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Strategies for Managing Night Shift Nurses

Strategies for Managing Night Shift Nurses

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The 24/7 nature of health care means the need for night shift nurses will never wane, and many nurses find the evening shift to be an appealing, stable option. For managers, the challenge lies in effectively managing your night shift nursing staff, even with limited interaction.

In this article, we will uncover nurse self-management strategies and how managers can support nurses and optimise their shifts for the better. 

So, what constitutes a night shift? 

Although the length and times of a shift may vary by employer, most night shifts last between eight and 12 hours and fall between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. However, the unpredictable nature of nursing can sometimes cause scheduled shift times and lengths to fluctuate. Additionally, some nurses choose to rotate between overnight and daytime shifts. 

Before we can highlight the challenges and suggestions to improve the night shift team, let’s understand what working the night shift entails and what your staff need to do to maintain a good work-life balance.

The Challenges of Working Night Shift 

Though there are several benefits, there are some drawbacks to the night shift – it’s not for everyone.

Working at night opposes the body’s natural circadian rhythms. As a result, some night shift nurses have difficulty achieving consistent, sufficient, and satisfying sleep. Even if there is substantial time to sleep during the day, the body often finds it difficult to fall asleep during hours when the sun is out. Plus, obligations during the day, such as childcare or appointments during business hours, can keep night shift nurses from getting adequate rest during their hours off. 

If you don’t get good rest while working the night shift, you may encounter adverse effects, many of which can make your role as a nurse more difficult. According to the Sleep Foundation, a lack of adequate rest can lead to:

  • Slow thinking. Slow thinking can affect your ability to do your job properly, and quick thinking can mean the difference between life and death in some health care situations.
  • Reduced attention span. The inability to focus can make simple tasks harder to complete, leading to added stress during a shift.
  • Irritability, stress, and anxiety. If left unchecked, these mood changes can lead to long-term physical and emotional issues.
  • Worsened memory. A memory decline can jeopardize the safety of patients and professional success.
  • Poor decision-making. Fast decision-making is a pivotal skill in nursing. Preserving your ability to synthesize information quickly to make a potentially life-saving call is critical.

Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to cardiovascular disease, hormonal abnormalities, and mental health disorders, among other issues. Other reported disadvantages that arise from working night shifts include insomnia, increased risk of dangerous driving due to drowsiness, and a strain on familial relationships.

Despite these risks and challenges, many nurses prefer the night shift because it helps them maintain flexibility in their personal lives while positively impacting their patients’ well-being. Ultimately, working a night shift can be a rewarding experience for many nurses when managed correctly.

Tips for Night Shift Nursing

Ensuring that you have the support and self-care techniques to handle night shift nursing is key to thriving during the night shift. Follow these tips to keep yourself in peak shape while working the night shift:

  • Create a schedule and stick to it, planning activities that support healthy sleep habits.
  • Find ways to relieve stress to ensure that you get the best quality sleep possible.
  • Exercise often. Even just a walk can help your ability to sleep and decrease your stress levels.
  • Continue to pursue social activity and do things that bring you joy.
  • Maintain a positive outlook and take advantage of the benefits of working the night shift.

To thrive as a night shift nurse, it’s vital to plan and ensure restful sleep. Now that we have covered what the night shift entails for nurses, let’s take a look at the challenges and tips to manage your night shift staff effectively.

The Do’s and Don’ts for Managing Your Night Shift Staff

As a nursing manager or unit manager, you should strike a balance between being supportive and visible to your staff whilst maintaining good communication between both shifts to keep unit morale up and well. The last thing you want is your night staff feeling isolated and disengaged. 

If left unchecked you could end up with very different cultures between the same unit and potentially differences in practice.  At worst, it can lead to conflict between shifts that destroy unit morale.

The following are some dos and don’ts to consider in leading the night shift:

Do

  1. Keep in regular contact with the administrative supervisors who work nights to obtain their perspective on the functioning of your unit on that tour.  Ask them to contact you if they see problems that you need to be aware of.
  2. Schedule yourself to work all or part of the night shift quarterly.  Let the staff know you will be working and are there to listen to their concerns.
  3. Establish some protocols for what type of situations occur on nights that you want to be immediately notified about.
  4. Demonstrate gratitude for nurses who work the night shift and recognize the inconvenience and sacrifices they make in their personal lives.
  5. Monitor how staffing is done to cover night shifts to ensure that staff can get adequate rest between tours.
  6. Arrange periodic huddles with your night tour staff to communicate policy and practice changes and/or establish a unified communication group.
  7. Maintain ongoing contact with the night charge nurses for their input into unit decisions.
  8. Evaluate on an ongoing basis the workload on nights relative to admissions, discharges, transfers and workload.
  9. Ensure that you have night shift nurses who can serve as strong and positive preceptors for new graduates placed on the shift.
  10. Be proactive in managing any conflict that you observe between the shifts.
  11. Encourage healthy habits and be an advocate for night shifts in having access to cafeteria food and other amenities.

Don’t

  1. Assume that the workload on nights is easier.
  2. Ignore signs of extreme staff fatigue or sleep deprivation and whether it is safe for a staff member to drive home.
  3. Change policies or practices on the unit without input from the night shift.
  4. Let practices like bedside rounding be discarded on the night shift.
  5. Listen to gossip from your day shift staff about what happens on nights without involving the night shift staff.
  6. Place new graduates on the night shift unless there are experienced staff to coach them.
  7. Lower your hiring standards because you are desperate to fill a night shift position.
  8. Destroy your personal life by responding to regular texts at night or coming in early every day to handle the night shift – and then staying late.
  9. Tolerate a high level of absenteeism on nights.
  10. Forget to include your night shift staff in disaster and crisis training as many of these incidents occur during the night shift.
  11. Allow night staff to opt out of self-governance initiatives.

