This month in a candid interview with himself Tim talks about life in the staffing industry, the 20th anniversary of Ryan Staffing, the business climate locally and lots of other interesting stuff about temps that may help improve your bottom line.
QUESTION: Congrats on hitting the 20 year milestone. That's quite an accomplishment in this day and age with all the failings of small businesses and the deep dark recession we've been in. How have you managed to hang in there?
TIM: Thanks for that atta-boy...it hasn't been easy. To quote a line from Christmas Vacation..."I had a lot of help from Jack Daniels".
Seriously, I think the key has been our strategy to be the best and not the biggest. Every time we have gotten away from doing that the bottom line and customer service has suffered. We've also managed to keep a core group of full-time staff together for a number of years, which has been invaluable.
QUESTION: So, how is business these days?
TIM: It is surprisingly good. Our volume in 2010 was up significantly from 2009, which was our slowest year since 1994. We are hearing good things from our clients about business picking up throughout 2011 and the ASA index of staffing employment continues to rise.
QUESTION: Are the reasons for companies to use contingent labor still the same as they were 20 years ago?
TIM: I would say so. Everyone is constantly trying to lower their costs and that is what we provide our clients. I just read the results of a cost survey of large companies (over 1000 employees) that use contingent labor. They reported median overall savings through the use of a flexible workforce to be about 15 percent in 2010.
QUESTION: Aside from still being here, what's been your biggest accomplishment personally and that of Ryan Staffing in the past 20 years?
TIM: Personally without a doubt it's been not wearing a tie to work for the past 20 years. I kid people, but seriously I invented the concept of "dress down" days back in 1987. As far as Ryan Staffing, it has to be our making the INC. 500 list in 1996. We were the 47th fastest growing company in the U.S that year. It's the same list Microsoft was on years before, so that was pretty neat.
QUESTION: Let's face it, temps are often the butt of the late night comics crowd and are often portrayed in a in a not so positive way....call it stereotyped. Does this bother you?
TIM: Not really. Those that blame the current high rate of unemployment on temps or the loss of manufacturing jobs in this country are kidding themselves.
Temps make up less than two percent of today's labor force. And recent numbers show that the USA still leads the world in manufacturing....about 40 percent more than China in 2009.
Most all temps are hard working individuals working at low pay rates without much in the way of benefits mostly for the hope of getting hired permanently. Those that poke fun at temps couldn't last two days doing what they do. And no, you won't see me guest staring on Undercover Boss just for that reason...I know the truth!
QUESTION: What do you hate most about your job these days?
TIM: That's easy...it's all the legal challenges we have to face daily. Fighting bogus workers compensation claims, challenging unemployment compensation determinations, getting sued for things you haven't done and so on and so on.
It has become never ending and very frustrating. It is without question why small business failures are up and jobs are going overseas. That and all the administrative activities you must comply with, courtesy of the government bureaucracies and politicians.
As an example, little old Ryan Staffing has to complete four separate Census forms every year for the government. We process about 30 court orders for child support deductions a week and about 100 claim forms concerning unemployment compensation issues a week too.
QUESTION: OUCH! Well then, what is a good day?
TIM: The best day of the year is when I get to bring my collie Murphy to work on his birthday and take him to PetSmart. Getting positive feedback from our clients about our staff also makes me smile, but don't tell anybody.
QUESTION: So Tim, What does Ryan Staffing have coming down the pipeline in the next 12 to 18 months or so?
TIM: We hope to continue to make use of certain technologies available in our industry to improve service delivery to our clients and communication with our temporary staff.
For example we plan to expand our use of social media outlets to communicate job openings to our temp database to fill client requests quicker. These same outlets will be used in various recruiting activities. Imagine receiving a job offer via text mail instead of the phone call.
Using specially designed telecommunication software programs to remind people of start dates, interview appointments etc. are also being planned for use later in the year.
One of our biggest accomplishments in 2010 was successfully converting all of our employees from paper paychecks to debit cards (pay cards). This has been well received and has eliminated almost all of our paycheck issues that have been around for years. We definitely plan to push ahead utilizing these technologies.
QUESTION: Anything planned for the 20 year birthday party?
TIM: Nothing official. You know 20 years just includes Ryan Alternative Staffing, Inc.
My beautiful wife Susan started in the industry in 1979 and I started in 1984. It's a long story but we've effectively been self employed in the industry for 32 and 27 years respectively.
Back to your question, we're kicking around a few ideas and hope to do something special to mark the occasion late in the year.
QUESTION: Well, this has been a real interesting learning experience for me. We'll have to continue it later in the year.
TIM: You can count on it. I love talking to myself.
(Next time Tim will talk to himself about how he would save a bundle using temps, staffing industry rip-off's and more stuff about the past twenty years.)
