Phillips Staffing Links Education and Workforce

Phillips Staffing President Ed Parris tells anyone who will listen: ACT’s Work Readiness System works.

One might think he’s just saying so because Phillips is a part of the WorkKeys^® Solutions Provider (WSP) distribution network. Actually, Parris has seen the system’s impact on a company’s bottom line. He first saw the need for WorkKeys in a previous position as a human resources director for a large power tool manufacturer.

“There’s been a long struggle to get the education community to understand the skills necessary in today’s workplace. WorkKeys provides the best common language between industry and education that I’ve ever seen. The more I’ve used it, the more convinced I’ve become about its effectiveness,” he said. “It is a valuable tool that allows us to provide the best possible workforce to our customers.”

Parris and his staff offer job profiling and onsite WorkKeys testing to employers located primarily in South Carolina. A division of S.B. Phillips Company, Inc., the employment agency is headquartered in Greenville and has ten branch offices in the state and one in Georgia.

As a WSP, Phillips is licensed to resell WorkKeys solutions to employers and other third parties that pay for the services. Generally, WSPs offer test administration, scoring and score reporting, job profiling, and skills gap training, often in conjunction with job placement, career coaching and custom training programs. Many are self-supporting; they sell WorkKeys business-to- business to generate funding.

The job profiling component offers a concrete way for employers and organizations to analyze the skills needed for specific jobs and to describe those needs to educators, students, and job applicants. It identifies the WorkKeys skills and the skill levels an individual must have to perform a job.

Beverly Deal, Phillips workforce readiness director, is one of two ACT-authorized job profilers at Phillips. She and Carly Lineberry, workforce readiness associate, work directly with employers to analyze specific jobs.

“Researching and documenting information is vital for companies, whether they are hiring new workers, training incumbent employees, or planning staff development needs,” said Deal. “And it is also invaluable for us as a staffing agency when we can be confident we are sending candidates to our clients with the skills necessary to succeed.”

Phillips takes a consulting approach with clients. Staff tour a prospective client’s plant or business, do a risk assessment, and determine which services are needed.

“We encourage our clients to do job profiles, which allow us to do a better job of filling their job openings,” said Parris. “We share data with them about how WorkKeys has helped other companies with safety, turnover, productivity, and quality issues.”

Phillips has worked with a variety of companies, including those involved in tool manufacturing, plastic injection molding, sportswear manufacturing, and chemical production.

“Too many companies rely on a ‘promote from within’ method in which they consider only a person’s work history and attendance and not whether the person has the skills to succeed in the new job. ACT’s Work Readiness System gives us the data and tools to provide our clients with highly-qualified candidates,” he said.