Administrative Fee- The
additional fee charged to a client (subscriber) by a professional
employer organization (PEO)/staff leasing company to cover selling,
general, and administrative costs over and above the costs of leased
employee salary, taxes, and benefits provided.
Candidate- An applicant
for a job who has been pre-qualified for a specific position or a
general category of jobs. Also used to distinguish an individual from
a pool of unqualified applicants.
Clerical/Office Support- The
largest market segment for temporary help and permanent placement,
which includes secretaries, general office clerks, typists, word processing
operators, and data entry keyers requiring no professional training.
The standard definition also includes telemarketers, cashiers, product
demonstrators, and other related office occupations.
Co-Employment (Co-Employer)- Legally,
referred to as a "Joint Employer" relationship, co-employment
is often used to describe the relationship among two or more employers
when each has specific actual or potential legal responsibilities
to the same worker or group of workers.
Commercial Staffing- Term
often used to distinguish "traditional" temporary help services
such as office/clerical and industrial services from businesses that
provide more highly skilled workers in areas such as IT, technical,
accounting, legal, and other professional-skilled areas.
Contingency Recruiting (Search)- Refers
to exempt-level recruitment or executive level searches, with payment
of all (or most) of the fee contingent on the hiring of a referred
candidate.
Contract Services- The
provision of supervised services under contract.
Coordinator (Service Coordinator)- The
staff employee of a temporary help service who recruits and assigns
temporary help employees to work on assignment at the customer's site.
Cost-per-hire- A common
measure used in human resources to evaluate the average costs incurred
in recruiting and hiring new employees. Generally the equation is
total recruitment costs divided by total number of new hires. Typical
components of this measure include relocation costs, advertising/job
board fees, interviewing expenses, referral bonuses, recruitment staff
compensation, skills assessment and pre-employment screening.
Day Labor- The
provision of temporary workers to clients on a daily pay, daily availability
basis, often on a multiple worker basis. Day labor offices typically
provide unskilled labor and may include transportation to and from
the job site.
Direct Employment- A two-way
direct employment relationship between a worker and an employer, with
no third party broker or co-employer involved.
Direct Placement - The
bringing together of a job seeker and a prospective employer for the
purpose of effecting a permanent employment relationship, for a fee.
Also refers to the process of arranging such a relationship.
Employee Relationship Management (ERM)- ERM
applications work in conjunction with ERP systems, which hold critical
employee data. Through the Internet, ERM applications give employees
access to their own training, benefit and payroll information.
Employment Agency (Private)- A for-profit,
private entity that brings together a job seeker and a prospective
employer, for a fee, for the purpose of effecting a permanent employment
relationship. In a vast majority of cases the fee is paid by the new
employer
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)- The
federal agency responsible for administration of several statutes
that prohibit discrimination; has power to subpoena witnesses, issue
guidelines that have the force of law, render decisions, provide technical
assistance to employers, and provide legal assistance to complainants.
Executive Search- Refers
to the process of recruiting for exempt-level managers or professionals.
Flexible Staffing- A generic
term used to convey the use of various nontraditional work approaches,
such as contingent employment arrangements, planned staffing strategies,
or flexible work arrangements.
Form I9- Federal
form required of all appointees to verify their U.S. citizenship,
or if they are aliens, their eligibility for employment in accordance
with the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1986.
General Employer- A legal
term, usually referring to the staffing company employer in a co-employer
or joint employer relationship who is maintaining the employee on
a payroll.
Gross Margin- The
difference between the bill rate for the temporary services and the
direct costs of employment (pay rate plus mandatory benefits such
as workers' comp, unemployment insurance, employer's share of FICA
and state or local taxes and optional benefits) for each temporary
employee on assignment. A company's gross margin is the difference
between its total billings and its direct employee costs.
Joint Employment- Where
two employers exercise significant and simultaneous control over the
same employee. For example, when a temporary help or leasing firm
exercises control over personnel matters while the client company
exercises supervisory and workplace control. Both employers may be
liable for payment of taxes, workplace safety, etc. Such relationships
are sometimes not thought to be "joint-employment" relationships,
since the client company is indemnified from some liabilities -- but
since control is shared significantly between the general employer
and the client workplace supervisor, these may be considered "co-employer"
relationships as well.
Just-In-Time Staffing (JIT Staffing)- A loosely
used term that equates "flexible staffing" arrangements
with the concept of "just-in-time" inventory control or
delivery of parts for a manufacturing process. Rather than carrying
inventory (or permanent employees), arrangements are made with a supplier
to deliver parts (or help supply workers) just at the time when they
are needed in the work process.
Leave of Absence- An authorized
period of time away from work, without loss of employment rights,
that may be paid or unpaid.
Long-term Staffing- Sometimes
described as "facilities staffing" when workers from a staffing
service are conducting a specific function for a customer on an ongoing,
indefinite basis, it also refers to long-term assignments. Workers
are most commonly recruited by the staffing services, although the
customer, because of specific skills requirements of the positions,
may be in the best position to locate the worker or workers.
Medical Staffing Services- Within
the temporary help sector, this segment includes supplemental staffing
to medical facilities (hospitals, nursing homes, and outpatient clinics),
as well as the provision of licensed personnel (RNs, LVNs), trained
(medical technologists), and unlicensed staff (home health aides,
homemakers, personal assistants, etc.) to home healthcare agencies.
