There have always been Trading Partners in Top Echelon Network who have worked extremely well together and made a lot of split placements . . . but none of them can approach the individual and combined production of Donna Carroll, CPC of Systems Personnel and Gary Silver of The Shay Group.

First of all, the two of them have now made a total of 40 split placements together.

But that’s just the beginning.  In addition, Silver is a member of the Network’s exclusive “200 Placement Club,” having now made 223 placements during his tenure as a Preferred Member recruiter.  Carroll, meanwhile, has made 121 placements in the Network.

As luck (and hard work would have it), Silver made his 200th Network placement with Carroll, and that happened to be her 100th placement.  Coincidence?  Maybe . . . but maybe not.

Here’s the interesting aspect of this great Trading Partner relationship: Carroll and Silver have earned a ton of money making contract split placements, one after another after another after another.  If you don’t think there’s money in contract placements, then check out what these two have done.

And then visit Top Echelon’s page for contract staffing recruiters, the recruiter’s back-office solution.  They’ll handle all the complicated back-office duties, so you can sip exotic drinks on the beach.  Because who doesn’t want to do THAT?  (I know I do.)

If you’d like to thank another recruiter for their efforts in a split placement situation, send your information to marketing@topechelon.com. Your comments might be included in an upcoming issue of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog!

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“Trey is great to work with and has a fantastic way of getting job orders in front of candidates!”

Submitted by Randall Hardwick of Avalon Recruiting regarding his split placement with Trey Cameron of the Cameron Craig Group

Position Title—ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Fee Percentage—20%

(Editor’s note: this is the second split placement that Hardwick and Cameron have made together in Top Echelon Network.)

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“Yahoo!  Another one with ‘Brother Gary.'”

Submitted by Donna Carroll, CPC of Systems Personnel regarding her split placement with Gary Silver of The Shay Group

Position Title—ECW Support Consultant
Recruiter $ Per Hour—$7.05

(Editor’s note: this is the 40th split placement that Carroll and Silver have made together in Top Echelon Network.)

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330.455.1433, x125
mdeutsch@topechelon.com
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(Editor’s Note: This is the next in a series of guest blog posts about contract staffing, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s back-office solution. Similar posts will appear in future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.)

There is a huge demand for healthcare professionals as the American population continues to age.  To achieve workforce flexibility, many healthcare providers are filling their open positions with contractors.  This creates a tremendous opportunity for recruiters who can work this niche.

If you place healthcare contractors, though, you need to take extra care to qualify healthcare contractors and take steps to protect your firm from liability.

Failing to handle healthcare contract placements properly could result in severe consequences for your clients, their patients, and the employer (which is YOU if you run your own back-office).

To avoid problems, be sure that you or your contract staffing back-office:

1. Have a Certificate of Insurance that includes sufficient medical professional liability insurance.

2. Run background checks and drug screenings on every healthcare contractor.

3. Have healthcare contractors sign a HIPPA Agreement stating that they understand and will comply with the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA).

4. Verify their immunizations, specifically Hepatitis B and Tuberculosis.

5. Verify that they have any required licenses and that those licenses are up-to-date.

6. Conduct an OIG/HHS (Medicare Fraud) Search.

7. Conduct an Excluded Parties List System Search (EPLS).

8. Conduct Bloodborne Pathogens training and testing.

9. Have contractors complete occupation-specific skills checklists.

10. Verify their CPR training and certification.

11. Conduct FBI fingerprinting if the contractor will have contact with children.

Instead of handling these extra tasks yourself, you may want to consider outsourcing the employment of your healthcare contractors to a contract staffing back-office, such as Top Echelon Contracting.

We conduct the tasks listed above on all of our professional healthcare contractors, and we recently expanded the types of healthcare placements we can handle. To find out if we can handle your healthcare placement, call us at (888) 627-3678.

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888.627.3678
dfledderjohann@topecheloncontracting.com
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(Editor’s Note: This is the next in a series of guest blog posts about contract staffing, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s back-office solution. Similar posts will appear in future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.)

One of the hottest areas for contract staffing now is healthcare.

To help recruiters capitalize on the opportunties in this industry, Top Echelon Contracting (TEC) has worked with our insurance underwriters to expand the types of healthcare positions that recruiters can place through our contract staffing back-office.

The expanded list of acceptable positions includes a greater number of Registered Nurse (RN) specialties, particularly in Pediatrics.

We can place RNs in the following areas:

We are also continuing to place a large number of healthcare professionals in the following growing positions:

TEC carries an extensive Certificate of Insurance that includes medical professional liability insurance.  We also run additional screenings, including drug screenings, background checks, license verification, immunization verification, etc., on all of our healthcare contractors due to the sensitive nature of these placements.

