s edition:

1. WHS - Training and Supervision
2. Legal Wisdom with Travis Sturgeon
3. Hire the Right Talent
4. Job Description – The Working Document
5. FWO Alert – Contractor or Employee

>>>Read More

Gleaning a candidate’s potential and personality is the essence of a successful job interview.  Any worthy HR eBook will include a chapter on “Interviewing Tips and Hints” to help interviewers broaden their perspectives and provide valuable insights about each applicant.

Here are some key tips to consider:

Spend Less Time Reviewing Experience

Experience cannot always be used as a criterion for reviewing a candidate. Sometimes, candidates with a single year of experience learn a lot more than people who have worked for twenty years. Moreover, some people write very impressive resumes, but when it comes to their practical application, employers can be disappointed. Therefore, instead focus on assessing competence.

Assess the Employee’s Potential for Competence

It is true that certification matters, because it lays the foundation of experience. During an interview applicants who may not have studied in the field of expertise required, may still have the skills and potential for that competence. Skills like social interaction and insight are not necessarily clearly presented during an interview. Therefore, HR personnel need a keen eye and strategies to pick up such qualities in an applicant.

Evaluate Behavioral and Interaction Skills

Depending on the job description, there are special behaviors that can demonstrate whether someone qualifies for the job. For instance, in a medical situation, employing people who are unnecessarily loud and overly social can be annoying for patients. During an interview HR personnel shouldn’t limit themselves to asking professional questions only. Include a few questions that portray hypothetical situations.  Ask the interviewee how he or she  would react. This will give an indication about how the applicant will handle things if they are chosen for the job.

Similarly, when it comes to jobs like operational risk management, the interviewee needs to be asked question that test his/her prediction capability through hypothetical circumstances where they  are required to make a decision. Depending on the answer they give, you will be able to evaluate their capabilities to make important decisions.

Attitude and Confidence

HR interviewers should be looking out for behaviour and reactions that give clues to the attitudes and strengths of each candidate. Their stability, innovative characteristics and social skills are also important. This can also reflect their potential for quick learning and adaptation to a new work environment. Companies need staff that can quickly adapt to new co-workers, techniques and specific training.

Fine tune your interviewing skills with an HR eBook that covers these issues and conducting successful interviews will not be a problem.

There are good bosses and bad ones.  If you complete your job efficiently without problems or mismanagement, a bad boss may take all the credit for your labours. A bad boss might withhold information you need to progress within the company. But somehow you need to be able to still work with them, demonstrate professional keenness to succeed, discuss the work at hand and cooperate with them to make sure your team-work achieves the set goals.

If you work with a bad boss you might need extra tips on how to develop a good relationship with them.

Tips for Developing a Good Relationship

There are some things you can do to get the support of your boss. Remember a supportive boss and healthy relationship with them is not just good for you, it is good for the whole organisation as well. Here is what you can do:

• Develop Trust: Without trust, your boss will be unable to develop a friendly and positive relationship with you.
• Show Responsibility: You have to make sure they understand that you are a person of your word. That you are responsible enough to evaluate whether you are capable of achieving goals before you make a commitment.
• Be Transparent: Be open and coordinate with the boss. Confess any mistakes you’ve made before they find out via other avenues.
• Be Supportive: Identify their weaknesses and find ways to help overcome them.

At the end of the day, your boss and all the people in Human Resources are only human like you.

If you wish to receive advice and speak to our consultant please email us on HRSupport@signaturestaff.com.au 

Take advantage of our complimentary  HR&OHS Products

In this month’s edition:

1. WHS - Management Commitment 
2. Legal Wisdom with Travis Sturgeon
3. Effective Management Tips
4. IR with Michelle Menzies 
5. FWO Alert – Focus on New Campaigns
6. WHO IS WHO IN THE ZOO

Talent Sourcing

Employees with talent are an asset to any organisation. A systematic recruitment process increases the chances of hiring talented people. For any organisation, the contribution made by employees at a personal level can have a significantly positive impact on the business. Using the best recruitment strategies optimises the chances of landing a talented catch.

HR personnel scrutinise applicants to ensure they have the skills and experience as claimed in their resume and job application. This is a detailed and time consuming process, but can lead to unplanned costs when not carried out properly.

Talent sourcing requires building a proprietary talent pool. During the systematic hiring process, HR personnel seek the best candidates through intensive evaluation through assessing competence and confidence in applicants.

Cost Reduction

Many recruitment agencies offer effective methods for sourcing new employees. Companies can save unnecessary costs by fulfilling their recruitment needs directly from agencies.