Off-Site- Business
services provided for a client (customer) at the service provider's
location, not at the client premises.
On-Site- Vendored
or outsourced services provided to the client (customer) at the client
site.
Outsourcing- Use
of an outside business services vendor (and its supervised personnel),
either on the customer's premises or off-site at the vendor's location,
to perform a function or run a department that was previously staffed
and supervised by the customer directly.
Partnering- Long-term
commitments focusing on "win-win" relationships between
customers and suppliers (or among suppliers) which add value to both
parties through increased sales, reduced expenses, and/or greater
productivity.
Planned Staffing- Contracting
for the regular use of temporaries to handle peak production periods,
seasonal activities, or special projects. May involve the supplementation
of a customer's permanent workforce, or the provision of a temporary
workforce to handle a project which occurs periodically.
Pre-employment screening- Pre-employment
screening services include background verification, drug screening,
skills assessment and behavioral assessment tools. A thorough background
screen verifies important factual information about a prospective
employee (i.e. identity, employment history, education credentials).
It also helps gain critical information about an applicant’s character
and past history that isn’t always apparent in an interview or application,
such as criminal history, credit history, and driving record.
Professional Employer Organization (PEO)- A staffing
industry service that assumes, via contract, a significant portion
of employer responsibilities and associated risk for either part or
all of a client's workforce.
Professional Staffing- A segment
of temporary help which includes professionals in the accounting field
(accountants, auditors, CFOs, etc.), legal (paralegals and attorneys),
sales and marketing professionals, and managerial temporaries.
Recruiting- The
process of locating and screening a candidate or candidates for an
employer as part of a search assignment. Also used to describe overall
general efforts to bring in temporary employees. "Recruitment"
generally implies the search for candidates who meet specific client
specifications rather than the marketing of available applicants to
employers.
Retained Search- Service
provided by an executive search firm to locate a candidate for a specific
position at a client company. Fee is payable whether or not hire is
made.
Short-Term- Refers
to a work assignment of limited duration. The duration implied here
is open to some debate. Most would agree that "short-term"
means employment of a year or less. Some companies use six months
as a cut-off for all temporary assignments; others use 1,000 or 1,500
hours to ensure compliance with federal legislation regarding mandated
coverages. The U.S. Federal Government in its use of temporary employees
provided by private-sector staffing companies allows a maximum of
240 workdays in a 24-month period.
Sourcing- The
process of developing lists of potential candidates for a specific
recruiting assignment.
Special Employer- A legal
term referring to the client employer's legal relationship to the
employee in a joint employer relationship, which usually includes
responsibility for day-to-day supervision at the worksite.
Strategic Staffing- The
pre-planned use of alternative or flexible staffing strategies by
the customer. May include the use of temp-to-perm hiring, planned
temporary staffing for work cycle peaks or projects, or payrolling,
for example.
Supplemental Staffing- The
provision of temporary workers to a client company to supplement the
current workforce for peak loads, special projects, or planned and
unplanned worker absences. Also describes the regular practice of
using contract medical staff in hospitals and other medical institution
settings.
Telecommuting- Working
at home, or at another "off-site" (satellite) location,
for an organization whose office is located elsewhere, with one-way
or (usually) two-way electronic linkage to that organization via phone,
fax, modem, and/or the Internet or a company Intranet. Home work may
be full-time, occasional, or a scheduled part of the workweek.
Teletemporary- Workers
employed by a Temporary Help Service, Contract Technical Service,
or other e-business service supplier who perform services for and
communicate with a third-party service customer via phone, fax, and/or
modem.
Temporary Employee ("Temporary")- An employee
who works for a staffing service fulfilling client assignments.
Temporary Help- The
furnishing of employees to meet the short-term and/or project needs
of another employer. Originally used primarily as replacements for
office or light industrial workers, temporary help has come to be
used across a broad range of skills and occupations to substitute
for employees on leave, on vacation, or in emergencies, or to provide
supplemental support where there are temporary skills shortages or
specific projects or peak load needs.
Temporary-to-Permanent- (Abbr.
Temp-to-perm.) An employment service concept where a client company
plans to make a permanent placement hiring decision during or after
a temporary help assignment. In a "temp-to-perm" situation,
only temporary workers who are also seeking a similar type of permanent
work would be sent on the assignment. Where a temporary assignment
"just happens" to "go permanent," it may be called
a "temp-to-perm" hire after the fact, but it is generally
not considered to have been a permanent placement.
Time-to-hire- A common
measure used in human resources to evaluate the average amount of
time it takes to fill an open position. This is normally measured
from the point the job request is submitted by the hiring manager
to the point the new employee walks in the door.
Vendor On Premises (VOP)- On-site
coordination of a customer's temporary help services through an exclusive,
long-term general contractor relationship with a temporary help company.
The designated Vendor On Premises may enter into subcontracting relationships
with other temporary help suppliers, or such relationships may be
specified by the customer.
Work Sharing- The
situation in which two or more workers may "share" one full-time
position at a company, often for the purpose of schedule flexibility.
The workers often stagger their schedule in order to meet outside
personal commitments such as family responsibilities. In other cases,
an employer, in lieu of a layoff, may combine two jobs into one and
retain both workers, each working a reduced schedule.
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