Talener Technology Staffing

Holiday Timesheet Due Dates

November 26th, 2013

We are very thankful for all of the work our employees and contractors do, to accommodate you all,  below is a breakdown of our holiday schedule for timesheet due dates.

For Contractors (1099 and Corp to Corp):

• Timesheet periods run from Monday through Sunday and are due each Monday. 
• Pay dates are every 2^nd Friday and include time from the previous two weeks. 

The following table reflects the timesheet due dates and pay dates through the end of the year. 

For W2 Employees:

• Timesheet periods run from Monday through Sunday and are due each Monday. 
• Pay dates are the 10^th (covering the 16^th – the end of the month for the previous month) and 26^th (covering the 1^st – 15^th of the current month) each month. Should either of those dates fall on a weekend or a holiday the pay date will be the previous business day.

The following table reflects the timesheet due dates and pay dates through the end of the year. 

• Timesheets received late are included for payment in the normally scheduled next payroll date after they are received.
• Timesheets must be accompanied by either a physical signature by your client manager or an email from your client manager indicating their approval of the related timesheet.
• Timesheets are to be submitted via email to timesheets@talener.com or via fax to (917) 720-1079.
• Time may either be entered directly to the BeyondPay portal or to Talener’s Excel timesheet (or, to client’s timesheet system, if applicable).  In either case, client manager approval must be included as per above. Simply clicking “Submit” in BeyondPay does not mean your hours will be processed; you must send us an approval via email or fax.

 “Cutoff for inclusion in Payroll” date (at 5p ET!!) reflects the absolute deadline for when an approved timesheet must be received in order to be included in the “On-time Pay Date”.  Approved timesheets received after such date will be paid in the next normally scheduled payroll date after they are received.  As we process the payrolls through a 3^rd party system and banks need 2 days to process direct deposit payments, we have zero flexibility beyond these hard cutoff dates.

Should you have any questions on these due dates, please contact us at timesheets@talener.com.

Thank you and Happy Holidays!

Posted in Current Events, Events, Talener Blog

Introducing… Talener After Hours!

November 22nd, 2013

We’re excited to announce our newest venture…

Talener “After Hours” is a new bimonthly event series dedicated to connecting our employees, clients, consultants, candidates, and like-minded tech pros in an informal post-work setting. Our group is targeted to professionals at all skill levels and in all industries and will feature a blend of speakers, open discussions, product demos, Q&A’s, and similarly engaging sessions.

In our 1st session on December 11 at 6:30pm, expert recruiters in each of our offices will present an engaging evening on the top 10 ways to kick start your New Year’s job hunt. Grab a bite, a brew, and learn what our hottest clients are looking for in their search for top tech talent! The presentation should last around 20 minutes before we open the floor for open discussion and networking.

For more info and to RSVP to the event in your local city, check our Eventbrite page:  http://www.eventbrite.com/org/5434939113

We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted in Career Tips, Company News, Current Events, Events, News, Talener Blog

How to Find a Great Developer

November 19th, 2013

Good morning,

This was an excellent Presentation from Peter Bell.  He’s a very impressive guy with a lot of experience. 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16869/presentations/2013-11-18%20Grand%20Circus%20-%20How%20to%20find%20a%20great%20developer.pdf

Bottom line:

1) Meet-Ups

2) Mailing Lists

3) Conferences

4) Referrals

Posted in Talener Blog

Ignition 2013: Future of Digital

November 15th, 2013

Talener was proud to sponsor Business Insider’s Ignition 2013 conference this week at the Time Warner Center in NYC! The event brought together over 700 of the best and brightest in digital media, entertainment, finance, and technology to discuss the direction of the digital industry. Some event highlights included:

• Venture capitalist Fred Wilson’s discussion on age-bias within the startup tech industry
• A panel of 9 NYC teenagers on their digital media habits: admiration for Instagram and Vine, groans at Facebook, and little love for regular old broadcast television.
• Elon Musk’s delivery of shiny new Teslas for event attendees to test drive around Central Park

For more detailed info, check out some videos, articles, and slide decks from the conference: http://ow.ly/qRUPu

Posted in Company News, Events, Talener Blog

4 Tech Management Lessons from the Healthcare.gov Flop

November 8th, 2013

It was dramatically deemed “one of the greatest website disasters in history” by Senator Tim Scott (R-SC). Launched officially on the first day of October during the very first day of a government shutdown, Healthcare.gov was designed as the education and registration hub for a large portion of Americans to easily compare and enroll in health insurance plans. But instead of a smooth deployment, technical glitches and security issues wreaked havoc on the system leading to miniscule enrollment rates, incredibly long wait times, a loss of user-submitted information, and other major functionality problems.

Political opinions aside, there is no denying that Healthcare.gov’s first few weeks were a telling tale of project mismanagement, failed expectations, and a hurried rush to patch major site issues. What may look like a relatively simple site though is actually an enormous endeavor fueled by public and private sector agencies. The major challenge lied in its mission to connect information from old, unresponsive federal government databases (such as the IRS) to state databases to dozens of private insurers. Similar sites of such scale and strength have had years to slowly develop and work out minor and major kinks, but Healthcare.gov had the challenge of millions of users expecting a fully functional and fleshed out site on day one.

Looking at the events of the past few weeks, we uncovered some general technology management takeaways from the Healthcare.gov fiasco. 

Hope for the best – prepare for the worst:
Overly ambitious public custom web and software launches have had a murky history. With such a highly publicized launch, Healthcare.gov should have been prepared for a flood of users. Slow loading times could be augmented through a proper estimate of user traffic and boosted server bandwidth to account for incredibly high page viewership and interaction.

Deadlines for deadlines’ sake:
Pushing a project out just to meet a deadline isn’t worth undermining basic functionality. What’s the point of a site that doesn’t work? While missing a deadline is never a good thing, it’s simply better to wait for a properly tested and usable site that will not cause major problems.

Keep communication open:
In the face of severe public scrutiny, the team at Healthcare.gov had to accept their missteps and actively document their efforts to improve the site. They’ve dedicated an entire section of their blog to detailing the progress of updates and have been continually tracking website improvements. In doing so they keep the public informed and keep themselves accountable for improvements.

Having a backup for your backup:
The government enlisted the help of some tech bigwigs (Oracle, Google, RedHat, etc.) to assist in fixing the technical issues plaguing Healthcare.gov, but only after several weeks of persistent bugs. Instead, a full contingency plan should have been set in place to quickly provide an immediate solution that would kick into action immediately as the problems were assessed.

Posted in Current Events, Talener Blog