Last month, Top Echelon Contracting celebrated its 25th anniversary. And now, on the heels of our anniversary celebration, we have a special announcement: we’re now rolling out a new back office service called TEC Express! It can put more money in recruiters’ pockets and in many cases, the placements come together more quickly.

For the past 25 years, Top Echelon Contracting has helped recruiters make contract placements in the technical, professional, and healthcare arena. As the recruitment back office, we’ve handled all of the legal, financial, and administrative details of that service and consider it to be TEC Premium.

TEC Express = more money

With the addition of the new Express service, Top Echelon Contracting now has two levels of service. Those two levels are TEC Express and the service that we’ve been offering for the past 25 years, TEC Premium.

TEC Express is designed for contractors who are “office professionals” and would qualify for the Workers Compensation Code 8810 (or equivalent). Since the new Express service level is targeting only office professionals, we can pass more profit along to the recruiter. Express is also designed to streamline the placement process.

However, there are certain criteria that would exclude a contract placement from qualifying for the new model, but would qualify for the Premium service that we’ve offered for the past 25 years. That criteria is as follows:

• Per Diem
• TEC standard Client Services Agreements or negotiations
• End Client Agreements or contract negotiations
• Vendor Management System (VMS)
• 1099 IC or Corp/Corp Placements
• Visa or Immigration Processing (H1-B)

Employer of Record duties included

With Express, Top Echelon Contracting maintains the W-2 Employer of Record duties. Those duties include the following:

• Online contract employee onboarding
• I-9 and E-verify compliance
• Time sheet collection and processing
• Payroll funding and processing
• Invoicing and routine collections
• Employee terminations
• Employee benefits

To find out more about how TEC Express can help you, call (330) 454-3508 and press “1” to speak with a contracting specialist. You can also click the link below to sign up for a time to speak with a specialist.

Find out more about TEC Express!

If you currently place contractors or if you want to add contract staffing services to your recruiting business, then TEC Express could be the solution for YOU.

Is that a photo of California above? I have no idea, actually. (Stock photos are largely a mystery to me.) What I do know, though, is that the Top Echelon Network California Regional Core Group meeting is next month!

Something else I know is that attending Regional Core Group meetings in the Network are a great way to build relationships with other recruiters and make split placements. And that’s why, if you’re in the area, I encourage you to attend.

As you might imagine, I have some information regarding the meeting, including the location. That information is below:

Hotel Irvine
17900 Jamboree Road
Irvine, CA  92614

Here is some additional information that I’d like to pass along regarding this meeting of California recruiters:

• The date: Thursday, June 22
  
• The time: 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
• The cost: $55 per person
• Light breakfast and lunch included

The primary goal of Regional Core Group meetings is to network with other like-minded recruiters for the purposes of sharing knowledge and exchanging hot job orders and candidates. To that end, attendees will engage in both unstructured opportunities and structured activities that revolve around networking.

Our number-one, overriding goal is to get you connected with other recruiters within the same industry and/or niche so that you can make more placements.

Regional Core Group meetings are just one of the recruiter networking events that Top Echelon offers to its Network recruiters. We also have Virtual Core Group meetings, and of course, our annual National Convention and Fall Conference (which will be here before you know it). I recommend that you participate in at least one of these networking avenues. They increase your chances of making more placements in the Network. They can also result in solid trading partner relationships and even some friendships.

If you’d like to attend this meeting of California recruiters in Top Echelon’s recruiting network, then please contact me. You can do so at 330.455.1433, x156 or via email at drea@topechelon.com.

Quick quiz: what’s one of the most important factors in determining how many placements you make in Top Echelon’s recruiting network? The answer: your trading partners, of course!

That’s why we publish the names of new Network recruiting agencies in The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog. We want you to find potential trading partners, build relationships with them, and then make more placements. (It’s a rather simple formula.)

You can never have too many TE partners

Face it: you can never have too many quality trading partners in this split network. The more, the merrier! With that in mind, below are seven new Network firms that recently joined Top Echelon. Once again, they work in a variety of industries and niches, all of which see action within the Network. (Action = candidates, job orders, and placements.) The firms listed below specialize in the following areas, among others:

• Information Technology
• Sales
• Healthcare
• Engineering
• Oil & Gas
• Manufacturing

How many trading partners do you have in TE? How many placements have you made with them? Do you want more partners and more placements? Of course you do! (It’s like asking if you want to lose weight and become filthy rich at the same time.)