At most 24/7 units, between 30 and 40 per cent of your staff will work the night shift. Without active collaboration with their manager, they can easily feel they work in a different hospital than the day shift. It is your job to ensure this does not happen.

Night shift staff play a unique role in units to keep patients safe while the rest of the staff sleeps. They need to feel valued and respected for the work that they do.

If you are looking to source the best nursing staff to join your night or day shift teams then you should consider reaching out to Grey’s nursing agency to help find the right employee to join your team. 

Grey’s has over 40 years of experience in the recruitment industry and specialises in sourcing the best and most qualified staff for roles within nursing countrywide. Contact us today to learn more about our nursing recruitment.

7 Tips for Creating Effective Online Job Ads

7 Tips for Creating Effective Online Job Ads

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Sorting through job applications can be a tedious and time-consuming process, and there are multiple things candidates do in their submissions that add to the stress. Duplicate submissions, false documents, and template CVs are all potential errors that make the recruitment process more challenging than it has to be.

At MASA, we have experienced all this and more in our years of staffing and online recruitment, and here is one core lesson we can share: The standard of your job applications depends heavily on the quality of your job post. If job postings are adverts for specific roles in your company, it’s vital to make them as attractive, informative, and straightforward as possible.

Fortunately, there are some best practices you can follow to create job ads that drive better results for your recruitment. Join us as we step into the online recruitment process and explore seven actionable tips for upgrading your online job advertising strategy.

The value of job ads in online recruitment

Job advertising can seem like a very complex, technical, and sometimes rather dull process that requires employers to understand multiple aspects of online recruitment. Gone are the days when newspaper listings, word of mouth, and sticking printed job ads around the city were an effective strategy to recruit good quality staff.

We also live in a highly competitive economy where companies use the latest technology, including online job advertising and marketing, as critical components of their business growth strategies. In fact, 86% of HR professionals say recruitment is becoming more like marketing, highlighting just how essential ads are in the modern job market.

The shift to online recruitment has given job seekers unprecedented access to prospective employers and the ability to network, conduct research, and apply for the most desirable roles—all from the comfort of their phones or computers.

So, how do you position yourself to attract and hire top talent in 2022 and beyond?

7 tips for effective job advertisements

1. Start improving your employer brand

Before you even get to the actual job ads, you must take steps to improve the image of our company as a place where employees want to work. Why should you do that, you may ask? Well, 75% of active job seekers are likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its employer brand.

From social media, company websites, and review platforms, top candidates are going beyond job listings to learn more about the organisations behind them and whether they’re the right place for them. Employer brands show potential employees how their careers in the organisation will be, so make sure you invest in it accordingly.

Your website is the home base for showcasing your organisation to candidates and letting them know everything there is to know about it. The about us page should feature your company’s mission and values, as this instils the level of purpose that candidates will gain from working with you.

You can use social media to build an even more authentic image that connects to the candidate’s interests and career goals. This is an excellent place to create conversation with a job-seeking audience and share behind-the-scenes content from your current employees’ work life.

On the other hand, review sites are mainly out of your control. Past customers and employees will leave feedback on their experiences with your company, so building positive employee-employer and company-to-client relationships is essential.

Pro-tip: Ask for reviews from your best employees and customers. They can leave these reviews on company job boards where your organisation is listed, social media, or on recruitment platforms. These reviews will go a long way towards building a stronger company and employer brand that lasts.

2. Review your past job postings

You have a new vacancy you need to fill, and the job ads you created generated no responses or, at the very least, a few unsatisfactory ones. This is a good time to review your job postings to determine why they are not yielding the desired results. You can begin by examining your online recruitment efforts to outline critical details like:

  • The total number of job advertisements posted
  • Which platforms did you post to
  • The number of applications received on each ad platform
  • The number of job ads that lead to hires

The purpose of gathering this data is to identify any holes in the process that might cost you, applicants. By detailing where you posted your job ads, how many applications you received on each platform, and how many of them led to successful hires, you can see whether or not your current hiring strategy is consistent with the data.

For example, let’s say you have posted the same job advertisement on LinkedIn and Indeed. You can now measure the average number of applications each platform yields and determine which platform you hire candidates from on average. This will give you a clearer idea of where to improve or where you should focus your future recruitment efforts.

3. Use strong and relevant keywords in your job ads

Your job posting serves various functions, including demystifying a position, providing clarity, and differentiating one opportunity from another. In a market flooded with candidates looking for work, you’ll want to be the first recruiter to attract and connect with the most qualified candidates. What does this have to do with keywords?

A large percentage of job seekers search using only keywords. Incorporating words associated with your job in the title and description will make your job posting searchable via search engines. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a detailed and complex technique that top recruitment agencies leverage to improve the visibility of your job advertisements. 

This is only one small tip you can use to make your job ads more relevant to the job seeker and therefore appear higher in their search results.

Pro-tip: Avoid using keywords in your title that feature industry jargon or acronyms that may confuse applicants, like CoO (Co-ordinator) or HRG (HR Generalist). Instead, titles should include specific job titles such as “Sales Associate” or “Senior Project Manager.”

Partner with the pros

Ultimately, a lot more goes into creating a killer job advertising strategy. These are only a few of the many vital elements that are crucial to crafting effective job ads that are targeted to the right applicants.

If you want to learn more, you can connect with a staffing specialist to handle your company’s unique recruitment needs. MASA is a leading staffing agency with four decades of providing blue and white-collar staffing solutions to multinational corporates. We leverage the best-in-class technologies, techniques, and a comprehensive database of qualified talent to serve our clients the best in their industry.

