Staff Additions!

Hello everyone! I’d like to announce some important changes that are happening at Stonecreek. Effective immediately, we have added Rachel Sarino and Heidi Innes to our team.

Rachel Sarino – Rachel has joined our team as a full time Sr. Technical Recruiter. Rachel has over 6 years of experience in IT recruiting, and along with her husband, is an avid race car driver. Rachel and her husband James have a son named Rohan and are expecting another baby in May.

Heidi Innes – Heidi has joined our team as a part-time Technical Sourcer. She will be assisting the recruiting staff and pre-screening potential candidates for our current openings. Her husband is a surgeon and she has a 10 year old daughter. As a former member of the United States Airforce, she worked at Scott Airforce Base for several years.

Valerie Freistein – Effective February 15th, we will also be adding Valerie Freistein to our staff as a Technical Recruiter. Valerie has been a recruiter for 2 years, and has personally been responsible for hiring 60-70 IT people in the course of one year. Valerie and her husband are expecting their first child this summer.

As you can see, we are growing. We anticipate hiring more staff in the upcoming months to cover the volume of openings we are seeing. We hope you are as excited as we are about the future of Stonecreek Staffing.

Hopeful Statistics

Here is a link to a St. Louis Business Journal report regarding the unemployment rate in St. Louis:

http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2009/06/01/daily48.html?ed=2009-06-03&ana=e_du_pub

The good news is that people are getting back to work and fewer layoffs are happening.  The end result will be fewer and fewer candidates freely available for work.  Hopeully this will result in more job openings, and a rise in salaries and bill rates in the future.  We at StoneCreek are already hearing complaints from hiring managers that they just can’t seem to find the same level of talent that they have in the recent past.  Good news for everyone!  I hope the trend continues.

Job Search Stress

Here is a link to a great article on how to deal with the stress of job searching.  It’s got some great advice and tips.  I hope you find it useful!

http://blogs.webmd.com/life-works/2009/05/job-search-sanity.html?ecd=wnl_day_060509

Tips for Managing Employee Morale in a Down Economy

Be transparent! Don’t try to hide the fact that we are in a recession. Profits are down and businesses are suffering. Talk about the company performance. Don’t sugar coat or spin it in ways that aren’t accurate. Your employees are smart – they are watching the news and hear the same stories you are.

Over-share with your staff, even more so than you would in a good economy. If they know that you understand and are feeling the same pains that they are feeling, they are more likely to figure out ways to help.

Reinforce your core values and your mission. Remind them of why you are in the business you are in and how important and vital their roles are to the organization. Help them to remember why they do the job that they do for you.

Do not do anything to affect your quality. Quality should remain key.

Don’t take advantage of your employees. It’s never a good thing when you have employees who are only working to save their jobs. Reaffirm that you are behind them and support them.

Use this time to find extra talent in your team. If they are less busy, don’t fill up their day with busy-work. Find meaningful tasks and ways they can contribute that may be outside of their regular job functions.

Don’t drag things out. Nothing is more demoralizing than taking too long to make decisions. Make decisions quickly and move forward.

Find reasons to celebrate successes on a daily or weekly basis. Even small successes have a huge impact on morale.

Deliver a message of hope. Tell your team how you specifically plan to help move the company through this recession and encourage ideas and suggestions that will make them feel part of the solution.

Keep goals real and achievable. Lofty goals and expectations demoralize in troubling times.

LISTEN! Listen to what you team is saying. Recognize their concerns and their pains. Don’t trivialize their feelings.

Be fair. Don’t cut the benefits and compensation of the junior staff while the senior staff continues to benefit.

Don’t brag. You may be able to afford a nice new car or a great vacation, but not all of your staff can. Keep this type of information to yourself.

Make yourself available! As a leader it is your job to serve your people and during the tough times is when they need you the most. Take the time to stop and see how they are doing and mingle with your employees. Learn who they are and what motivates them.

Humanize yourself. Make sure they know that you feel the same pains that they are feeling.

Energize your staff in a way that is specific to each employee. A cookie cutter approach won’t work, you must find out how each person gets re-energized and help them with it.

Energize yourself! Being a leader can be pretty lonely. Find ways to remind yourself on a regular basis why you do what you do.

