BarryStaff Inc. Selected as Google’s Featured Business

Featured Business
BARRYSTAFF

Dayton, Ohio
“Our Internet presence was absolutely crucial for us, coming out of the recession”

Doug Barry, Owner
25% annual growth since 2009

Founded as a family-owned staffing franchise in 1980, BARRYSTAFF became an independent company with a new name in 2000. Today they specialize in industrial, clerical and permanent placements. “Most of the staffing we do is in manufacturing,” says Doug Barry, owner of the Dayton-based company founded by his parents. As one of the few local staffing companies left in the area following the recent recession, “we picked up a lot of the work from our competitors who went out of business,” he notes. Doug credits their current growth in large part to the Internet and digital tools from Google.

Doug rebranded BARRYSTAFF in 2010. “We have had to change our total strategy on how we go out and sell, based on social media and the Internet—which has been good,” he explains. Google is part of that strategy. The company uses Google Maps for “getting people from point A to point B, not only to our office but also from their house to the job site.” Employees use Gmail and Google Calendar to keep up-to-date, and Google Search to stay current with both clients and prospects. The staff is also mobile, equipped with smartphones and tablets for complete access to all of their digital tools from anywhere. The company plans to create training videos on YouTube, and to use social media to attract new workers as well as new clients.

Manufacturing is on the rebound in Ohio, Doug says. With fewer local staffing resources available, “companies were looking around for someone who could pick up the slack. We had an Internet presence, and that is where a lot of them found us. It was absolutely crucial for us coming out of the recession, and it has helped us with our growth going forward.” BARRYSTAFF now has four locations—another good economic sign for the Buckeye State.

Check out the story on Google

 

St Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17, the saint’s religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for over 1,000 years. On St. Patrick’s Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink and feast–on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.

St. Patrick and the First St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Saint Patrick, who lived during the fifth century, is the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland. Born in Roman Britain, he was kidnapped and brought to Ireland as a slave at the age of 16. He later escaped, but returned to Ireland and was credited with bringing Christianity to its people. In the centuries following Patrick’s death (believed to have been on March 17, 461), the mythology surrounding his life became ever more ingrained in the Irish culture: Perhaps the most well known legend is that he explained the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) using the three leaves of a native Irish clover, the shamrock.
Since around the ninth or 10th century, people in Ireland have been observing the Roman Catholic feast day of St. Patrick on March 17. Interestingly, however, the first parade held to honor St. Patrick’s Day took place not in Ireland but in the United States. On March 17, 1762, Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City. Along with their music, the parade helped the soldiers reconnect with their Irish roots, as well as with fellow Irishmen serving in the English army.

Growth of St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations

Over the next 35 years, Irish patriotism among American immigrants flourished, prompting the rise of so-called “Irish Aid” societies like the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society. Each group would hold annual parades featuring bagpipes (which actually first became popular in the Scottish and British armies) and drums.
In 1848, several New York Irish Aid societies decided to unite their parades to form one official New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Today, that parade is the world ‘s oldest civilian parade and the largest in the United States, with over 150,000 participants. Each year, nearly 3 million people line the 1.5-mile parade route to watch the procession, which takes more than five hours. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Savannah also celebrate the day with parades involving between 10,000 and 20,000 participants each.

St. Patrick’s Day, No Irish Need Apply and the “Green Machine”

Up until the mid-19th century, most Irish immigrants in America were members of the Protestant middle class. When the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland in 1845, close to 1 million poor and uneducated Irish Catholics began pouring into America to escape starvation. Despised for their alien religious beliefs and unfamiliar accents by the American Protestant majority, the immigrants had trouble finding even menial jobs. When Irish Americans in the country’s cities took to the streets on St. Patrick’s Day to celebrate their heritage, newspapers portrayed them in cartoons as drunk, violent monkeys.
The American Irish soon began to realize, however, that their large and growing numbers endowed them with a political power that had yet to be exploited. They started to organize, and their voting block, known as the “green machine,” became an important swing vote for political hopefuls. Suddenly, annual St. Patrick’s Day parades became a show of strength for Irish Americans, as well as a must-attend event for a slew of political candidates. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman attended New York City ‘s St. Patrick’s Day parade, a proud moment for the many Irish Americans whose ancestors had to fight stereotypes and racial prejudice to find acceptance in the New World.

The Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day

As Irish immigrants spread out over the United States, other cities developed their own traditions. One of these is Chicago’s annual dyeing of the Chicago River green.  The practice started in 1962, when city pollution-control workers used dyes to trace illegal sewage discharges and realized that the green dye might provide a unique way to celebrate the holiday. That year, they released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye into the river–enough to keep it green for a week! Today, in order to minimize environmental damage, only 40 pounds of dye are used, and the river turns green for only several hours.
Although Chicago historians claim their city’s idea for a river of green was original, some natives of Savannah, Georgia (whose St. Patrick’s Day parade, the oldest in the nation, dates back to 1813) believe the idea originated in their town. They point out that, in 1961, a hotel restaurant manager named Tom Woolley convinced city officials to dye Savannah’s river green. The experiment didn’t exactly work as planned, and the water only took on a slight greenish hue. Savannah never attempted to dye its river again, but Woolley maintains (though others refute the claim) that he personally suggested the idea to Chicago’s Mayor Richard J. Daley.

St. Patrick’s Day Around the World

Today, people of all backgrounds celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, especially throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. Although North America is home to the largest productions, St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in many other locations far from Ireland, including Japan, Singapore and Russia.
In modern-day Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day was traditionally been a religious occasion. In fact, up until the 1970s, Irish laws mandated that pubs be closed on March 17. Beginning in 1995, however, the Irish government began a national campaign to use interest in St. Patrick’s Day to drive tourism and showcase Ireland and Irish culture to the rest of the world. Today, approximately 1 million people annually take part in Ireland ‘s St. Patrick’s Festival in Dublin, a multi-day celebration featuring parades, concerts, outdoor theater productions and fireworks shows.