Contact MASA today for industry-leading staffing solutions and expert consultation from trusted employment specialists.

Safeguarding Your Data

Payroll Security: 5 Tips and Tricks for Safeguarding Your Data

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Focusing on your payroll’s security is one of the best ways to ensure your data remains secure. We detail five tips you can use to improve your current process and ensure that your employee and financial information is safe.

What is payroll security?

Payroll security entails taking precautions to prevent sensitive company and employee information from being compromised by employees or outside actors such as hackers.

Processing payroll is more than just paying employees for their skills and expertise. It can be time-consuming and frustrating, especially with the threat of losing critical data along the way. That’s why employers must set up a secure payroll system to safeguard their company’s payroll and provide maximum security to the entire team. 

Common sources of payroll security issues include timesheet fraud, pay rate alterations, and data breaches—though the exact nature of these varies by the type of business.

If you take essential steps to safeguard your business’ data, it’s possible to create a secure payroll system using software or by partnering with an experienced payroll specialist.

Why Does a Payroll System Need Security?

Every payroll period, your company manages mountains of personally identifiable information (PII) on your employees. Your database is left vulnerable to potential hackers if you lack security systems.

A breach in payroll information can lead to more than just identity theft. In fact, a minor leak can lead to fraud, hurt your brand image and result in losing employee trust, confidence and loyalty. Smaller companies might be lulled into a false sense of security, thinking, “hackers have bigger fish to catch.” That line of thinking can come at a high cost. 

According to Forbes, payroll fraud occurs nearly twice as often in smaller businesses than in large organisations. The reason behind this is quite simple; these companies tend to have fewer anti-fraud controls in place, making them an easier target.

Unfortunately, payroll fraud is more than a quick cash grab. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) reports that payroll fraud schemes are the longest-lasting form of fraud, with an average lifespan of 30 months. Without proper systems in place, you could go years without ever detecting the ongoing theft of your data or money.

The Common Types of Payroll Fraud

Hacking isn’t the only challenge businesses need to be on the lookout for. Payroll fraud can result in significant losses to a company as well. Here are some more common methods of fraud:

  • Advance Retention – This type of fraud occurs when an employee requests a pay advance and fails to pay it back. Always review advances to make sure they’re repaid.
  • Buddy Punching – When an employee asks another to punch in for him and doesn’t report to work, this is another type of payroll fraud. Biometric time clocks can help eliminate this practice.  
  • Ghost Employee – Sometimes, an unscrupulous payroll employee creates a fake employee, doesn’t immediately delete a terminated employee or alters a payment record to change direct deposit information. Always be sure to periodically audit payroll records to prevent ghosts.
  • Unauthorised Hours – Hourly employees who pad their timesheets with unworked hours are committing payroll fraud. Ensure managers review all hours and don’t just issue blanket approvals.

The Best Ways to Protect Payroll 

1. Create strong passwords & set up encryptions 

Using strong passwords for their payroll software and computers prevents unauthorised personnel from accessing payroll data. A strong password contains at least eight characters, including uppercase letters, lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers.

Also, when creating a password for the computers and payroll software, companies should avoid using their names, birthday or a family member’s name. In addition, they should avoid using the same password for multiple accounts. 

Consider setting un encryptions on your payroll and date to add an extra layer of protection.

2. Separate payroll duties 

Companies can also protect their payroll by delegating payroll duties to multiple employees. For instance, they can choose different people to manage payroll, issue payments, review time cards, authorise payroll, and report payroll. This way, they will be able to deter payroll fraud. 

3. Restrict payroll access 

Employers should put one or two employees in charge of payroll processing to access payroll information and other sensitive data. This way, they will know who to hold accountable. 

4. Outsource Your Payroll Process

If you’re a busy business owner, it can be challenging to dedicate the time and energy necessary to maintain a secure payroll system. Likewise, you may not have room in your budget to hire full-time HR or payroll specialists. Hiring a third-party payroll provider can help you save time while ensuring your company is protected by comprehensive security measures.

That said, when outsourcing your payroll, there are a few important considerations to help you find the most secure provider. Here are some tips:

  • Ask about security features incorporated in employee time tracking processes
  • Confirm that there is a secure way for employees to access their payroll history
  • Research the provider’s reputation, including its handling of security issues
  • Understand the services offered by each provider and how they will integrate with your business’ other security measures
  • Balance your budget and your business’ payroll needs against the importance of a secure and reliable payroll provider

5. Conduct Regular Payroll Department Audits

Payroll audits help business owners prevent or minimise fraud and embezzlement threats while also ensuring payroll processes comply with tax and labour laws. In general, you should conduct a payroll audit at least annually, but quarterly or monthly mini-audits can provide more comprehensive insights into the health of your payroll system. When running a payroll audit, take essential steps, like:

  • Confirming employee information, including pay rates and pay periods
  • Spot-checking 5% to 10% of your employee W-4 forms to look for possible systemic issues
  • Comparing hours in payroll records to hours reported on timecards
  • Running a ledger report that shows every transaction in your company to ensure it aligns with payroll records

Benefits of Payroll Security Measures 

1. It prevents identity theft

Having a secure payroll safeguards employee information from identity theft. If payroll data is insecure, someone can access confidential employee information such as bank account numbers or social security numbers and use them for illegal purposes. 

2. It prevents jealousy and conflict in the workplace

If payroll information is left out in the open, it may result in jealousy and conflict at the workplace regarding salaries, bonuses, and benefits.