We place healthcare professionals in physicians’ offices, hospitals, outpatient clinics, and charitable and welfare organizations. We can also place professional healthcare contractors in nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, and home health environments.

For more information about healthcare placements, please visit our Healthcare Contract Staffing page. To find out if we can handle your healthcare placement or to get a quote, please call us at (888) 627-3678.

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888.627.3678
dfledderjohann@topecheloncontracting.com
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For years, The Cornerstone, the newsletter of Top Echelon contract staffing recruiters, was sent to the Preferred Members of Top Echelon Network.  The Cornerstone was eventually discontinued in favor of another newsletter, Contracting Corner, which is now published once a quarter.

However, we still run contracting statistics in select issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.  These statistics include Non-Split Contract Placements, Split Contract Placements, and Non-Recruited Placements, among others.

Below are the most recent statistics regarding contract placements made by Preferred Member recruiters, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting.

Top Echelon Network Preferred Member recruiters (like the ones listed below) have discovered that there’s MONEY in making contract placements, and you, too, can create additional streams of revenue by incorporating contract staffing into your firm’s business model.

In fact, many of the Top Producers in Top Echelon Network have added contract staffing to their firm’s business model and have also taken advantage of the services provided by Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s employer of record services.

For more information about the benefits of contract staffing and the services that Top Echelon Contracting provides, call (888) 627-3678, Ext. 2.

(Editor’s Note: This is the next in a series of guest blog posts about contract staffing, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s back-office solution. Similar posts will appear in future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.)

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a direct-hire executive, and able to leap big projects in a single bound, it’s the Supertemp!

That is the term that the Harvard Business Review used in its recent article, “The Rise of the Supertemp,” to refer to a growing group of executives who are trading long hours and stiff suits for more flexible, project-based contract work.

By working as consultants on a contract basis, these “Supertemps” have been able to do the following:

• Spend more time with family.
• Take a month or two off to travel.
• Skip time-wasting corporate meetings.
• Have more “fun” by helping other executives succeed.
• Choose what they want to work on and the people with whom they want to work.
• Free themselves from administrative tasks.

Of course, most companies are more than happy to accommodate executives who prefer temporary, contract work because it helps them stay lean and save money since they don’t have to contribute to plush executive benefits packages.

But that leads to a problem: executives who would like to go independent but can’t get affordable healthcare. As a recruiter, though, you can help solve this problem by placing these contractors and then outsourcing their employment to a contract staffing back-office, such as Top Echelon Contracting, that can provide benefits.

The opportunity is definitely there for recruiters who are willing to delve into this niche. According to the article, this trend, often know as “Executive Temping” is getting so big that some recruiting/staffing firms are focusing exclusively on placing executives as contractors.

Could you be successful at placing Supertemps? Well, if you have clients that need high-level talent and executive candidates who are seeking more flexibility, it may be something worth looking into!

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888.627.3678
DFledderjohann@TopEchelonContracting.com
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(Editor’s Note: This is the next in a series of guest blog posts about contract staffing, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s back-office solution.  Similar posts will appear in future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.)

As if the stock market crash a few years ago wasn’t enough to ruin many older workers’ retirement, USA Today is now reporting that many have not saved enough to cover the massive cost of healthcare they will have in their retirement years.

According to the USA Today article, which cites information from a Fidelity Investments study, retirees’ healthcare costs have increased an average of 6% every year since 2002. Healthcare expenses account for about 35% of a retired couple’s annual Social Security benefit.

Those who assume that Medicare will cover most of their healthcare costs are most likely in for an unpleasant surprise. Even with Medicare, the average 65-year-old couple needs around $240,000 to cover their medical expenses over the course of their retirement.

So what can retirees do? Well, according to the article, many are planning to continue working. In fact, 1/4 of middle-class Americans believe they will have to work until they are 80 to have a comfortable retirement!

Rather than continue to work a traditional job to keep benefits, though, they could consider a contract position. If they are employed through a contract staffing back-office, they could be eligible for healthcare benefits. And while they will still have to work a certain number of hours to maintain eligibility for those benefits, there may be more flexibility as to when and where those hours are worked than there would be in a traditional, direct position.

Many older workers are turning to contract assignments to gain more flexibility in a trend known as retiree re-staffing. With the rising cost of healthcare and the availability of insurance benefits through contract assignments, contract staffing may become an even more attractive option to retirees.

— — —

888.627.3678
DFledderjohann@TopEchelonContracting.com
Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn.
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(Editor’s Note: This is the next in a series of guest blog posts about contract staffing, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s back-office solution.  Similar posts will appear in future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.)

