Frank’s Employment

Wow, it’s been a busy week for our staff for the first of February!

Rebecca visited onsite a new prospective client who may need assistance staffing for a temp-to-hire Receptionist position.

Elyse met with an IT professional whose outplacement she is conducting on behalf of a client company.  She’s also designing a custom skill review using Outlook for a customer who needs to test all of its office employees.

Dawn recorded the criminal background checks we ran for a client hiring new employees using our microstaffing solutions to assist with one piece of the process.

Craig successfully finished a search for a CNC machinist with expertise in Fanuc controls, Daewoo and Haas machines, and G code.

And that’s just the highlights from one day!

Hope your business is starting the month in a productive way too.  We’re ready to help when you need more staff to accomplish those goals.

The US Congress voted in late December to extend the COBRA subsidy available to qualified workers who have involuntarily lost their jobs.

This legislation originally provided the grant covering 65% of the COBRA premium for up to nine months.  The new legislation expands eligibility to up to fifteen months.

The legislation originally covered qualified workers whose employment had ended by December 31, 2009.  The new legislation extended the employment ending date as late as February 28, 2010.

The most recent Kiplinger Newsletter reminds employers of two new deadlines relevant to this extension of the COBRA subsidy.

1. Employers must send a (separate) notice by January 31st to any involuntarily unemployed workers eligible for retroactive coverage under COBRA.  This would include workers whose original 9-month subsidy expired in 2009 and who dropped COBRA coverage as a result.
2. Employers must notify by February 27th all COBRA-qualified former workers about the subsidy extension.

The Department of Labor website has additional information about the ARRA-funded COBRA subsidy.  You may access this by clicking here.

The H1N1 virus (also known as the “swine flu”) complicates the influenza season for all of us, since very few of us have developed any immunity to it.  The staff of Frank’s Employment has strategized together how to approach the seasonal flu and H1N1 flu virus risks this year with respect to our in-house staff, our candidates, and our client companies.

Here are some of the proactive ways we are protecting our own health - and yours, in turn.

Prevention is the first level of our approach, including common best practices for infection control.

1. All of the staffmembers who regularly have contact with clients and candidates in person have already received a seasonal flu vaccination this fall.  None of us qualifies for high-risk priority access to the H1N1 vaccine.  So we will defer this unless additional dosages become available to the general public.
2. We are each doing our best to strengthen our immune systems: eating healthy meals; drinking plenty of water; getting sufficient rest.  And the laughter that frequently resonates through our offices helps with endorphins, of course!
3. We cover our coughs and sneezes (especially important for airborne agents such as influenza); we routinely wash our hands throughout the business day (important for colds and other contagions).
4. In addition, we have hand sanitizers available at several stations throughout our space.  Applicants and other visitors are also welcome to use these.
5. We are more frequently cleaning our phones, keyboards, and other shared office equipment, especially since these items are touched by different hands throughout the day.  We are more frequently emptying our wastebaskets as well.

Basic response preparedness is the second level of our plan.  Even with general preventive measures in place, it’s certainly possible that one of us could “catch” the flu. Read the rest of this entry »