Precast Inc. - May/June 2008 - (Page 47) istock.com agencies. Now it is limiting itself to just one, because that agency has been so much help to the company. “We have been working with them exclusively for about two years,” Bundy said. “Before that, we were working with a number of agencies. Over time, though, we found that the current one has done the best job, because they learned about our operations the best and always sent us good people.” In fact, C.J. Pink has an open invitation to the agency to contact the company any time it finds a potential hire. “We are usually willing to try that person out immediately,” Bundy said. “The agency knows who would be appropriate, because it has come out here and researched what we need.” As a result, according to Bundy, the agency has almost always been “dead on” with the people it sends. Since C.J. Pink is unionized, it brings the new people in as temporary employees for 90 days. It also pays the agency directly, not the employee, for those 90 days. The agency isn’t concerned about having its temps hired away. “One reason is that, because we usually do hire its people, we are willing to pay a little higher premium to the agency, because it knows that it is going to lose them in 90 days,” Bundy said. The concept works well. The employees that the agency sends out are trained in general construction as well as safety. “All we have to do is provide the specific training in precast,” Bundy said. “In addition, the employees tend to stay with us. We have hired three employees in the last year this way, and all three are still with us.” There was also an instance when the agency called Pink to recommend someone. At the time, the precaster really didn’t need another employee, but it hired the person the next day anyway. The reason: “We know how difficult it can be to get good employees most of the time,” Bundy said. Word of mouth At Bartow Precast of Cartersville, Ga., Michael Tidwell, operations manager, has found that it has been a bit easier to hire people in 2008 because of the job market. “Residential building and construction have fallen off in Georgia,” Tidwell said. “As such, a lot of people have been laid off from their jobs, so a lot of people are looking for work. Six months ago, it was an entirely different scenario.” Bartow has also found that word-of-mouth is an excellent source for finding new employees. “If our employees know some people looking for work, we will consider them,” Tidwell said. However, the company tries to avoid hiring best friends and family members, because it can lead to potential conflicts. If the friend or family member ends up having a “falling out” or other serious dispute with the employee about something unrelated to work, it can lead to tension and other problems on the job. “You end up with two employees who really need to communicate with each other, but who may end up communicating as little as possible,” he said. So what else works for Bartow? Typically, it has run advertisements in local newspapers and on Internet sites. “Over the years, we have found that the best source for us has been newspaper advertising,” Tidwell said. “In the ads, we are specific about the types of employees we want and the types of equipment we operate.” The company is also contemplating adding a resume section MAY/JUNE 2008 | WWW.PRECAST.ORG 47 http://istock.com http://www.precast.org
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