Securing payroll is the best way to safeguard this information and prevent the lower employee from getting jealous. However, it is worth noting that employers cannot prevent employees from discussing their salaries with each other. 

3. It protects tax and benefit information

Securing payroll helps protect vital company information like benefits and tax documents. Only the business owner is supposed to have access to such information. Hackers can access and use it against the company. 

Summing Up 

Hackers and other unauthorised personnel can access a company’s payroll information anytime if they are not careful. This can lead to a massive loss of personal data that can easily taint the company’s reputation.

Fortunately, payroll services like MASA have years of industry experience and high levels of security to ensure your information will be safe and adds a layer of protection to any company’s payroll information. 

Our in-house specialists process over 12,000 payroll transactions monthly worldwide through best-in-class payroll systems and develop custom reports to give you a detailed view of your company’s payroll. We also update and submit all the correct documentation to the relevant bodies, ensuring payroll compliance and reducing risk.

You can get in contact with us today to learn more about our payroll solutions!

Using LinkedIn for Recruitment?

Tips for Using LinkedIn Effectively for Recruitment?

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Social media has impacted society, industry, and work as we know it, with platforms like LinkedIn allowing professionals to connect, communicate, and collaborate in previously impossible ways.

To put things into perspective, 49 million people use LinkedIn to search for jobs weekly, while six people are hired through LinkedIn every minute. These numbers highlight the importance of LinkedIn in the modern world, which is why so many entrepreneurs, executives, and freelancers alike have made it their platform of choice.

Companies are also turning to LinkedIn to attract the right talent, build their organisations, and stay tapped into talent opportunities. Read on to learn more about recruiting through LinkedIn and tips for effectively using the platform in your recruitment strategy. 

LinkedIn for recruitment

LinkedIn is a business and employment service launched on May 5, 2003. With more than 850 million members, and 58 million listed companies, it has become one of the world’s largest business and employment networks on the Internet, bringing together professionals to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. 

Companies can use LinkedIn as a competitive advantage by leveraging extensive features such as job postings, profile searching, organic content, and more. This allows them to connect with qualified candidates, enhance their brand through professional content, and create a robust recruitment channel to attract top talent. 

The top LinkedIn features:

LinkedIn’s most valuable tool for recruitment is, undoubtedly, LinkedIn Recruiter—a robust, efficient recruiting tool to help companies proactively find and reach suitable candidates, using:

Candidate search: Recruiters can tailor their LinkedIn searches to find candidates at various stages of the hiring process, sorting by skills, current company, and more. The feature also comes with custom recommendations based on profile information. 

InMail messaging: Once candidates are identified, recruiters can send them tailored messages through LinkedIn InMail to follow up with them and schedule interviews. Recruiters can also get notifications on the go through the mobile app, so they don’t miss an opportunity to move a candidate along the recruitment process.

Recruiter projects: Recruiters can organise their work, track candidates throughout the recruitment process, and create team projects to manage hiring effectively.

These are all tools and features that function natively within LinkedIn, opening up exciting possibilities for a world where new technology helps recruiters to make better use of their time and resources. 

Tips for leveraging LinkedIn for recruitment

Update your LinkedIn company profile

How do you want your business to appear to prospective new employees? Most people would agree that you wish to present a professional page that clearly communicates your company’s values, interests, and information, though it varies by industry. 

It’s a good idea to regularly check your company page to ensure it’s still conveying your desired message. It’s time to update your LinkedIn Page to see if anything significant has changed or if the business has undergone significant changes. The recruitment process is aided by having a fully completed profile, especially if you’re using the network to forge new connections. 

Tweak your LinkedIn marketing for recruitment

You should have an active company profile to maximise LinkedIn’s recruitment opportunities. You can enhance your LinkedIn marketing by publishing relevant company and industry updates. Recruits and potential employees want to feel like they are entering meaningful work, so businesses need to establish themselves as authorities in their field.

Recruitment and marketing go together. You want to develop a brand image that resonates with your ideal candidate, especially in the current environment where top talent cares deeply about the company culture. Sharing relevant content will help you solidify your reputation as a forward-thinking business in today’s job market.

Establish and maintain valuable connections

Connections are essential on LinkedIn. The more connections you have, the more likely you are to find a candidate who is a good fit. Finding alums in your field or former and present employees is simple on LinkedIn, especially when user profiles are filled out with information about previous employers, skills, educational institutions, and associations. 

Having said that, you shouldn’t be the one to reach out to everyone in your field. Personalise each connection by mentioning how you met or why you want to connect. Look at the profile for 30 seconds to ensure your message is appropriate for the recipient.

Maintaining connections is an integral part of using LinkedIn. A new relationship is beneficial, but one that has been nurtured is superior. Share helpful articles in your area of expertise and interact with other people’s and businesses’ posts.

Encourage employee engagement

Once you’ve connected with former and present coworkers, it’s time to promote engagement through their profiles. Recruiters don’t have to be the only ones talking about job openings on the platform. The more employees mention their successes and experiences working for a company, the more brand awareness spreads to potential candidates.

Use an internal bulletin or newsletter with shareable nuggets of information to make it simple for staff to spread the news. This can include everything from significant business achievements to employee spotlights. Include links, graphics, and sample copy, and tell staff to tell their networks about it. 

When luring potential candidates, it’s important to remember the persuasive power of personal narratives through employee advocacy. 

Final thoughts

Global talent shortages and the emergence of innovative technologies and data-driven approaches are all part of the new world of recruiting. Strategies like LinkedIn recruitment can help companies explore new avenues, target non-traditional audiences, and reach out to candidates who may not even be looking for a job. 

