How to Hire the Best Customer Service Representatives

One job that has one of the highest turnover rates is customer service representatives. Hiring an excellent customer service representative is not hard, but typically, someone who makes a good representative is born and not taught. This makes it critical for companies to have the necessary interview skills to spot an awesome employee in the making or a future dud that needs polite escorting to the door.

Here are some common traits that excellent customer service representative’s share.

  • Eye Contact – Customer service representatives sell the experience of a product or the company. No one wants to buy from someone that doesn’t maintain eye contact. Maintaining eye contact is a common sign of courtesy. This position fields complaints and concerns and customers need to have their feelings validated by having someone give them eye contact. If someone doesn’t maintain good eye contact during an interview, they won’t make a long-lasting customer service representative.
  • Upbeat Energy – Customer service representatives need to be upbeat and have positive energy. If customers are filing complaints, having someone that is upbeat and polite makes a significant difference. If you hire a customer service employee that is down on life and complains to customers, this will translate into bad experiences for customers. Good customer service representatives have a can-do attitude that lets customers know that no matter how bad their problem may seem, it’s fixable.
  • Empathy – Good customer service reps have one thing in common: they have empathetic voices. If someone has empathy and can diffuse customers by making them feel good, it will be a huge benefit to any corporation.
  • Smiling – Whether in person or over the phone, customer service reps need a smile in their voices. To hear whether a candidate has the skills it takes to shine over the phone, make sure to conduct a telephone interview as a hiring prerequisite.
  • Previous Experience – If someone has held several different short-term customer service representative jobs over the years, they may not be a good fit. Studies show that people that love working in a customer service environment will stick with a position for longer, which shows on resumes.

If companies hire the right customer service representative for their organization, they’ll have less turnover, which translates into substantial cost savings for employers.

Ninja Gig offers custom online job applications. These applications are ideal for companies that need to hire customer service representatives but don’t want to deal with the hassle of creating applications. Ninja Gig’s easy to use online employment applications are simple to customize, easy to save and archive, ensuring federal and state paperwork compliance. Sign up today for a 30-day free trial of our software and see how easy hiring can be!

Hiring the Right Nurse for Your Practice

Nurses are on the front line of providing medical care and are often the first and last points of contact. This is why it is important that medical practices and facilities hire the right nurse to ensure quality patient care.

Here are essential tips to ensure that your facility hires the right nurse.

Hire the nurse that is the right fit for your team. Consider the dynamics of the current nursing staff. If you already have several big personalities, consider balancing this with someone who is quieter and more reserved. If you have a team of serious nurses, a bubbly or lighthearted personality might clash with this personality type. You want your nursing staff to work together, but also nurses that bring unique perspectives to their jobs.

Determine nurses character using behavioral questions. While it’s necessary to hire nurses that are highly skilled and educated on paper, it’s equally important to hire nurses that are quick-thinking, collaborative and compassionate towards patients. Using behavioral interview questions, ask prospective nurses how they handled their most recent emergency situation or even how they have dealt with co-worker conflict in the past.

Let nursing candidates ask questions. You want to make sure that the nursing position is a good fit for both the nurse and practice. Make sure that nursing candidates get enough time to ask their questions about the job. If candidates leave interviews feeling overwhelmed, they may not remain interested in the position. On the flip side, if a nurse asks more questions about specific skills for the job rather than focusing on patient load, this may be because he/she needs more experience.

Hire candidates that share the practice’s values. Despite a candidate’s certifications and experience, you need to ensure that a nurse shares your practice’s values. If a nurse is more concerned about promotions and being a supervisor rather than the position she is applying for, this may indicate that he/she is not a good team player and is only looking out for self-promotion.

Hire based on facility needs. Rural and urban area hospitals have very different needs. Urban hospitals typically offer more high-stress situations, requiring nursing staff to be quick and resourceful. Some nurses prefer a high volume caseload, while others prefer to take more time with individual patients. Assess what nursing candidates are looking for because sometimes jobs just aren’t good fits.

When hiring for your practice, it’s important to take your time interviewing qualified applicants to find the right nurse for the position. A qualified nurse is well-rounded and can handle difficult personalities and take charge when needed, but also excels at being a team player.

Ninja Gig offers online job applications. These custom employment applications make it easy for medical facilities to tailor applications to nurses, which in turn helps attract more qualified nursing candidates. Sign up today for a 30-day free trial!

How to Earn Employee’s Respect

Building respect is a two-way street – and one that both employees and employers need to reciprocate. Long ago, it was thought that respect was something subordinate employees were forced to give their supervisors. However, respect is a valuable – and necessary – way for employers to help build rapport in the workplace.

