In May, temporary staffing jobs hit a record 2.68 million. As the ACA looms, employers can avoid penalties for failing to provide benefits for full-time employees by hiring temporary workers. Staffing agencies are the employer of record for their contract workers, which means that the companies at which they are placed are not responsible for…

Advice on employee benefits administration abounds, but the best ideas might be the simplest.From the standpoint of employee benefits managers, health plans can produce a huge amount of data that is taxing to human resources back office staff. Consider getting health plan reports on an annual rather than a quarterly basis, Employee Benefit News suggests.…

Human resources management now is a different profession than it was in the past. "In the 1980s, HR managers were occupied mostly with compliance and legal issues – filling out paperwork, following anti-discrimination laws and generally avoiding being sued by employees and regulatory agencies," writes Lauren Weber, a contributor to the Wall Street Journal.In contrast,…

A majority of hiring managers say that they plan to make more new hires in the second half of the year than in the first, according to a survey conducted by Dice Holdings. When surveyed regarding their plans for the first half of 2013, only 46 percent of hiring managers reported that they would seek to…

Temporary workers account for almost 19 percent of all new jobs since June 2009. As reporter Jeff Green writes in Bloomberg, this is close to the record high percentage of temporary workers in the labor force in April 2000.Businesses that need new hires are still feeling tentative as they bounce back from the recession. They prefer, in…

Members of the newest crop of college graduates are looking for their first jobs, and contract and temporary work could be perfect for many of them. These positions are not jobs of last resort, but rather a desirable career move for many recent graduates. Contract work allows for exploration of different fields and positions, and…

The process of recruiting a candidate doesn't have to become a routine. Some human resources management professionals go out of their way to break out of the traditional recruiting structure, which they perceive as boring and of limited utility. Once a candidate has been established as a possible good fit for the company, they bring more…

HR administrations should consider implementing employee wellness programs, as new research shows. According to a Gallup study, 86 percent of full-time workers are overweight or have a chronic health condition. This decreases productivity and costs their companies money they could avoid having to spend. A good wellness program, for example one that focuses on healthy…

Randstad released a report yesterday on flexible labor and employment, the first edition of what will be an annual study called Flexibility@work. For the purpose of the study, flexible labor and employment encompasses increasing a workforce by "employing workers on fixed-term contracts, hiring workers through temporary employment agencies or by hiring labor services from self-employed…

HR outsourcing services tend to get a boost in the summer as employers begin to increase staff in the warmer months. CareerBuilder already predicted temporary workers will see more employment opportunities this summer, but HR administrations should remember to look for four attributes before bringing on additional employees.  1. Driven  One complacent hire can generate…