It is important to understand that cost reduction is the basis of successful outsourcing recruitment. That’s because it helps by providing good HR resources.

Efficiency

A systematic recruitment process increases the efficiency of the company. Not just in terms of hiring, but in terms of production. When talented recruits are hired, the company’s production, brand and image are bound to improve. A pool of talented workers improves cooperation and increases efficiency in many different ways.

Systematic recruitment can improve communication, helping managers co-ordinate their supervision at a variety of levels. With the use of technology and compliance with guidelines, efficient recruitment minimises costly risks.

Risk Reduction

New recruits are at a higher risk for leaving a job than their long-term peers. Until a new employee is acquainted with the company’s protocols and processes, they are vulnerable to a variety of pitfalls. A systematic recruitment process doesn’t end with the hiring process. It continues to monitor and minimise the variety of risks associated with new recruits.

Enhanced Process

HR personnel perform an intricate procedure in order to hire the best recruits for the job. Short-cutting this process can be a costly error. That is why using a systematic recruitment process ultimately makes it easier. It helps because potential candidates have already built a relationship with an HR Agency before they are recruited. Candidates can also manage their own application process by staying up-to-date with vacancy information through your website.

A successful recruitment process is based on proper documentation. This ensures that the HR department communicates with candidates in written form. This gives the applicant assurances regarding the professionalism of your business or company.

Benefit from the detailed services of HR Resources through a systematic approach to recruitment

This is because a career coach is your expert, guide, encourager and cheerleader. A career coach asks you where you are now in your career, where you want to be, what is in your way of achieving those goals, and then puts forwards ideas on how you can complete those goals. They keep you on track by making you break up your career goals into smaller steps so that you are able to complete each step in less time but also gain a sense of achievement when you achieve each small step. In addition to helping you establish your career goals, a career coach also keeps you accountable as they will be routinely asking and checking on if you have completed the small goals you have set for yourself, and pushing you to finish if you haven’t.

One strong advantage of using a career coach is that meetings can be done face-to-face, over the phone or even by Skype. This means you have access to a career coach who might live in a different area than you, or if you travel routinely, you can still touch base with your career coach. It is also up to you about what is discussed during career coaching sessions, so you are in charge of your own discussions and career advice.

Overall, a career coach is there to give you extra structure with your career goals and path, and help give you guidance and encouragement when making your career decisions. It can be stressful and unnerving if you have decided to start your own business, or switch your career field after working in the same field for a number of years, and a career coach is there to help listen to those fears and to help you work through them. They can also help you keep on track with your career goals and to try you, when needed, why you wanted to switch careers or bring you back to focus on your career goals and how to get there.

A good manager essentially inspires others. Are you a Manager that others want to follow? In order to be inspirational, efficient and effective, a manager needs to exhibit a high level of conceptual, human, and technical skills. This can be a daunting task.  So here are some tips to help you manage your business effectively.

Don’t Try to Be a Know-It-All

As a manager, your priority should be to make the most of your HR resources. Portraying yourself as the supreme know-it-all within the organisation will only inhibit the productivity of your workers. They will be deterred from contributing their best for the company and are more likely to disengage from the whole process and opt out from making quality decisions.

As a manager, it is your responsibility to make the best use your workforce’s expertise in order to arrive at the best decisions for your department or organization as a whole. Rather than seeing yourself as the smartest person in the room, see how you can utilise your talented HR resources to make a better-informed decision.

Don’t Use ‘Divide & Conquer’

Turning individuals and teams against each other, believing that the resulting competition will hike up performance, is one of the biggest mistakes a manager can make. In reality, this process is counter-productive as it leads to internal conflicts, creating resentment.  This distracts employees from their work. Also, the resulting negative environment within your department or office adversely affects productivity, which can be detrimental to the success of the company.

A better approach is to encourage external competition instead. Encourage your employees to see themselves as a team competing against an external competitor. This will create an environment that fosters growth and harmony as employees work together for the benefit of the company.

Delegate

Managers sometimes think that delegating tasks will make them appear weak or less important. This can make them reluctant to share their authority which adversely affects productivity.

Managers can increase their effectiveness by realising that they have limited time at their disposal and they need to dedicate their time to the most important matters. If a Manager is performing a task that could easily be carried out by an employee, then they are managing their time ineffectively.

Managers need to be able to delegate tasks that can be completed by others and focus on the more specialised tasks at hand. This makes for a more effective Management system and will increase the overall performance of their business.