How can companies build employee respect? Ninja Gig will walk you through five essential tips.

  1. Authenticity – Practice being an authentic reflection of the company’s principles and values, while simultaneously having transparency and promoting justice.
  2. Ownership – Make employees understand that management values and deeply respects their thoughts and opinions. By doing this, employees tend to take a form of “ownership” and pride in the company.
  3. Potential – Develop employees’ potential and invest in helping them become better employees. By helping employees develop and achieve their performance goals, they will respect companies more and become more dedicated employees.
  4. Energy – Focus on creating an energized work culture that is positive, with energy that focuses on winning versus defending.
  5. Sacrifices – If sacrifices need to be made to contribute to the majority’s success, these options need to be weighed and tough decisions made.

Earning employee respect is the key to empowering employees. Employees that report feeling respected at work have higher satisfaction rates with their jobs, which equates to long-term retention and less turnover.

Ninja Gig offers the ease of online employment applications. Companies can easily comply with state and federal guidelines regarding maintaining job applications, while also being able to advertise on social media, the internet and other modern-day job sites to help attract the best, most qualified applicants for the job. Sign up now for a free 30-day trial and streamline your hiring processes!

Free software for non-profits!

Hey there everyone, I am using our blog as one medium to announce that Ninja Gig is now free for all charitable organizations listed on Publication 78, and the response has been phenomenal! This is a great opportunity for any charitable organization to use our great software at no expense.

If your organization would like to take advantage of this generous offer, please email me your EIN directly, and I will get you setup ASAP!

Top 10 Employment Tips

Whether you’re looking to hire for part-time summer help or an executive for a corporation, there are 10 employment tips that everyone needs to be familiar with, follow and abide by.

  1. Hire qualified applicants, train them to improve their skills and discipline or fire for documented causes.
  2. Never try to avoid paying payroll taxes, completing new hire paperwork or classifying workers as temporary or contract labor to avoid paying unemployment. If you don’t want to pay these taxes or deal with this paperwork, hire employees through a temporary staffing agent so they can process this paperwork.
  3. When conducting the new hire employment process, have new employees sign all necessary paperwork. Some states require that new hires and even rehires be reported to the Attorney General’s New Hire Reporting office within 20 days.
  4. It’s important to maintain a safe, healthy workplace that complies with OSHA rules and regulations. It’s important to keep the hiring, evaluation, promotion, transfer, discipline and discharge of employees fair, consistent and job-related. It is illegal to retaliate against employees that report workplace discrimination, safety hazards or other employment law issues.
  5. Have wages in writing with employees. For any specific wage deductions that are not authorized by law or court ordered, it is best to get written authorization from employees.
  6. Unless an employee is clearly a salaried employee and not subject to overtime wages, always default to hourly wages to avoid potential legal issues.
  7. Never advance money or make a loan to an employee without a written receipt and signed repayment agreement.
  8. If changing any pay or benefits, provide the employee with as much notice in writing as possible.
  9. Treat employees fairly and consistently to help avoid unnecessary claims and lawsuits.
  10. If addressing an unemployment claim, file everything promptly, present detailed documentation about policies, warnings and other pertinent facts and provide testimony from firsthand witnesses, if necessary.

Ninja Gig offers the ease of using online employment applications to help facilitate hiring qualified applicants. These online job applications are easy to customize so companies can add any necessary legal language to make sure they comply with state and federal laws. If you are interested in trying out our software for free, sign up for a 30-day free trial today!

How to Train Your Cleaning Service Employees – Part 2 of 2

Now that you’ve hired employees for your cleaning company, you need to spend the time to train them. When you properly train your employees, you automatically boost your employee retention rate because happy employees are likely to stay with companies longer.

  • Determine Learning Styles – Every person learns differently, which means that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to teaching. Some people are visual learners where as others are auditory learners and there is nothing wrong with either group. The best way to teach new employees is to utilize a variety of these methods, such as incorporating written and verbal instructions with demonstrations. See what works best and refine this method over time when teaching new employees.
  • Role Playing – To help train employees, utilize role-playing to practice and reinforce what is and is not acceptable on the job. Simulation is one of the most effective training techniques. This involves showing employees how to do a task and then allowing them to practice or repeat the task in a controlled, safe environment. If the job requires interpersonal skills, lead the employee through role-playing modules.
  • Be a Role Model – To be taken seriously, employers need to be good role models for their employees. Don’t take shortcuts or exhibit behaviors that you don’t want your employees to emulate. Role modeling is never a substitute for training, but merely reinforces the training you give your employees.
  • Training Opportunities – Always be on the lookout for new training opportunities to help boost your employees’ skills and performance levels.
  • Real-Life Scenarios – Whenever possible, use real-life training scenarios instead of hypothetical situations. However, it’s probably best to avoid letting your customers know if they are a training experience for your employees or organization.
  • Questions – Not all employees know how to ask questions, so make sure you anticipate in advance the types of questions that employees may have, not be comfortable asking and address them.
  • Feedback – Make sure that employees know you value their feedback. Let them know that you want to improve the training and techniques and that you open and appreciate the constructive information.

