Employer Facing Strategy - Hire a Sales Force, Find the Jobs

With the changing economy comes a need to change the way we do business.  The new focus of Employment Connection is to be a demand facing system, is to engage our employer customers and meet their workforce needs.

To this end, Mike Daly, the new sales project leader, was hired as a consultant, in September 2009 with ARRA stimulus dollars to head the Business Services Representatives (BSR’s). Additionally, two well seasoned sales persons joined the eight member TEAM with the same funding.

Through this team of trained specialists, the Business Service Representatives, Employment Connection can help an employer reduce hiring expenses and employee turnover rate.  EC can also offer assistance enhancing the skills of an employer’s human resources so that the highest productivity potential can be reached.  The goal of the BSR Team is to help businesses compete by servicing their Human Capital needs. 

In order to best service our customer, the employer, a new job order process has been developed to better identify the best candidates within 72 hours once the job order is created. The BSR’s work with Employment Specialists to identify the best candidates, make the match between employer and job seeker and continue to meet with the employer to check status of the hire and ensure a successful match was made.

The success of this new business model will be measured in three ways:

  1. Placement in Employment
  2. Retention on the Job
  3. Reasonable Wage Realized
To provide the best customer service to our job seeking members we first need to work with our employer customers to find out where the real jobs are and what are the real skills needed to perform these jobs.  We seek to learn, in real time, what skills, credentials, attitudes and behaviors are required by today’s employers.  We want to more fully understand the answer to the question, “What causes an employer to HIRE”. 

The increased interface with employers informs our future strategy and tactics.  Workforce success fosters economic development across our region.  Employment Connection is pleased to play such an important part in the economic success of Northeast Ohio and stands ready to continue to serve the human capital needs of this region.   

Thanks to the ARRA, we have been able to increase our capacity and, therefore, expand our services and enhance our employer engagement.  Moreover, the temporary, ARRA-funded staff is training the permanent Employment Connection personnel so that ARRA benefits will be realized long after the funding is exhausted – a pre stimulus objective of the WIB.