The Department of Labor (DOL) has released some new mobile and Internet Browser apps designed to help employees, but recruiters may find a couple of them helpful when negotiating pay rates.

These new apps are the product of online and mobile development contests that the DOL launched in July.  The “Labor Wage Statistics” and the “Occupation Wage Data” mobile apps both allow you to find salaries based on occupation, industry, and location right from your Android smartphone.

These apps do not appear to be available on the iPhone at this time.

A similar app for your Internet Browser called “Where are the Jobs?” allows you to not only look up salaries for specific occupations, but also see the top states for those occupations and the average number of jobs each state has in that area.  The OES Map Web app also provides wage and job information by occupation and state.

As a benchmark to begin negotiations for contractor hourly pay rates, you can divide the average annual salary for a comparable direct position by 2,080 hours (approximately one year) to get the hourly rate.

We’ve saved you some of the work by providing a free Salary-to-Hourly Conversion Table that you can download.

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888.627.3678
DFledderjohann@TopEchelonContracting.com
Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn.
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(Editor’s Note: This is the next in a series of guest blog posts about contract staffing, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s back-office solution.  Similar posts will appear in future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.)

According to a recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, companies are planning to increase their use of interns by 8.5% this summer.

The majority of these companies are planning to pay their interns, but if you have clients who are considering unpaid internships, this is a good time to remind them of the strict rules and risks of doing so.

In most cases, interns must be paid.  In order for internships to be legally unpaid, they must meet the following six criteria, as outlined in the Department of Labor’s (DOL) fact sheet on Internships Under the Fair Labor Standards Act:

1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;

2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;

3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;

4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;

5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and

6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

Over the past couple of years, the DOL has been cracking down on illegal unpaid internships, so it is important that your clients handle their internships properly. You may want to suggest that they hire interns on a contract basis and outsource the employment of those interns to a contracting back-office.

That way, they can avoid the risk of not paying their interns without taking on the additional costs (benefits, employer taxes, etc.) and administrative burdens that comes with making them direct-hires.

— — —

888.627.3678
DFledderjohann@TopEchelonContracting.com
Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn.
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For years, The Cornerstone, the newsletter of Top Echelon contract staffing companies, was sent to the Preferred Members of Top Echelon Network.  The Cornerstone was eventually discontinued in favor of another newsletter, Contracting Corner, which is now published once a quarter.

However, we still run contracting statistics in select issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.  These statistics include Non-Split Contract Placements, Split Contract Placements, and Non-Recruited Placements, among others.

Below are the most recent statistics regarding contract placements made by Preferred Member recruiters, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting.

As you can see, Network recruiters continue to make contract placements, they continue to take advantage of the steady cash flow that contract staffing offers, and they continue to add revenue to their firm’s bottom line.  You can, too!  All it takes is the decision to incorporate contract staffing into your recruiting firm’s business model.

In fact, many of the Top Producers in Top Echelon Network have added contract staffing to their firm’s business model and have also taken advantage of the services provided by Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s employer of record services.

For more information about the benefits of contract staffing and the services that Top Echelon Contracting provides, call (888) 627-3678, Ext. 2.

(Editor’s Note: This is the next in a series of guest blog posts about contract staffing, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s back-office solution.  Similar posts will appear in future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.)

If you’re running your own back-office and offering benefits to your contractors, it is critical that you’re familiar and compliant with COBRA. COBRA, which stands for The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, was enacted in 1986. It requires employers with more than 20 employees to offer continuation of health care coverage when an employee loses coverage due to status changes, such as resigning, losing a job, or having hours reduced.

In addition to requiring employers to offer continuation coverage, there are numerous notification requirements that come with COBRA.  For instance, you must send a notice to employees explaining their COBRA rights when they first come onto your plan, and you must send another notice when they lose coverage so that they know how to elect COBRA.

The Department of Labor AND the IRS regularly conduct COBRA audits (and enforce penalties), so this is not something you want to get wrong.  The IRS is actually making it easier to comply by publishing a checklist of items it reviews during its COBRA audits, according to Infinisource, which is the third party COBRA administrator that Top Echelon Contracting uses.  This checklist, which is called “Audit Techniques and Tax Law to Examine COBRA Cases (Continuation of Employee Health Care Coverage),” explains:

• Which documents the IRS typically reviews during an audit.
• How the excise tax for noncompliance is calculated and applied.
• How election waivers work.
• Key definitions.

If you’re running your own back-office and are required to offer continuation coverage under COBRA, you may want to check this out.  You may also want to point this out to your clients who have to comply with COBRA.

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888.627.3678
DFledderjohann@TopEchelonContracting.com
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