It’s About Partnership

When I first started in this industry, I had the fortune of learning the business from a wonderful woman, whom to this day I consider my mentor. I remember she told me that regardless of what people say about our industry, our real job is to help people. We help our customers meet their deadlines, finish their projects, and solve their problems. We help our candidates to get jobs, better their careers, enjoy a better life. It’s all about solving problems versus making a sale.

That has been my driving motivation for staying in this business for as long as I have. And when I get to the point that I no longer feel like I am helping people, but instead, answering to numbers, goals, metrics and profits, that is when I start to get frustrated.

StoneCreek Staffing believes in the things that drive me to do my job – we are here to HELP! And right now, there are a lot of people who need our help. We understand that people need jobs and need enough of an income to maintain their livelihood. And we are here to help. We understand our clients need good quality resources, but like everyone else, they are feeling the pinch of a weakened economy and smaller budgets. And we are here to help. Although it may seem extremely basic, the reality is that a lot of business owners forget that driving principal when they see profit margins decline. There is panic and fear, and the end result isn’t always in line with what really matters – and that is the PEOPLE behind all of this.

Business is about people. And StoneCreek staffing realizes this.

If you need help finding a position or are in need of good resources and competitive rates, please give us a call. We’d love to help!

Welcome

Welcome to the official blog site for StoneCreek Staffing! We will be updating this blog on a regular basis to provide you with updates on the company, industry information and discussions surrounding IT and the IT staffing world.

To get started, let me tell you a bit about the company. StoneCreek staffing is an established small business in St. Louis that is primed to grow. We are minority owned and focus almost exclusively on the St. Louis Information Technology job market (and surrounding areas.) Our services include direct hire placement, right to hire, and IT consulting. We recruit and staff all levels of IT positions and offer the flexibility and attention that larger companies simply cannot offer to their customers. Stone Creek Staffing has been in business for over 3 years and is already a preferred vendor for many companies in the St. Louis area. Our staff is comprised of industry veterans that have a combined tenure of over 30 years in the IT staffing business. You can visit the website at www.stonecreekstaffing.com

We offer a full benefits package to our W2 staff including medical, dental, 401K, PTO, etc. Our plans are very competitive and quite inexpensive to the employees. In addition, our low overhead allows us to pay our employees a better wage (meaning better talent) and provide our customers with better pricing. In this economy, that is a win-win for everyone involved.

Here is some of what our clients have to say about us!

“I have worked with the staff at StoneCreek Staffing for the almost two years. They have consistently been one of my best sources when it comes to good quality talent. I know that when I receive a candidate from StoneCreek Staffing that it has been carefully screened and selected to best fit the need that I am trying to fill. One of the best staff members that I have on my team came through StoneCreek Staffing. In summary, I highly recommend the team at StoneCreek Staffing to fulfill your staffing needs. They will be a valuable partner for any organization.”

“The team at StoneCreek Staffing has worked with me to fulfill personnel resource needs for over 8+ years. They have established an outstanding rapport with me and the existing managers to understand our various needs. Their ability to meet my immediate needs has always far exceeded my expectations. A specific example: 18 months ago, I needed to put together a QA team for a Conversion project in under a week. StoneCreek Staffing was able to find candidates to put in front of me within 24 hours and interviewing began on Day 2. I greatly respect and appreciate StoneCreek Staffing for the high level of service they have provided to me and my company. All of their consultants have been highly trained and a good example of the kind of candidate I would expect from a resourcing agency. One specific observation made about StoneCreek Staffing is also the time and energy they invest back into their consultants. They do a very good job of taking care of the consultants to make sure their needs are taken care of which results in a much more effective relationship. StoneCreek Staffing has done an excellent job and I would highly recommend them for any company to work with.”

“I have worked with the members of StoneCreek Staffing for nearly 10 years. Each time that I’ve had the pleasure of engaging StoneCreek Staffing, they have been professional, courteous, responsive and results-oriented. The candidates that their firm recruits are first-rate and pre-screened to meet the demands of our desired skills/experience. StoneCreek finds great people at competitive rates…really focusing on delivering value as an extension of my team. When I call them, I know I’m going to find someone who’s not only a good fit for my required skill set, but a person who will be a welcome and happy addition to my team. I would highly recommend working with the team at StoneCreek Staffing and look forward to our continued business together.”

Watch out St. Louis! StoneCreek is on the move!