Refocused Efforts (OPINION)

The Staffing Association of Arkansas (SAA) recently underwent a rebirth, rejuvenation, restructuring and refocus.

We are currently rebranding the association to better focus our efforts on topics larger than the staffing industry. The focus is reflected in the new SAA mission statement:

“The Staffing Association of Arkansas understands the correlation between a strong and growing economy, and a strong and growing staffing industry. With that in mind, our association will focus on making improvements within our industry that will have a lasting impact, not just in our industry, but be felt throughout the entire business community.”

One of the main areas of focus of the revitalized SAA is to help job seekers realize the great value that staffing firms can provide them in their job searches. To spotlight this area of concentration, SAA has launched its inaugural “100 Jobs In 100 Days” campaign.

SAA plans to use this campaign to promote the myriad employment opportunities available via staffing firms across the state to those seeking new job opportunities. The goal is to place 100 job seekers in Arkansas to permanent jobs.

The initiative was launched June 30 during a press conference with Gov. Asa Hutchinson in Little Rock. You can find out more about the campaign at 100jobs.staffingarkansas.org.

The members of SAA want to use our association to educate job seekers and clients about the unique value staffing firms can offer to those outside of our industry — serving as a talent coach to job seekers and a source of jobs, and a strategic workforce partner to businesses.

We also want to expand on that value. In pursuit of this goal, SAA created a committee tasked with exploring ways that a staffing firm can partner with small businesses across the state to help them in their pursuit of sustainable organic growth by taking advantage of many of our already existing, complementary services, such as workforce recruitment and development, as well as providing assistance for an expanding workforce while providing a short-term source of workforce funding during crucial growth stages. We are developing new services that will benefit small businesses and they will be made public when they are finalized.

Small business development has been a passion of mine for some time, and in my role as SAA president (along with strong support from our membership) I have been afforded the opportunity to use this as a platform to provide a voice to that passion. As stated in our mission statement, SAA and our members realize that the success of the staffing industry is directly tied to job creation and sustained business growth across the state. If employers aren’t growing and hiring, our industry is not growing.

I have been in the staffing industry since 2006, and during that time I’ve received important insight about the challenges of operating a small business in Arkansas. Many of the clients at my firm, Go Ye Employment Services in the Fort Smith region, are small businesses, and I talk with them on almost a daily basis about their various struggles.

However, my firm isn’t the only one that works a lot with small businesses. The SAA’s interest in this area was inspired by these types of perspectives shared by small businesses to our members from all across the state.

SAA will find ways to improve our industry while continuing to focus on the positive impacts that we can have within our state. Our first step to accomplishing this is to remind job seekers across the state that staffing firms are viable resources in their search for employment — whether it is full-time, part-time, temporary or permanent.

Our second step is to remind hiring managers and business owners that staffing firms play a vital role in talent acquisition and strategic workforce management and planning. SAA members provide these services to any sized company with any sized workforce.

Miles H. Crawford is the CEO of Go Ye Employment Services in Fort Smith, which provides staffing and recruiting services throughout the state of Arkansas and Oklahoma. He can be reached at 479-782-4693 or by email at [email protected].