Despite these benefits, using a social media platform for recruitment does have its limits, especially for employers that want to source highly skilled talent in their industries and at scale. Most companies investing in quality recruitment today require more than a one-time, skill-specific offering, so it’s wise to seek a more comprehensive approach that service providers can tailor to your needs. 

Connect with recruitment specialists

By collaborating with Greys Recruitment Agency, your company can access a larger pool of qualified target candidates than if you searched on your own. We specialise in sourcing the best candidates online by implementing cutting-edge digital channels, SEO practices, and push and retrieval technology.

As an experienced recruitment specialist in the country, we commit to conducting a thorough needs analysis with each client and working with you through every step of the recruitment process, guiding you to a successful hire.

Greys offers more than just recruitment. With services such as internal administration, developing workflow processes, training and onboarding new hires, and legal compliance management, we reduce the risks that come with recruitment while reducing your workload with cost-effective and efficient staffing. 

We are the agency to connect with if you’re looking for a holistic recruitment solution that covers every single step of the process, from contract to ongoing management, evaluation, and client satisfaction. Contact us to learn more about our solutions and how they can boost your recruitment game!

8 Ways Offshore Staffing Can Boost Your Business

Top 10 Fleet Maintenance Costs (and 5 Ways to Reduce Them)

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Running a truck-driven operation in today’s market presents several challenges on and off the road. With the growing driver shortages and rising fuel and vehicle parts costs, companies globally are reevaluating their trucking needs to keep their bottom line under control.

Transporting goods from point A to point B requires fully operational, roadworthy trucks, and the cost of maintaining a class 8 trucking fleet is on the rise. From engines and brakes to lighting and fuel systems, trucks are highly complex machines that need constant service and maintenance.

As a driving specialist with partners in transportation and logistics-driven industries, MASA has a 360-degree scope of truck driving and fleet maintenance scope. We have worked closely with companies hiring specialist drivers and the people behind the wheel to develop cost-effective operations.

So, let us highlight the top 10 highest costs associated with fleet maintenance and discuss five ways your company can reduce them for a higher ROI.

Top 10 highest fleet maintenance costs

As you’re well aware, running a fleet is an expensive business, especially if you have class 8 vehicles on the road. You must keep an eye on fuel, regular repairs, servicing costs, and hidden expenses. If left unchecked, these costs can quickly add up and cause even a well-managed fleet to lose its competitive edge.

According to a report by Fleet Advantage, the top 10 highest fleet maintenance costs include:

  1. Tires, tubes, liners, and valves (43% of total maintenance and repair costs)
  2. Preventive maintenance (12%)
  3. Brakes (9%)
  4. Expendable items (8%)
  5. Exhaust system (6%
  6. Fuel system (6%)
  7. Lighting system (5%)
  8. Cranking system (5%)
  9. Power plant (3%)
  10. Engines/motor systems (3%)

As you can see from the list, a disproportionate amount of money goes towards maintaining and repairing the tires of class 8 vehicles. Tires are a well-known wear item, with speed and road conditions being critical factors in tire wear.

The rest of the cost percentages may look small, but their combined numbers can add up to a hefty price tag every season. For example, preventative maintenance or servicing is a high fleet maintenance cost that appears regularly on the balance sheet. Instead of waiting for a truck to break down, companies can schedule monthly or quarterly service appointments to inspect, address, and repair it before issues become more severe.

Other core components like brakes, fuel systems, and engines all operate under the hood but are essential for the daily operations of a vehicle. Without these functions, a truck could break down just as easily as any other car. On the other hand, lighting systems outside a vehicle can create road safety issues and costly traffic violations if fleet managers do not inspect and maintain them consistently.

5 ways to reduce fleet maintenance costs

With all these maintenance costs considered, one can see how the initial cost of a truck is only a part of the total expense of owning and operating an entire fleet. There are numerous more factors in fleet maintenance, including hidden costs for unforeseen repairs, towing, and cargo damage.

How do you keep track of it all? This brings us to our first actionable tip for cutting fleet maintenance expenditure:

1. Track and analyse your fleet’s costs

If your goal is to save as much money as possible on fleet maintenance while maintaining a high-quality operation, it is vital to monitor your fleet’s costs closely. By pulling in data from multiple platforms, companies can gain full visibility across their fleets and identify ways to cut down on unnecessary expenses.

Fleet managers often lose sight of cost trends that keep getting out of control. There may be a budget in place, but that may not include the total expenses involved in running a fleet, especially with unexpected repairs thrown into the mix. 

You can also analyse your expenses in multiple ways to identify where costs are rising or falling and the opportunities to decrease your fleet’s operating expenses. Cost analysis also provides an in-depth snapshot of your fleet, enabling you to compare costs across the whole fleet and make proactive servicing and preventative maintenance decisions.

2. Develop a maintenance strategy

As previously stated, one of your highest variable costs is preventative maintenance. Creating strategies to reduce service costs is one of the most effective ways to improve your bottom line.

Taking a proactive approach to maintenance by adhering to the manufacturer’s recommended maintenance plan ensures that your vehicles remain in good operating condition. Creating service reminders in software alerts you to upcoming service tasks, allowing you to stay on top of routine maintenance tasks.

Proactively managing routine and unplanned maintenance tasks saves money and extend your vehicle’s life. By taking care of any issues as soon as they arise, you can avoid escalating problems and high repair costs.

3. Upgrade outdated parts

Replacing old parts is one way to give an old vehicle new life. This will lower your vehicle’s maintenance costs and allow you to get more kilometres out of it before replacing it. The initial replacement cost is often a worthy investment compared to buying a new vehicle or paying for costly repairs.

