Based on reader’s vote, predominantly comprised of members of Omaha’s business community, B2B Quarterly awards the “Best of” in several categories, including professional services, business services, financial services, building services and travel & event planning.

B2B Quarterly is Greater Omaha’s premiere business publication, featuring the latest business developments as well as features on Omaha’s most prominent business leaders.

Over the last several months, C&A has also been named among Omaha’s Best Places to Work by the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce and Baird Holm as well as among Omaha’s Best Employers by Omaha Magazine.

This annual competition, sponsored by the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce and Baird Holm, recognizes a select number of companies based on employee surveys which measure employee satisfaction and engagement.  C&A, parent company of AurStaff, has been named in the category of organizations with more than 250 employees.

At C&A, our mission is to be the staffing provider and employer of choice by helping people and companies achieve their goals.  We’re proud to once again be a recipient of this significant honor.  And, we know that it’s due to our outstanding employees that C&A has become the great organization that it is today.

The announcement is featured in the magazine’s January/February 2010 “Best of Omaha” issue.

“This is very exciting for C&A, to have been recognized not only this year but for two years in a row,” said Scot Thompson, Chief Executive Officer, C&A Industries. “Whether in prosperous or challenging times, our mission is to be the staffing provider and employer of choice. To be named as among Omaha’s best employers says a great deal about C&A.”

Since 1992, Omaha Magazine has been awarding, based on public vote, the “Best of” in a wide variety of categories, including restaurants, arts & culture, retail, and more.

Omaha Magazine is a regional lifestyle publication that serves a readership of more than 100,000. For more than 20 years, Omaha Magazine brings its readers captivating stories on area politics, home and garden, leisure life, food and dining, style, the arts, entertainment and travel, as well as service articles and compelling features on the area’s most interesting people and places.

• Adapt to each person you oversee. Look at employees as individuals. Get to know their strengths and weaknesses and deal with them accordingly.

• Don’t be a know-it-all. Ac­knowledge your own humanness. Turn to employees for advice on how you can be a better supervi­sor to them.

• Learn to let go. Don’t micromanage. Trust employees to do their jobs. Cultivate their growth by giving them a little more than they think they’re capable of doing.

• Stay available. Keep your door open, and let employees know they can come to you at any time to discuss any issue that affects them positively or negatively.

• Work for employees’ goals. That means first knowing what an employee’s goals are. Then, serve as a mentor, and strive to do what you can to advance a person’s professional goals.

Choose from among these categories:
• Factual. “What did you have for lunch?” or, “What is 357 times 62?” Some questions have only one correct answer — truth that can be objectively confirmed.

• Interpretive. “What does that painting look like?” Even if a question has more than one correct answer (“A blue cow,” or “a blue dog”), an interpretive question calls for evidence, some kind of supporting material that others can validate.

• Evaluative. “Do you like eggplant parmigiana?” Questions regard­ing opinions or beliefs have no correct or incorrect answer, but they can tell you a lot about the other person’s point of view.

• Empowering. “What would you do about Sarah’s problem?” Sometimes you want to urge someone to action, without directly telling him or her what to do. In these cases, ask ques­tions to show you’re interested in the other person’s ideas and trust his or her judgment.

• Broad vs. focused. The questions above can be asked in different ways, depending on whether you want a lot of information or a single answer: “How many different animals could that painting look like?” vs. “What specific animal do you see?” Think before you ask, so you don’t have to backtrack.

• Follow-up. “What do you mean by that?” This is one of the best questions you can ask in almost any category, because it invites the other person to think more deeply and share more information.

The AurStaff awards dinner followed National Staffing Employee week, this year held September 14 – 20, which is a time to recognize the hard work of the 2.66 million people employed by staffing companies through out the US on any given day. At the AurStaff awards dinner we give thanks to our contract employees and recognize the achievements of one employee who stands out from the rest. We are excited to award Howard Lee Walker for his accomplishments this year.

Howard started with Aurstaff in 2005. He has stared in 51 “performances” ranging from warehouse/logistics to manufacturing/production and has been a great asset to Aurstaff. All of our clients have recognized that he can help their bottom line and have commented that you can set your clock by Howard as he is always early and ready to start. He goes above and beyond to help where ever needed and we are proud to honor him as this year’s Employee of the Year. Congratulations, Howard!

AurStaff Branch Manager, Annette Pace, and Regional Manager, Jim O'Connor, pose with the Employee of the Year, Howard Walker, after the awards dinner.

