Spherion Reviews

Pros

The Bedford office is outstanding and will keep you busy during tough times. Good people, honest, and fair. Generally the only way to get into perm employment for some local companies.

Cons

Communication between companies and Spherion can be improved, however, Spherion does try very hard, Generally, the communication errors are a result of any disorganization of the employer to which you are placed.

Advice to Senior Management

Know which employers communicate poorly and be more pro-active in communicating between the employer and the employees.

Pros

Decent additional compensation and total compensation package, good brand recognition within the staffing sector, pretty good corporate social media strategy.

Cons

Branches and onsite locations run very lean 1-3 people typically, an unbelievable amount of corporate bureaucracy, very political organization, not a culture of understanding and thought leadership, huge disconnects and fighting between brands.

Advice to Senior Management

Where to start?? Get back to the business instead of consistently looking internally, develop actual business strategies, invest in real training, invest in people.

Pros

Friendly atmosphere. Casual work environment. Education and training were adequete. Good onsite amenities. Decent opportunity for advancement. Managers fairly competent.

Cons

Communiction to the field sometimes lacking. Lots of hush-hush talk among senior management. Lots of chiefs, not enough indians. Bonus structure (or lack thereof).

Pros

money to be made if yo usell the business, hard to get promoted beyond branch manager due to extremely flat organization.

Cons

micro managed by immediate supervisor, management was extremely disconnected from the field. Did not understand pricing at a local level in sub prime markets

Advice to Senior Management

stop rolling out stupid contest. Let the local branch sell the business and stop micro managing and making employees lie about activity just to cook the books.

Pros

My manager was fantastic. She was hard working, intelligent, fun and supportive. She taught us a lot and gave us great opportunities to experience things beyond our day to day responsiblities - real opportunity to learn and grow!
This is unfortunately only a reflection of my manager, not the organization. Without my manager I would have had no opportunity to grow or learn anything, I would have just been a cog in the wheel.

Cons

Infastructure is a total mess, benefits, payroll, IT support etc. is all run out of the corporate office in Florida, which means anytime you need help as an employee you are treated like you are on hold with Dell support, no one knows anything and response is terrible.
Management talks a lot about how much work they do but it's not clear that they do anything other than take credit for all the work people in the branches are doing.
Starting out as a "recruiter" or CSS is great for a first job out of college because you have to do everything for your self - a real throw you into the deep end of the pool type of place. But that gets old fast when you realize that you have no support and no opportunity for growth.
Turn over was high because people realized they could do a lot better.

Advice to Senior Management

Appreciate that the work you are taking credit for is actually being done by other people.
Get organized and support your workforce.
Get rid of some of the regional managers who seems to do nothing other than relay monthly and quarterly reports from branches to their managers.

Pros

Tons of experience and interaction.

Cons

Management styles and inability to voice your opinion at times.

Pros

Flexible place to work..can't say anything bad.

Cons

Long work hours; high turn over; too top heavy

Pros

There are alot of job oppurtunities.

Cons

most are low paying jobs.

Advice to Senior Management

higher pay and better benefits

Pros

Strategic leadership team.
Strong performance recognized.
Coaching & constructive criticism given.
Great colleagues.

Cons

Further diversification of client base needed.

Pros

You won't be there very long, you will receive the benefits of the contracting company, but as a temp staffing agency, they won't work very hard to find you your next position.

Cons

Lots of red tape and paperwork, a ton of "do-s and don't-s" that are really just common sense and professional conduct. Strictly temporary placement that won't lead to anything else within the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Streamline the hiring process for workers, and treat them like thinking adults. Spherion actually needs to hire more managers - one poor woman was managing 50+ seasonal hires where I was.