We also recommend that you conduct parts inventory management methods into your fleet’s maintenance schedule to ensure that the correct details are in the right place at the right time. Having the proper inventory for your vehicles helps ensure they spend less time in the service, that regularly used parts are always available and that you reduce the number of rarely used or obsolete parts.

4. Replace old vehicles 

While proper vehicle maintenance will prolong the life of your vehicle, it will not last forever. It will eventually cost more to maintain an old truck than to replace it. Tracking and analysing fleet maintenance costs alongside regular servicing can help you understand how much you’re spending on vehicle upkeep and know when it’s time to replace them.

5. Hire qualified drivers

A truck does not drive itself; it takes a driver’s skill to steer, control, and operate the vehicle safely. While there is inevitable damage that trucks can incur, how a particular driver operates the truck can make a difference.

Wear and tear on the tires and brakes are two of the top three expenses in the list of maintenance costs above, and driving methods impact them both. Qualified drivers receive training to improve their ability to control speed, turn corners without limited tire skidding, and brake correctly. Defensive driving tactics and safety controls are hallmarks of qualified drivers, and companies must ensure they hire the best people to operate their vehicles.

Hiring managers can effectively verify and ensure a driver’s qualifications by checking their licensing, references, and background. You can learn more about the value of licensing, experience and risk mitigation from our team.

Extra pro-tip: Manage your warranties

Good warranty management is a lesser-known but great opportunity for cost savings in fleet management. It’s critical to keep up with warranties, so you don’t have to pay for parts or services that are already covered; otherwise, you could be wasting money.

Driving with the best

Fleet maintenance is a critical investment for any company concerned with saving costs, increasing stakeholder satisfaction, and growing its business for the long run. Taking action on the tips discussed in this blog will ensure that your fleet operates at peak efficiency while keeping a healthy bottom line. 

Hiring qualified, skilled drivers is yet another vital investment your organisation can make to increase the reliability and cost-effectiveness of your operations. By partnering with MASA, you can rest assured knowing you have the best drivers behind the wheel and outsourcing specialists on call as needed.

Contact us today to learn more about temporary and permanent drivers for hire.

8 Ways Offshore Staffing Can Boost Your Business

8 Ways Offshore Staffing Can Boost Your Business

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Outsourcing is nothing new in South Africa, and many businesses outsource in one form or another. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding which form of outsourcing is better between onshore and nearshore. We say it depends on your company’s needs. 

The South African business process outsourcing market is projected to reach USD 3.6 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 13.2% during the forecast period. These statistics make you wonder why outsourcing offshore to South Africa is a choice for many businesses abroad. 

In this article, we will dive into the critical details and forms of outsourcing, why companies abroad choose Offshore staffing, and finally, the benefits of doing so. Let’s look at the different types of outsourcing you may encounter.

What Is Onshore Outsourcing?

Onshoring means outsourcing your project or work to a company in your own country. This transfer is usually reserved for non-metropolitan areas where the cost of living and wages are lower than in metropolitan areas.

Cutting down expenses and costs is not necessarily the priority of companies that use an onshore outsourcing approach. US companies, for instance, use onshore outsourcing when they want to maintain high-quality output.

Onshore outsourcing doesn’t come with risks such as foreign labor taxing policies or cultural differences that are often a factor with offshore and even nearshore outsourcing. However, it is a little-used practice, especially in tech industries like IT, because there is not a lot of financial benefit for the business that outsources the jobs.

What Is Nearshore Outsourcing?

Nearshoring means outsourcing your project or work to a company from a nearby country. For instance, if a business based in the US outsources its processes to Mexico or Columbia.

Potential travels and face-to-face meetings come at a lower cost than offshore outsourcing to faraway regions. Nearshore outsourcing also enables more control and facilitates cooperation between the outsourcing business and the outsourcing partner that does the work.

Also, significant cultural and linguistic compatibility reduces the chances of misunderstanding and facilitates the coordination of work. Nearshoring potentially maximizes business efficiency and reduces the barriers of traditional offshoring.

What Is Offshore Outsourcing?

Offshore outsourcing or offshoring is the most budget-friendly outsourcing approach. Offshoring is outsourcing business and work processes to companies, vendors, or individuals in distant countries with low expenses and a great talent pool.

Usually, these destinations include countries in Eastern Europe, East, and South Asia, including China, India, and the Philippines, or from Africa to countries like South Africa. Offshoring is similar to nearshoring in many regards, only without proximity restrictions – however, this method comes with a more extensive degree of cultural and linguistic differences. 

Also, time zone differences play a significant role in the functioning of the work. With offshore outsourcing, you can build a business team of full-time employees that function relatively independently but with a specific control established via video calls and regular communication via email and messenger services.

Offshoring allows businesses that outsource their processes to handpick their employees with no geographical limits that will collaborate with the in-house team on projects and keep the work results consistent.

So, how do you pick the right outsourcing strategy?

As mentioned earlier, everything depends on your business’s needs and vision. There is no one size fits all approach. We will focus more on offshore outsourcing/ staffing and what the benefits are and what it may entail.

What are your options when looking to outsource offshore?

Offshore staffing is a process through which companies can hire and build a team of provisional workers overseas. In other words, organizations engage in offshore team hiring when they build a development center abroad and hire a team of employees from the same country. 

There are essentially two ways of hiring remote staff. You can either do it yourself or approach an offshore staffing agency that offers offshore staffing solutions to various businesses, irrespective of their size. Some common offshore outsourced services are creative tasks, data processing, IT software and development, customer care services, accounting, etc.