More troubling results, from researchers at the University of North Carolina:

• 53 percent of workers have lost time at work over worries about a previous or potential confrontation with a colleague.

• 28 percent have lost work time in their attempts to avoid confrontations.

• 37 percent are less committed to their employer because of a hostile workplace altercation.

• 22 percent say they’re putting less effort into their work due to conflicts at the office.

As a manager, make sure you stay on top of workplace gossip to eliminate any potential risk of conflicts developing. Consult with your employees often to make sure they are comfortable with their work environment and quickly respond to any concerns.

To assist with your inspection, consider creating a checklist like the one when you click on the link to make sure you identify all potential hazards. This one is a general list of what to look for, so you may need to add more specific items to reflect the nature of your work area and the hazards that exist for you. Here is a general list to get started:

• Is the general work area clean and neat?
• Are the walkways clear of obstructions and debris?
• Will co-workers and others working in the area be creating hazards you need to be aware of?
• Are your workstation and the area around it in orderly condition?
• Are personal possessions stowed safely away where they won’t be in the way or misplaced?
• Are the items you use most during the day within easy reach?
• Have other tools and materials been stored in their proper place?
• Are trash and scrap containers empty?
• Do you have the personal protective equipment (PPE) you need for the day?
• Is PPE clean and in good condition?
• Are containers of hazardous materials kept tightly sealed and safely stored?
• Are material safety data sheets (MSDSs) that you will need during the day readily available?
• Are machines and equipment clean and in good operating condition?
• Are machine guards in place and operating correctly?
• Is electrical equipment properly grounded?
• Are electrical cords and plugs in good condition?
• Have you avoided overloading electrical outlets and circuits?
• Is emergency equipment, such as fire extinguishers and first-aid supplies, in their proper place in case they are needed during the day?

Web 2.0 and the social media wave is changing the networking game. A recent Business Week article cited that there are now 150 million Facebook users, and the number grows exponentially every day as more and more “adults” sign on to the site. The increase in usage and popularity of Facebook and similar sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter make personal marketing, and the ability to connect with friends, professional contacts, and now businesses, even easier.

Once you’ve got your network firmly in one place (or a few places depending on how you use social networking sites) it’s easy to share tips with each other, forward interesting articles, and keep up on what those in your network are doing right now, including when one person is looking for a job or has a job available. The great news is that people are having success using social networking sites to find jobs. Click here to read David Murray’s success story. David used Twitter to find a new job, but other social sites can be used in similar ways to track down new opportunities.

Don’t forget that the old rules for finding a job still apply. Job seekers must be professional, have the skills required for the job, and be willing to put in the time to find a new job, but it doesn’t hurt to let the power of social networking work for you.

Connect with AurStaff online and let us help you (and your network) find that next outstanding opportunity! Become our fan on Facebook to stay on top of AurStaff news, job information, and career tips.

“Behavioral safety” is becoming more popular as safety practitioners seek to better understand and develop strategies to prevent workplace injuries. Behavioral safety is the science of observing workers’ behaviors to determine where a different behavior or set of behaviors may have prevented or lessened the severity of injury. The study defines behavioral safety as an approach to improve safety performance through peer observations, goal setting, feedback, and celebrations or incentives for reaching safety goals.

The study recommends using behavioral safety as part of holistic safety programs that address psychological, social, engineering and organizational factors. Yet the authors conclude that factors impacting the effectiveness of behavior-based interventions need to be better understood. Areas recommended for research include the:

• Impact of behavioral safety interventions on rates of injury, illness and fatalities.
• Appropriateness of the basic elements of behavioral safety across different industry sectors.
• Relationship between behavioral safety and a greater safety culture.
• Role of performance feedback in creating behavioral change.
• Effectiveness of tangible and non tangible rewards on behavioral change.

In the United States alone, the workplace accounted for 3.7 million injuries and 4,988 deaths in 2006. To access the study, visit Elsevier’s Science Direct at www.sciencedirect.com and enter the title Journal of Safety Research, Volume 39, Number 6.

The Journal of Safety Research is the pre-eminent peer-reviewed scientific journal in the safety field. Its scholarly articles present basic and applied research in all areas of safety, including traffic, industry, farm, home, school and public.

The National Safety Council (www.nsc.org) saves lives by preventing injuries and deaths at work, in homes, communities and on the roads, through leadership, research, education and advocacy.

SOURCE: National Safety Council