Tim Massey took the helm as CEO of Penmac Staffing Services Inc. in October charged with one thing: facilitating growth.
Penmac President Paula Adams donned the CEO title in January 2012 after her mother and company founder, Patti Penny, stepped down from the post. Along the way, Adams realized what was best for the company was experience she just couldn’t bring to the table.
“I’m not hung up on titles,” she said. “My mom started something 26 years ago, and I want to see it go another 26 years more.”
With that mission, Adams said the company needed someone with outside influences and experience in the CEO seat.
Having spent the last nine years at Memphis, Tenn.-based Paramount Staffing, a company structured similarly to Penmac, Massey had direct experience with a family-owned firm in the light industrial staffing niche. Since Penmac’s business is 85 percent in light industrial, Adams said Massey was the man for the job.
“I don’t even have a degree in human resources,” she said. “Everything I know about business I learned from my mother. In the past 10 to 12 years, I have taken on a greater role in the company, working in all the departments, but when you get involved in the day-to-day, you forget to get out and generate new things.”
Enter Massey.
With 20 years of staffing experience, he was asked aboard the Penmac staffing ship to hammer out a new outlook for the company. In his first six months, Massey has rolled out a wave of new strategies that are shaking things up – and everything has a sales undertone.
“Penmac has excelled and grown based off its service delivery,” Massey said.
“It has been because of the operations team that is in place and the relationships they built. But there has really never been a huge, sustained focus on sales.”
A sale in the staffing industry is not like selling widgets. There is no tangible product. It is all about cultivating partnerships with businesses served, now some 1,500 clients across Penmac’s 29 offices in seven states.
For every employee Penmac places, it receives a piece of revenue in return. The more partnerships Penmac has on the books, the more employees placed and revenue generated. Those sales are typically invoiced on a weekly basis.
After rapid growth took company revenue to $90 million in 2011, Penmac has not been able to get over the $100 million hump the last two years.
“We don’t want to lose what really made Penmac what it is, which is ‘We place people first,’ because that is how this company has been built,” Massey said. “But we want to push the sales piece of it.”
Recruitment revival In one corner of Penmac’s downtown headquarters, Massey’s fresh perspective has revived a 25-year-old department and given it a new identity. The professional recruitment division now labeled PenPro Talent is targeting a nationwide market of professional recruitment in permanent positions.
Jackie Woolsey, who Massey appointed PenPro Talent director in December, said the new structure is a step in the right direction.
“I felt like we were missing the boat,” said Woolsey, who had worked as Penmac’s chief sales officer since August 2010. “To grow the business, we needed to make this step.”
Having worked in permanent placement divisions in the past, Massey’s advocacy came as no surprise.
“It is a confidence boost for me to have someone who can plug in that kind of experience into our department,” Woolsey said. “Penmac needed to put resources behind us. Money had to be spent to be able to compete with other recruiting firms. That is what he has done.”
As the division ramps up with about 15 to 20 individual job orders to start, Woolsey said due to the larger salaries involved with permanent placements, it takes fewer numbers to produce comparative revenue as temporary employees.
“It’s baby steps right now, but you got to start somewhere,” Woolsey said. “This is a niche market that is growing throughout the country, so it’s a good investment in the long run.”
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The tool of insourcing Another strategy in Massey’s tool belt is the idea of insourcing.
Massey said he is currently negotiating with a distribution company that manages the loading of its trucks. Instead of providing temporary labor for such jobs, Penmac’s insourcing arm would take over the entire department.
This sort of operation would in turn improve employee safety, something paramount to Massey’s sales plan.
“Bad injuries affect our bottom line,” Massey said. “The first strategy that I rolled out was to ensure safety as our No. 1 mission.”
With that driving force, Massey introduced the 24/7 Triage program, where employees can call an 800 number to speak to a registered nurse about any on-the-job injuries. Whether staff members are experiencing a tweaked back or a hurt hand, the nurses can provide medical advice and schedule an appointment with a doctor.
Employees have unlimited access and use of this program and, in turn, Massey said, Penmac gets injuries assessed and employees back to work quicker and keeps prices low so Penmac can remain competitive in the staffing industry.
With his push for sales, Massey said there is not a person in the company unaware of the company’s direction. From branch managers to the vice president of operations, everyone’s job is to talk sales.
“We have a great product. We just need more people to know about it,” he said.
Massey’s vision-casting projects beyond five years – and a merger or acquisition is not out of the question.
“Once we have a solid foundation in the places where we are, we would look into some organic expansion and possibly even acquisitions,” he said.
Of course, founder and board chairwoman Penny would have to sign off on any deal.[[In-content Ad]]
