Thursday, November 20, 2008

Ryan Staffing President Weighs in on Overtime; How To Save You Some Bucks; And a Discrimination Lawsuit

At Ryan Alternative Staffing, we use a 1.4 times rate for all conventional overtime rates invoiced. The savings can add up as the example shows:

Example 1: Pay rate = $8/hour
Mark up -= 40%
Straight time bill rate = $11.20/hour
Overtime bill rate at 1.5% = $16.80

Example 2: Pay rate = $8/hour
Mark up = 40%
Straight time bill rate = $11.20/hour
Overtime bill rate at 1.4% = $15.68/hour

The savings amounts to $1.12/hour or $44.80 per 40 hour work week. If you include the sales tax savings, you are even farther ahead.

Staying Out of Trouble
Last year Ryan Alternative Staffing found itself as a defendant in a lawsuit involving alleged discrimination of an employee that filed a workers compensation claim. The person alleged she was not given her job back at our client after she was released for full duty.

As a reminder to all of our clients Section 4123.90 of the Workers Compensation Code prohibits "Discriminatory acts against those employees that file claims. Specifically, "No Employeer shall discharge, demote, reassign, or take any punitive action against any employee because the employee filed a claim or instituted, pursued or testified in any proceedings under the Workers Compensation Act for any injury or occupational disease which occurred in the course of and arising out of his employment with the Employer".

You may be asking yourself how would a Workers Comp claim filed by a Ryan Alternative Staffing employee impact us? The scenario that we found ourselves defending happened when our client decided they no longer had an opening at their facility after our employee was released to full duty status.

While other circumstances existed, and the matter was settled, the point is that you risk a similar legal challenge if you routinely end assignments of temporary's that file a Workers Comp Claim. You may want to re-visit your policy the next time this comes up.

Staffing Tip of the Month
Does your Staffing Company lower bill rates after a temporary has worked a certain number of hours?

If you answer this question "No", you have a real opportunity here to save some bucks and be a hero to your Boss.

The profit level a Staffing Company makes on the placement of a temporary increases the longer that temporary remains on the same assignment. This happens because the supplier has covered their fixed costs and they don't have the additional expenses of filling replacement orders.

At Ryan Alternative Staffing we recognize how this benefits our margins and we reduce our hourly rate on conventional temporaries after 600 hours on the job. While the reduction varies with each client it is not uncommon for the mark up to go down by 5 to 10 percentage points. On an $8.00 pay rate this can mean a savings or $.40/hr to $ .80/hr plus sales tax.

The important point here is to negotiate. Most Staffing Companies will not volunteer to pass this along unless you ask!

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