Here are 8 ways offshore staffing can boost your business

Offshore staffing can result in numerous benefits for a business. Some of them are:

1. Cost Efficiency:

The most common reason why companies opt for offshore staffing is that it results in cost savings. Since the world has become a global village, hiring remote staff is no longer difficult and costly. The cost of hiring an employee with a particular set of skills varies globally depending on the strength of the host country’s economy, international business regulations, workforce availability, etc. 

Offshore staffing companies usually offer highly qualified professionals at a lower cost. For example, an American company will likely pay USD 25 per hour to hire a local entry-level employee. On the other hand, it can employ the same skill set at a mere cost of USD 4 per hour in the Philippines. Therefore, offshore staffing results in high operational and labor costs.

2. Release resources and time:

Offshore team hiring can help free up your internal resources and invest your valuable time in strategic areas of the business. For instance, if you hire an offshore staffing agency, you will receive services like recruitment, training, managing, payroll, accounting, technical support, etc.

In short, they will take care of most human resource functions in their home country. Hence, you will get more time to focus your resources and energy on the core areas of your business rather than getting engaged in hiring, managing, and housing your employees. This helps in increasing the efficiency of your in-house activities.

3. Get access to the most talented professionals:

It is possible that you can’t find candidates with the required skill set in your own country. That should not stop you from building your ideal team. You can quickly access highly qualified professionals in different countries through offshore staffing. These people will act as a cost-effective extension to your internal team and provide services that will help grow the business further.

4. Retain control:

Unlike outsourcing, offshore team hiring allows you to remain the boss of your team. Thanks to technological developments, you can effectively manage and communicate with your remote team workers despite the distance involved. You will still be responsible for assigning tasks to the remote workers and getting regular reports for them.

5. Continuous operations:

Another advantage of offshore staffing is that your business operations would not be affected by any crisis in your home country. For instance, a natural disaster in Canada will surely hamper regular business activities for some time. But if the company has overseas staff unaffected by the disaster, business continuity will remain intact. In fact, you will get trained and highly skilled individuals who can also manage the workload of the affected employees. Offshore staffing thus, helps you ensure sustainable growth for your company without overspending.

6. Work 24/7:

Remote staffing allows companies to operate 24 hours due to the difference in time zones. While your employees in the home country sleep, staff members in other countries work. A large number of companies in the US use offshore staffing to leverage this particular benefit. They hire workers in countries like South Africa, the Philippines, India, China, and Australia that have a time gap of a minimum of 12 hours.

7. Business expansion:

Since offshoring helps free up internal resources such as infrastructure, you can use the released assets to expand your business. Offshore hiring also reduces the chances of losing potential clients because of the heavy workload as the work is distributed among many across time zones. While offshore hiring supports business expansion, the opposite is also true. When your business grows, you will need access to more professionals to control the demand and manage the piling work. 

8. Earn higher profits:

Offshore hiring reduces costs, releases strategic resources, and helps businesses establish a global presence. It also enables them to access a highly skilled talent pool and work for longer durations. Companies not only earn high returns due to low labor costs, but also the cost of technologies is lower in the offshore countries. All these factors result in low cost of production, higher productivity, and thus, higher profitability. 

That’s a wrap

The decision to offshore depends on your operations’ size, complexity, and scope of work. But looking at the massive expansion of companies that are looking for professional staffing solutions, offshoring will be one of the most compelling strategies for business development for many years to come.

Stay ahead of your competition and outsource the right way with the right staffing solutions partner. At MASA, we aim to bridge the gap between our customers’ needs and talent shortages. Our growing team of in-house experts can partner with you for any project and help achieve your business goals. With over 40 years of industry experience, we are ready to support and empower your company with temporary and permanent staffing solutions.

If interested, you can reach out to us for more info about how we can help you.

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7 Tips for Retaining Top White-Collar Talent

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Employee retention is the heartbeat of productivity in every business. Irrespective of the size and type of your company, turnover is a big disaster to handle. From manufacturing to sales or even those in senior management positions, employees must be trained and familiar with their job routines to perform excellently, which calls for effective talent retention. 

It’s also no secret that retention is a growing problem. By 2023, researchers estimate that 1 in 3 employees will voluntarily quit. The context of this alarming projection is a decade of rising year-on-year churn. Churn isn’t cheap – when employees leave, there are several costs employers are left to absorb, from dampened team morale to lost productivity to the cost of recruiting. 

Before we move on, let’s understand the difference between a blue-collar and a white-collar worker. 

Blue collar meaning

Blue collar workers are those who perform manual labour. The name came from the early 20th century when these workers wore resistant fabrics of darker colours (e.g. blue denim or blue uniforms). They preferred these clothes because they usually got them dirty at work and often couldn’t afford to wash them frequently because of low wages.

White collar meaning

White collar workers are those who work in an office. The name comes from older times, too, when office workers usually wore white, collared shirts at work (some of them still do). The writer Upton Sinclair was the one who coined this term. White collar jobs examples include bank employees, people in finance jobs, or administrative assistants.

So, what is the difference between white collar and blue collar?

Based on their definitions, there are several differences between these two types of workers:

  • Work setting. The most obvious one is that a white-collar worker works at an office, while blue-collar workers can work in various non-office locations, such as construction sites, production lines, on the road etc.
  • Type of labour. While white-collar workers may often use their hands to do their job (e.g. data entry clerk), they often don’t rely on their physical abilities as blue-collar workers do. Manual labour is a characteristic of blue-collar jobs.
  • Pay. White-collar jobs tend to pay better than blue-collar jobs. But, there are exceptions – for example, a skilled machine operator might make more money than a bank teller.
  • Education. Many white-collar jobs require degrees, so workers in these professions are usually more educated than blue-collar workers.
  • Legal regulations. Often there were specific laws for each.

