Daily pay created to attract workers

Penmac Personnel Services began its day labor division July 31 at its Springfield office, 447 South Ave.

According to Patti Penny, president of Penmac, the decision to begin offering daily pay to Penmac associates was driven mainly by the low unemployment rate here. Right now, she said, it's less than 2 percent.

Penny said her company was losing many workers to other companies that did offer daily pay, because a lot of people come to Springfield looking for work and hoping to take advantage of the city's quality of life, but they sometimes arrive without any resources.

"They have, perhaps, their car and not very much money. They need to have housing right away and they need to have a way to get started financially," Penny said.

"We are in this situation where every person, every single applicant, is extremely valuable to us, and we have a job for just about everybody," she added.

Penny said her company doesn't think it's healthy for people to stay with a daily pay situation, though, so her goal with the daily pay option is simply to help people get started and become part of the community with a good income that sustains them. In fact, Penny said, an important part of Penmac's day labor program is that it calls for the associates paid daily to join the company's weekly payroll after logging 80 hours of work with daily pay.

Penny said Penmac offers jobs in the clerical, transportation and industrial fields, and she said there are different categories of long-term and day labor jobs. However, she said, just because someone starts out working for daily pay, it doesn't mean they can't stay with the same company when they go to weekly pay.

"They can get started with any number of our employers, if we feel they're really serious about staying here and getting started, Penny said. "Now we do have clients that have said, do not send us people that are receiving daily pay,' and of course, we'll honor that. They are looking for people to hire onto their payroll and they see that as an unstable situation."

Penny said the daily pay option is no different than other services offered by Penmac. The company offers free training to associates, as well as affordable transportation, available for $3 one-way and $6 round trip.

The day labor is just another way to get people to come to work for Penmac.

Penny said many of Penmac's client companies work with Penmac through its temp-to-hire, or temporary-to-permanent programs, which allows the Penmac associate to be hired by the client company after working there 90 days, or 480 hours as a Penmac associate. She said although not all of the jobs offered through Penmac are meant to be long term, the daily pay option does help attract workers who eventually go through the temp-to-hire process.

Penny said there have been some workers in the daily-pay program who don't want to switch from daily pay and will likely leave Penmac and return to other day-labor organizations once they've finished their 80 hours.

"But those won't be the majority of people that we're reaching," she said.

The day-labor division has had good response from workers so far, Penny said. There's one couple working day-labor right now that's a good example of who the program's designed for.

"They appeared on my church doorstep two or three Sundays ago while I was teaching Sunday School ... to make a long story short, they've been working day labor since they arrived in town, doing well and getting started. I think they're both, right at the moment, at Kraft, doing some work there for us," she said.

Penny said day labor is only available from Penmac through its Springfield office, but she said the program may expand to include all 27 of the company's locations.

On June 28, Penny's efforts to provide employment assistance and services were recognized. She received Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award for Business Services at the Kansas/Western Missouri 2000 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards ceremony in Kansas City. She is now eligible to compete for the Ernst & Young's National Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Penny said although that award was based on existing services offered by her company, such as the transportation, training and GED courses, which are available through Penmac's career training center, she's always looking for new and innovative ways to keep the business unique, while assisting employees and client companies.

"Every person is needed, and if there's a way to salvage that person, help that person become more productive, we want to offer it. Now, it still comes back to individual motivation, and we can't do it for them. They have to seek it and want it, and we're there to offer the help that's necessary," she said.

Penny said one addition to services that will begin soon is that cooking classes will be offered through Penmac's career training center.