So reach out to the owners of the recruiting agencies listed below. Introduce yourself, ask about the biggest need on their desk, and then tell them what your biggest need is right now. Is there a particular candidate you need to fill a position? They might have that particular candidate!

After all, crazier things have happened.

— — —

CAREER PRO, INC.
Date joined: April 10
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina
Industries: General
Agency members: John O’Connor

— — —

STANFORD SEARCH PARTNERS
Date joined: April 10
Location: Los Gatos, California
Industries: General
Agency members: Melanie Marshall

— — —

THE STEWART GROUP
Date joined: April 10
Location: Jacksonville, Florida
Industries: General
Agency members: Jim Stewart, Brian Stewart, and Stephanie McCabe

— — —

BAKER FREYTAG RECRUITING
Date joined: April 11
Location: Westerville, Ohio
Industries: Sales, Engineering, Information Technology, and Healthcare
Agency members: Susan Freytag

— — —

PRIME CONSULTANTS, LLC
Date joined: April 11
Location: Eagan, Minnesota
Industries: General
Agency members: Brianna Malm and Megan Christine

— — —

PRECISE ROURCE, INC.
Date joined: April 12
Location: Westerville, Ohio
Industries: General
Agency members: Janis Mitchell

— — —

ENHANCED STAFFING
Date joined: April 17
Location: El Dorado Hill, California
Industries: Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Energy, and Engineering
Agency members: Geoff Eckert

— — —

It doesn’t matter if you’re a newer Network recruiter or an established member. If you want help finding trading partners and making more split placements, then I welcome you to contact me! You can do so by calling 330.455.1433, x156 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.

It’s no secret that contract staffing is on a growth spurt with no end in sight. Throughout the past few years, it has grown steadily and broken records month after month. We could give plenty of statistics to illustrate this growth. However, what you need to know as a recruiter is HOW companies are utilizing contractors and transforming the American workforce in the process.

Rather than using contractors sporadically in limited circumstances, they are building a new blended workforce model. This new model integrates integrating both direct hires and contractors as part of a deliberate business strategy.

Components of the new workforce model

This blended workforce model consists of a small core of traditional direct employees supported by a larger outer ring of contractors. The direct employees in the core are key personnel with the experience and longevity that can make or break the business. That makes turnover in this group highly disruptive. While the work of the outer ring of contractors is just as important because they are often responsible for day-to-day tasks and critical projects, turnover is not as big of a concern.

What companies like about this new blended workforce model is that the outer ring can easily be adjusted based on business demands. It can be increased during peaks and just as quickly reduced when economic or business conditions dictate. Companies are looking strategically at each open position to determine if they really need a direct hire or if the job is better suited to the outer ring of contractors.

This shift is largely a result of the most recent recession. This recession taught companies to run lean and limit overhead costs. As companies struggle with increasing employment regulations, additional taxes, growing professional liability requirements, and more, they are using contractors to continue matching workforce to workload to maintain costs.

One of those costs is benefits. Because the company is not the legal W-2 employer of its contractors, benefits for those contractors is handled by a third party (recruiter or recruitment back office).

Therefore, the company doesn’t pay the employer share of premiums. They also don’t have to deal with the mandates of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). That becomes the responsibility of the third party, which also handles all of the other employment-related responsibilities. These include things such as processing payroll, new hire paperwork, benefits, Workers’ Compensation, unemployment claims, etc.

Contractors: 40%-50% of the workforce

Experts believe the blended workforce model could be a permanent, structural change in employment. By 2020, many are predicting that contractors will comprise 40-50% of the entire American workforce.

As the popularity of this model grows, it will create a consistent need for quality contractors. To capitalize on this trend, all you need to do is offer contract staffing to your clients. Outsourcing the contract staffing back office to a service such as Top Echelon Contracting can help you do this with no ramp-up time, overhead, or additional staff.

By offering contract staffing services and aligning your firm with a reputable recruitment back-office solution, you can position yourself to be very successful in this new employment environment.

If you’re ready to add contract staffing solutions to your business model, then get started today with our FREE Quick-Start Guide to Contract Staffing!