Whether a white-collar or blue-collar worker, employees will assess their options when continuing with an employer and reevaluate their contract when unhappy. Is there a way to stop this rising global trend in its tracks? Read on for seven insights on how to curb churn and retain top white-collar talent.

So, how do you retain your top white-collar talent?

Tip 1: Recognize employees

Encouraging employees to acknowledge each other’s successes can increase mutual gratitude and, along with it, job satisfaction. Unlocking employee satisfaction safeguards against turnover.

As someone in HR or upper management, this is the first step to ensuring inter-connectivity between you and your team members, which often means they will think twice before moving on.

Tip 2: Invest in wellbeing

According to a 2019 Gallup study, 28% of full-time employees reported feeling burned out at work “very often” or “always.” Burnout is unmanaged workplace stress that negatively impacts individuals, leading to depletion, mental distance from their job and reduced efficiency.  

Chronic burnout leads to higher rates of absenteeism and, if left unchecked, eventual turnover. Burned-out employees are 2.6 times more likely to seek another job than their non-burned-out counterparts.  

Investing in employee wellbeing is key to mitigating churn. It’s imperative to prioritise wellness in our current climate, where an ‘always on’ work culture poses an invisible threat to organisations.

As wellbeing is holistic, employers must tackle it holistically. One-off gestures or health-related initiatives are only part of the picture – a fruit basket in the office or gifts given in isolation are insufficient to remedy a heightened state of mental stress alone. 

Tip 3: Provide training and development opportunities

“At the beginning of the year, we published our study on Employee Turnover and the reasons why people decide to quit their jobs…We found that a staggering 83% of people would consider quitting their job because of no progression, making it the no1 reason which would lead someone to resign” – Stavros Triseliotis, Insights & Communications Specialist, CareerAddict.

 But “annual, or even quarterly, training events will simply no longer cut it in this new paradigm”. Instead, to secure success, “employers need to be strategic, intentional, and proactive about informal learning”.

So what does a quality training program look like? Identifying individuals’ knowledge gaps and creating learning material that bridges these gaps is only the first step in the process. 

Employees don’t just want to “learn” but to “continue iterating their skills and knowledge base”. Learning, development, and training must be ongoing to satisfy employees’ drive to grow. Learning is not a one-off event – it’s a lifelong journey – so avoid approaching this way to keep feelings of stagnancy at bay.

Tip 4: Seek feedback and check-in

“Frequently assessing the pulse and temperature of employees through impactful workplace surveys is one way to hear first-hand what’s on the minds of employees. Managers should check in with their employees often to offer and improve support. With COVID, many employees are feeling an abundance of stress and anxiety.” – Tawanda Johnson, Human Resources Thought Leader.

The importance of empowering employees with a voice can’t be overstated. Those who feel heard are 4.6 times more likely to perform at their very best. 

Feedback doesn’t just improve an employee’s satisfaction, performance and loyalty. It also gives you the information necessary to keep improving your employee experience, whether in the form of new well-being-based initiatives or streamlining your continuous learning program in line with identified knowledge gaps.

Tip 5: Create a sense of community

Workplaces with a strong sense of community and high employee retention are closely linked. 51% of employees who reported having a “best friend” at their workplace also reported feeling connected to their company and working with passion, compared with only 20% of those who didn’t.

75% who had a best friend at work also planned to be with the company for at least another year, compared with 51% who didn’t.  

This exemplifies the importance of community in anchoring employees, instilling a sense of belonging and loyalty. Team building activities play an integral part in creating community; they don’t need to be carried out in person to foster tight-knit team dynamics.

Tip 6: Align people around a central vision

Your vision and mission statement is your company’s reason for being. Companies rated highly on ‘purposeful mission’ see 49% lower attrition.

Your employees can’t derive a sense of purpose or meaning from their work if they aren’t sure of their reason for being there or if you have failed to communicate it adequately as their employer. 

A strong, clearly communicated vision and mission better bond employees to both company and each other by uniting everyone around a shared ‘North Star’. These bonding forces are also an opportunity to hammer home your competitive edge – which is a  reason for being that helps you outshine competitors.

Tip 7: Reward hard work… pay your employees well

You can give employees tangible or intangible rewards to incentivise them or express your gratitude for a job well done. Tangible rewards can encompass financial compensation, while intangible rewards can encompass words of affirmation or managerial praise. 

The most appropriate reward to give will depend on the outcome you are looking to achieve. For example, a gift card or referral bonus would be a short-term motivator as this can only inspire loyalty and incentivise employees up until the point of monetary exchange. 

Alternatively, tangible rewards must be recurring if you seek to ensure longer-term loyalty. Employers could achieve a similar effect by giving employees a stake in the company by offering stock options. This reward tangibly connects their success to yours, motivating them to stay and work harder to raise their stock value.  

The takeaway…

Recognition, wellbeing, ongoing training, seeking feedback, reinforcing your vision, building community and rewarding employees are all tried and tested strategies for improving employee retention rates.

They are the skills required to make any of these initiatives successful and are actually at the heart of improving employee retention. Employees are a company’s lifeblood, and your company would cease to exist without their combined efforts and spirit. 

Your success is merely a reflection of theirs, so focus on facilitating their success first, and the company’s will follow as a natural by-product. What do your employees want? Once you know the answer to this, how best to retain them becomes a breeze. 

If you need assistance with employee management, staffing and handling all administrative tasks that keep your company moving forward – MASA is here for you. We have over 40 years of experience in temporary and permanent staffing with the expertise to boost your talent while fostering healthy retention. Contact us today to learn more about our staffing solutions.