A Conversation With ... Sharon Snow

Job Title: Owner/Manager

Education: Communications degree from Missouri State University

Milestones: Local franchise survived a fire in November 2006; Snow will celebrate four years as an Express franchise owner Feb. 2

Tell us about your franchise, which has its sole office in Springfield.

My franchise area is basically a five-county area, but primarily we focus on Springfield and Christian County. We can go east to Marshfield, and then over into Monett and Aurora. We can go as far south as Cassville. I have eight internal employees, not including me or (husband) Mark. We have several hundred associates. A lot of our positions are evaluation-hire; (some) places call them temp-to-hire. We do true temporary business, whether it’s special projects or peak-season needs, and we also do direct-hire.

When it comes to filling jobs, what do you consider Express Personnel’s niches?

We have a light industrial division and an office services division. Our light industrial division does primarily production and warehouse jobs … . Our office services division does primarily general office and accounting and financial. Right now, we’re a little heavier on industrial, but that’s just because it grew really fast in third quarter.

In March 2007, Express rolled out immediate access to benefits for associates. How have associates responded?

Response has been awesome. It helps with retention of associates, because they don’t feel like they have to leave an evaluation-hire position to go to an employer where they can go directly on their payroll. There are people, especially if they don’t know what they want to do, (who) are trying out a lot of things. And then, some people are supplementing retirement, so they may be limited in how much they can work during the year. (Immediate access) allows them that flexibility to do other things.

What challenges do you see in job placement?

I think there are enough people. It’s really making the right matches and communicating with the employer and the employee the expectations. An employee has to be realistic about their expectations entering the work force, or making a lateral change. An employer has to understand the market also, and what employees expect, and we coach on both sides of that.

What training or placement testing does your company offer?

Mostly on the office side, we do a lot of computer testing, customer service testing … . On the industrial side, we don’t do as much – a lot of that is in the format of helping employers with orientation. We also do a little bit of safety training. We do a lot of customized employer orientations for our associates. … We partner with our employers on all human resources issues.

Are you looking at expansion opportunities in your franchise area?

Yes, we are. It would be a big step for us, because to work anywhere farther (out) than Christian County, we would need a satellite recruiting office. I don’t feel like we could comfortably recruit from Springfield for those areas. We’re not going to all of a sudden take a job order in Mount Vernon and think that we could service them from Springfield. We’d have to open an office … we’re not quite ready to do that yet.

Your office on Glenstone burned down in November 2006. What key lessons did you learn?

It sounds a little Girl Scoutish, I guess, but be prepared. You need to look at your crisis management plan. We were very fortunate because we had our ducks in a row. We set up shop in a temporary location and just kept going. In general, everybody that we relied on, in terms of other Springfield businesses, was great to us. … (Express) headquarters … basically shipped us a new office package, which gave us everything we needed, like we were starting a new franchise. … Having your data backed up, with a plan on how to access it (is important).

The data backup worked out great for us. We took our data files to Joplin and were able to process payroll, which had to be done on Monday morning – the fire was on a Sunday morning. Technology allowed headquarters to dial in from Oklahoma City and transform a workspace in Joplin into the Springfield location.

Tell us about your other interests, including your family.

My husband, Mark, and I also have The Snow Group, which is primarily his business. I’m really not directly related to that. That’s a real estate company. We have two daughters. Haley’s 10, and Amy’s 8, and they both go to Disney Elementary. The girls are both very involved in sports, and we all like to travel.

Interview by Features Editor Maria Hoover. You can e-mail her with suggestions for future installments of this feature at mhoover@sbj.net.[[In-content Ad]]