5 Ways to Get Back Into the Work Mindset

Okay the holidays have been over for a while now and most of us working stiffs have gotten back into the swing of things at work by now. But if you are still feeling lethargic after the holidays here is some advice from Recruiter.com about getting your mind right about going back to work. This is also good advice for coming home from a vacation later this year.

5 Steps to get Back into the Work Mindset
SHALA MARKS
You’ve opened up gifts, stuffed your belly and spent time with loved ones. Now it’s all coming to an end.  And, for many workers, once the holidays have ended, so have their not-doing-work days.  It’s extremely easy to get accustomed to being on vacation, even if it’s just for a short while.
But no matter how comfortable we get, at some point we all have to go back to work. Even though you know your vacation days are numbered, the idea of returning back to your typical 9-to-5 routine can be daunting.  Is there any way to soften the inevitable blow?
Below are five steps you can take to get yourself back into the work mindset, post-holiday season:
1. Rest
You may be thinking, but this is what I’ve been doing this entire time, right? Well, yes, but you still need to rest up a little more before going back to work.  Give yourself at least a day to relax, free of busy activities and functions.  Prepare yourself for work the night before you actually return to the office-iron work clothes, gather your work materials and work bag, set your alarm, go to bed on time.  Just as they say you don’t want to go back to work the very next day after flying back home from out of town, you shouldn’t return to work without some time to fully relax and prepare the night before.
 2. Head start
Now this may not sound appealing, but going into work a little early on your first day back can help jump-start your normal routine.  Instead of dragging your feet out of bed and sluggishly returning to the office, going in earlier than normal will push you back into the familiar.  This can also help you get a head start on your workload for the new year (or quarter).
 3. Follow up
Many people go on vacation and leave behind unfinished work. Following up on emails, looking back at your past work history to see what you were working on before you left, and checking voice-mails and returning missed calls is a great way to get back into the swing of things.
 4. Review
Take some time to review any goals for the new year, whether set by your employer, specific department, team or yourself.  What do you hope to accomplish in 2013?  What goals did you or your team set to wrap up 2012?  Have you reached them?  What steps do you need to take to fulfill each one?  Reviewing your goals will help remind of you the necessary work you need to complete once your vacation has ended.
 5. Converse
Don’t forget to make time to mingle with your coworkers once you return to work.  Ask them how they spent their vacation time and compare stories on how all of you willed yourself back to work.  Not only will this help you easily transition back into the work environment as the sense of familiarity and comfort takes over from chatting with your colleagues, you can also discover new ways of preparing yourself to go back to work as you learn what did and did not work for the others on your team.

Largest Minority Group Falls Behind in Companies’ Attempts to Diversify

Although corporations recognize that hiring employees with disabilities is important, most are hiring very few of these job seekers, and few are proactively making efforts to improve the employment environment, a survey by the Kessler Foundation and National Organization on Disability (NOD) reveals.

Data released this past summer from an earlier survey found that little progress has been made in closing the employment gap between people with and without disabilities since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. In fact, only 21% of people with disabilities, ages 18 to 64, reported that they are working either full or part-time, compared to 59% of people without disabilities.

The most recent survey also found that although 70% of corporations polled have diversity policies or programs in place, only two-thirds of those with programs include disability as a component. Only 18% of companies offer an education program aimed at integrating people with disabilities into the workplace.

“America’s success in the global economy depends on how well we put to use the productive capacity of a person’s talent, skill and ability,” comments NOD president Carol Glazer.

The survey also revealed:

  • Nineteen percent of com-panies have a specific person or department that oversees the hiring of people with disabilities. By comparison, in 1995, 40% of companies hired someone specifically for this reason.
  • Only 7% of companies with disability programs offer a disability affinity group.
  • Of the 56% of managers and executives who estimated what percentage of new hires in the past three years were people with disabilities, the average hired was 2%.

Nearly One-Third of North American Companies Lack Leadership Pipeline

Nearly one-third of North American companies have failed to identify future leaders in their organization, a Right Management survey reveals. When senior executives and human resource professionals were asked if they had future leaders identified for critical roles in their organization, only 19% said they had done so for all critical roles. Twenty-one percent said they had done so for most — but not all — critical roles, 29% said they had done so for some critical roles and 30% said they had not done so for any critical roles.

“Organizations that focus just on short-term goals will find themselves at a serious disadvantage if they continue to postpone longer-term strategic initiatives like managing succession and developing high-potential talent for future leadership positions,” comments Deborah Schroeder-Sauliner, Right Management’s senior VP for global solutions. “Weak leadership bench strength will be felt throughout the company, from negatively impacting employee engagement levels to eroding the customer experience and reducing overall performance.”

Job Seekers Make the Most Mistakes at the Interview Stage

The employment interview is a time to shine but it’s also when nerves can get the best of job seekers, an Accountemps survey suggests. Thirty-two percent of chief financial officers (CFOs) polled said candidates are more likely to slip during the interview than at any other time in the application process. Another 28% of executives felt job applicants make the most mistakes when writing their resumes.

Other job application areas in which people make mistakes include: reference checks (10%), interview follow-up (9%), cover letter (8%) and screening call (7%).

“Employers expect job applicants will have a few pre-interview jitters,” comments Accountemps chairman Max Messmer. “The secret is to use this energy to project enthusiasm for the position rather than letting your nerves undermine your confidence.”