Staffing Gives Back

Headquartered in Annapolis, MD, the team at Corporate Brokers has strong ties to their community. When the pandemic hit, the team asked themselves, ‘What can we do as an organization to help people keep their jobs?’ Naturally, they shifted their focus toward new customers and how best to support employees who were laid off from client companies, but they also turned to their community. Living in a small city like Annapolis meant that the team was seeing firsthand how local businesses were being impacted. And like many, they wanted to give back to essential workers who were heading into work each and every day.

According to Maggie Williams, Director of Operations at Corporate Brokers, one such business was Bean Rush Cafe, a local roaster, baker, and sandwich shop not just near their headquarters, but around the corner from their CEO’s home. The cafe was doing everything it could to stay open including reducing hours and staffing fewer employees at any given time. Corporate Brokers saw this and decided to give back by offering to pay for meals at two local Bean Rush Cafe locations for essential employees. The initiative was a success, and Corporate Brokers soon expanded it to small businesses near its other offices; Starnut Gourmet in Arlington, Virginia, and Buddy Brew in Tampa, Florida. At Starnut Gourmet, Maggie says the initiative helped the small business raise half of a normal day of sales, which was something they hadn’t seen since the pandemic began. In Tampa, the Corporate Brokers team is working with Buddy Brew to send coffee and pastries to Tampa General Hospital staff at 17 outpatient locations. According to Maggie, the initiative is focused on helping small local businesses that have been hit particularly hard, while also showing their thanks for essential workers.

“It’s a way to help a local organization stay open and help those on the front lines while the rest of us are staying at home.”

Prime Staffing is a New York-based recruitment agency that focuses on a number of disciplines—including nursing. While the firm operates in 15 states, with New York City in dire need of nurses, the team shifted their focus to their home state, placing 15-20 times their regular volume of nursing placements. According to Michael Fazio, the president of Prime Staffing, this volume of placements kept the team working from six a.m. to midnight for 33 days in a row placing nurses in hospitals in New York City.  But while placing nurses is their business, it’s the above and beyond treatment of these nurses that differentiates Prime Staffing.

At their own expense, Prime Staffing has put in place a number of resources and programs to keep their nurses safe and healthy. This includes free, private transportation to and from work with certified healthy drivers, and putting nurses up in local hotels. Prime Staffing is delivering sealed lunches to the ICU and free dinners, including a special Easter dinner for those working over the holiday. For nurses with children, Prime Staffing has paid for their childcare, and even laundry service or grocery deliveries where needed. Perhaps most significant, Prime Staffing even spent $25,000 on PPE equipment for its nurses.

But it’s not just their physical wellbeing that Prime Staffing is taking care of—working on the frontlines is a grueling, difficult job, and often one that comes with psychological challenges, as well. Michael shared that Prime Staffing is particularly proud of their partnership with a psychotherapist in New York City to give nurses the support they may need during this difficult time. While the volume of placements has slowed down in recent weeks, Prime Staffing doesn’t intend to slow down the care of its frontline staff any time soon. In fact, because of Prime Staffing’s stellar reputation, it was chosen as one of just a few vendors to staff the COVID-19 antibody testing sites around New York City.

“This is about doing our part.”

Fusion Medical Staffing is a temporary staffing firm focused on a breadth of healthcare specialties including nursing, travel nursing, allied healthcare, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and more. With such a wide range of specialties, Fusion Medical saw their company affected in volatile ways by the pandemic. Amidst all of this, Fusion Medical decided they wanted to come together as an industry to support the greater good. Fusion Medical teamed up with the nonprofit TravCon to join their Meals for Meds initiative by providing the initial grant donation and assisting with marketing and operations.

Meals for Meds supports frontline healthcare workers and local businesses by delivering food to healthcare workers who are unable to leave hospitals to get food due to long shifts and limited resources. Healthcare workers can place meal requests, and Meals for Meds supplies gift cards so that the worker can order food for their unit and colleagues. At present, Meals for Meds has supplied over 17,000 meals and hope to reach at least 20,000 before the program concludes. So far, the program has received donations from EmployStream, Koley Jessen Attorneys, GetMed Staffing, Inc., Right Sourcing, OneStaff Medical, TextUs, WIIG Electrical Services. Visit Meals for Meds to see how you can help support the initiative.

“We wanted to come up with a way to find comfort and let them know that people are thinking of them.”

Steve Jorgenson, JD/MBA, Founder and COO of Place Perfect Partners (PPP), didn’t know he’d be helping survivors of domestic abuse when he first devised the business model behind his staffing venture. After spending most of his career working in behavioral health non-profits, Steve transitioned industries and began doing back-office work for a large staffing firm. An idea hit him when analyzing how recruiting agencies operate. Recruiters were placing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of placements each year but only seeing a small percentage of the profits—what if he could use his back office skills to empower recruiters to change that? Place Perfect Partners began with the premise that recruiters deserve to keep 80% of the fees they earn. All of this would eventually lead to Steve finding a way to use this platform as a way of giving back in a meaningful way.

Place Perfect Partners was founded in 2020 with a unique business model. Unlike other staffing firms in which recruiters make placements on behalf of the firm, Place Perfect Partners empowers recruiters to become entrepreneurs who recruit for themselves without having to learn all the administrative aspects of running a business. Place Perfect Partners helps recruiters build and develop a recruiting business from scratch in less than 5 business days (including LLC registration, logos, email domains, Bullhorn ATS, and provides all of the other software solutions and administrative support required to operate their business. The recruiters still just do the recruiting—PPP does the rest. The company values mentorship over micromanagement and provides opportunities to collaborate with each other on requisitions, but collaboration is on the recruiter’s terms. Most importantly, Place Perfect Partners only profits when the recruiter is successful.

But building his business during the coronavirus pandemic got Steve thinking about a cause that is both near and dear to his heart and one that he worked with extensively during his time in the non-profit sector: domestic violence and abuse. So often, survivors of domestic violence cannot break the cycle of abuse because they’re financially dependent on their abuser and/or have children to care for. Recruiting is a special profession that doesn’t have arbitrary credentials required—a great recruiter really just needs a core set of ‘soft skills’ and then training on best recruiting practices to thrive. If someone has the core skills and drive to become a recruiter, they could be taught to recruit and could empower themselves to become a recruiter. Domestic violence survivors could be taught to recruit and could earn a six-figure income from home with PPP (overcoming both primary barriers to breaking the cycle of violence). Now, Steve plans to turn not just experienced recruiters into entrepreneurs, but to help these survivors, as well.

The WIN Program, or ‘Women In Need,’ aims to help 200 women each year break free of physical and verbal abuse by becoming financially independent with the help of Place Perfect Partners. Not only will the program create recruiting entrepreneurs, but it will include world class recruiting training and comprehensive wraparound supports such as financial advisory and ongoing mentorship. With your support, we can all win big!

Visit Place Perfect Partners to learn more.

“All they need is a willingness to learn and now they can break down the barriers to ending the cycle of domestic abuse.”