Ninja Gig offers the convenience of online employment applications. Online job hiring can be a daunting, overwhelming experience, but with Ninja Gig you can create a job application online that gets noticed by people looking or a job. Sign up now for a 30-day free trial of our easy to use application software and see how simple hiring can become.

How to Train Your Cleaning Service Employees – Part 1 of 2

Summertime is in full swing and chances are that your housecleaning company is in need of new hires. Perhaps you’re stumped writing help wanted ads, or you’re looking for a better way to attract prospective employees. Ninja Gig is here to offer you helpful tips on how to attract and train your cleaning service employees.

First, college students are great for summertime employees, and many may be willing to switch to evening or night shifts when school resumes in the fall. Additionally, if you can recruit college students part-time in their freshmen or sophomore years, you may be able to have part-time employees for the next four years of school, which is a bonus. Many mothers that have children are looking for part-time work year-round, which makes flexible residential cleaning shifts appealing.

You can also explore hiring temporary help or use an employment agency to find qualified employees. However, employment agencies may charge a substantial fee, which makes them less appealing for lower-wage jobs.

It’s vital that housecleaning companies are very particular about who they hire. Remember only to hire employees that you would trust in your home because your clients are trusting you to choose qualified people to clean their homes and offices.

When hiring applicants, make sure to use an online job application, which will simplify the process. Additionally, you can ask questions, request background check information and references via an online employment application. This will save you valuable time and money when advertising positions online and on your social media channels.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this article, which will highlight training your new employees so you can rest assured that you are setting your employees up for long-term success, which is beneficial to your organization.

Ninja Gig offers an affordable solution for online job applications. You can easily customize these applications, and since most housekeeping jobs are applied for online, you’ll be staying with today’s modern times and attracting the talent you deserve in your organization. Sign up today for a free, no obligation 30-day trial of our applicant tracking system and see how easy receiving and managing employment applications online can be.

Tips for Interviewing and Hiring Cleaning Staff

If you have a cleaning company, chances are that you know the challenges of keeping and maintaining good housekeeping staff. Furthermore, you probably dread the interview process. If you fear a mountain of paper applications and what types of questions you can’t ask, Ninja Gig is here to help you simplify your interview process so you can find the right talent for your company.

Here are some examples of interview questions and how to phrase them.

  • Illegal: How many sick days did you take last year?
  • Legal: How many days of work did you miss last year?

 

  • Illegal: Do you have a vehicle?
  • Legal: How will you get to work?

 

  • Illegal: Have you ever been arrested?
  • Legal: Have you ever been convicted of theft or fraud?

 

Here are some different, yet insightful questions to ask when interviewing potential applicants.

  • What type of books do you like to read? – This question can help you gauge an applicant’s hobbies and social activities without directly asking.
  • What was the last movie you saw on TV or in the theater? – This gives insight into their personal preferences and hobbies. If they give details about the movie, it shows that they have comprehension skills that may prove valuable when taking directions.
  • Tell me about yourself. – This measures how well an applicant does when put on the spot as well as how detailed they are in answering the question. Avoidant personalities may try to ask, “What would you like to know?” but that is not the question in this exercise.
  • What types of clubs or activities did you do when you were younger? – Children that are involved in activities may grow up to have a better work ethic. In this exercise, you are looking for team sports or groups, such as 4-H Club, etc.

 

Other interview tips include:

  • Telephone Calls – Conduct the initial interview via telephone. This can help eliminate applicants before they even see you face-to-face. Remember that applicants need to earn interviews. Even a three-minute conversation may be enough to ensure that the conversation is understandable and that the applicant is serious about applying for the position.
  • Interviewing in Groups – One benefit to interviewing in groups is that you can conduct your initial interviews in one session, which is excellent for time management. Additionally, followers in groups will chime in, “That’s what I was going to say.” These activities can also establish leaders and followers when identifying potential applicants’ personality types.
  • Meals – Interviewing the final round of applicants over breakfast or lunch is also a good option because you can see their manners and etiquette firsthand.

 

By employing these helpful interview tips into your next recruitment session, you can easily identify qualified housecleaning candidates for your company.

 

Ninja Gig offers online job applications, which makes it easy to avoid a mountain of paper employment applications. Additionally, you can advertise for open housekeeping positions on your website or social media pages, while complying with all state and federal employment requirements. Sign up today for our 30-day free trial and see how easily you can improve your hiring processes.

Is legal weed making it difficult for restaurants to retain employees?

Colorado has a food crisis. It’s not a food or crop shortage, but an employment scarcity. Local restaurants are having a difficult time hiring and retaining restaurant staff, and the reason is clear: pot shops pay double the hourly wage to care for marijuana plants.

While the government doesn’t have hard data and facts to back up Colorado’s claims, many in the Centennial State strongly believe that the reason Denver’s restaurant owners and chefs are having a difficult time hiring is that legal weed is a culprit in their lack of rising restaurant talent.

Marijuana growers pay entry-level employees between $12 to $15 an hour to cut, trim and care for their plants. That compares to a mere average $12.83 an hour line and prep cooks receive, which is still above Colorado’s minimum wage. Kitchen work does have physical demands and often requires constant juggling acts and multi-tasking in windowless, 90-degree rooms.

Instead, pot growers allow their employees to sit indoors in air-conditioned spaces while listening to music. Additionally, employees that are speedy and trim the pot plants in a timely fashion can earn upwards of $20 per hour.

As the need for legal weed grows in Colorado, restaurateurs are feeling the biting heat in their kitchens – delaying openings because they can’t find enough people to man the kitchens.

The National Restaurant Association confirms that prep cooks, line cooks and dishwashers are among the most challenging restaurant positions to fill. At the same time, Colorado is one of the top growing states for restaurant and food service positions over the next 10 years.

Servers that work at higher-end restaurants can make well above minimum wage, but because line and prep cooks don’t usually share in these profits, it’s leaving them longing for higher salaries and cashier jobs.

In 2010 alone, Colorado restaurants reported more than $8 billion sales with that number climbing to  $12 billion in 2017. This gave Colorado’s restaurants one of the highest year-over-year increases in the entire U.S.

While Colorado is seeing a massive housing boom and thousands of people are rushing to the state, it doesn’t appear they are going to work in the kitchens. Denver’s turnover rates are above the national average, which hovers at 28.4% and Denver is at 33.8% for kitchen staff. Whether this is just because of inexperienced or new personnel not working out or more people are embarking on pot growing careers, is speculation.

One way that Colorado restaurants can attract and retain top kitchen talent is to pay more than minimum wage. Additionally, offering on-the-job training is a great way to support employees having a long-term restaurant career.

If your restaurant is looking to hire top kitchen talent, consider using Ninja Gig’s online job application. Online employment applications streamline efficiencies and allow interested personnel to apply via your website or social media pages. Additionally, once they submit the information you can easily retain resumes and stay in compliance with federal and state laws.  Ready to give it a try?  Sign up for our 30-day free trial today!

Education Is Key: Modern Day Job Application Statistics

You want to hire the best, brightest talent available, which is why Ninja Gig has compiled some interesting statistics to help you find the best applicants for your organization.

  • 79% of job seekers are using social media to conduct a job search. For Millennials, this number increases to 86%.
  • Nearly 75% of people say their employer does not use social media to promote their brand or job openings.
  • 45% of job seekers use mobile devices to search for employment once daily.
  • Job seekers generally look at these five things when applying for a position: salary and compensation, career growth opportunities, work-life balance offerings, location and commute and company culture and values.
  • When advertising sales positions, 94% of sales professionals say that the offered base salary is more important than the commission structure.
  • Millennials cite these three important factors when applying for jobs: growth opportunities, retirement benefits and work culture.
  • 46% of Millennials left their last job because they felt there was no potential for career growth. This means that Millennials are more skeptical about employers’ claims about supporting advancement.
  • 64% of Millennials would be comfortable making $40,000 a year at a job they love than making upwards of $100,000 a year at a job they don’t find challenging. This means that 80% of Millennials look at a company’s culture fit and the people first, with career potential coming in second.
  • 69% of job seekers say that they would rather be unemployed than accept employment with a company that has a bad reputation. On the flip side, 84% of Millennials would leave their current job if a company with an excellent reputation offered them a position.
  • Companies that increase their employee engagement investments by as little as 10% can increase employee productivity by $2,400. Additionally, 70% of employees that do not have faith or confidence in their senior management do not fully engage at work.

Ninja Gig makes it easy for employers’ online job applications to get noticed on social media. Fully customizable, these job applications are a great way to comply with today’s necessary electronic recordkeeping requirements while making it quick and simple for applicants to apply for open positions.  Sign up for your 30-day free trial and see what our amazing software can do to help improve your hiring processes!