FAQ : Frequently Asked Questions

• Q: After an employee has been working for a while; he becomes experienced and may expect a raise, how does that work out?

  A: For every 6 months that you employ an employee, your billing will increase by 5% per employee. This gives him a goal to look forward to and helps retention.

• Q: Are there other staff available to monitor my employee?

  A: All employees are supervised by a Shift Manager and Production Managers. You will be given direct access to them at all times, and any problems you may have can be directly forwarded to their attention.
  
  Note:
  All productions managers are from America and based in our office.

• Q: Are you using a secure network and how does my employee connect to our office?

  A: We don't implement an SSL network due to so many clients that we deal with wanting all different policies and practices set up for their security to their company network, the solution for this is we suggest to comply with your companies network security policies is that you simply set up a VPN (virtual private network) where your offshore employee will connect over the internet to your VPN server and this will then give him a secure tunnel to your location where you can implement what security you so desire.

• Q: Can I get involved in the recruitment process?

  A: Yes defiantly as this is where you can make sure your getting the best people for the job and your have a wider choice of who you want to work for you.
  
  Upon receipt of the job order and payment of the set-up fee, we provide you with qualified CV's (Resumes) of the candidates that have already been screened and passed our background check. Once you have decided on a candidate then we will send him an offer letter and start the hire process for you.

• Q: Can I offer my employee a bonus, incentive or salary increase?

  A: Unfortunately, we do not allow employees to directly or indirectly receive any sort of bonus, salary increase, incentive, commissions, or anything similar that may be considered as such. However, if you strongly feel the need to reward your employee, you may forward this to our Human Resource Department to guide you on what is suitable and what is not.

• Q: Do you assign someone from the existing staff or you hire new employees?

  A: We don't assign you employees from our existing staff, we use our human resource team that will actually go out and recruit for you based on what you wanted, and this is of course a much more accurate way for you to get the right person for the job.

• Q: Do you do any sort of continued evaluation of my employee?

  A: Yes we do internal evaluations and we also send you out an evaluation on month one and again at various times, this is all done by the internal HR dept.

• Q: Do you have access to other types of IT people?

  A: Yes we certainly do, we have a wide array of IT people here in the India, please enquire with our sales department for more information.

• Q: How can I be sure that I'm hiring the right person for the job?

  A: l employees hired by our company go through a rigorous screening process, in which we conduct very thorough personal background and employment history checks in order to prevent the hiring of employees with a history of tardiness, unreliability, or non-attendance.

• Q: How can I be sure that my data, concepts and plans are safe?

  A: We at all times maintain a safe and secure network and keep our security patches up to date when they arise. Our facility is secure and the building has 24/7 armed security with lockdown at the main entrance every evening. Before entering the office all employees must sign in Employees also have to sign a non compete and non disclosure agreement with us, so you can be rest assured that we take every step to make sure that everything is safe.

• Q: How can I be sure you're going to be able to deliver my staffing requirements?

  A: Our goal is to make sure that you have the staff that your looking for, after all your business is our business and until your seated with someone then we are not actually making anything at all.
  
  It's also in our interest to get you seated as soon as possible, however in the event that we could not deliver you your staffing requirements in 3 months then we would give you a full refund, no questions asked.

• Q: How can I check the attendance of my employee?

  A: You can request for this attendence report maintained by the Human Resource department.

• Q: How can I check what my employee has done for the day?

  A: You can ask your employee to email you a daily summary or task completion presentations in any form as soon as they complete their work day. These may include text files of daily report sheets, visual updates (sometimes known as “before and after” images), or other updates that you may require.

• Q: How can I make sure that the worker/employee is working according to the specified time schedule?

  A: If you so desire you may ask at any point for the attendance log to be ran and the report sent to you from the human resource department.

• Q: How do I communicate with my employee?

  A: You can use any of the instant message systems, Skype, MSN, Yahoo, AIM or ICQ for example.
  
  Email is of course an option and we can also set you up in our ticket system so you can assign your tasks via email.

• Q: How does the billing work for my employee?

  A: Billing begins the moment an employee has been chosen, and has begun work for you, this is a pro-rata invoice and the billing cycle is on the first of the month. Note: The set up fee is paid first to recieve resumes.

• Q: How long does it take to hire an employee?

  A: Depending on the skill set and the level of employee's experience that you are going to hire this can greatly vary on the actual hire time, generally this can take anything from one to four weeks.
  
  This can be more if you're putting a team together of highly experienced employees and depending what you put on your job order, if your job description and qualifications are out of the generic scope then less candidates will apply or be suitable for the position.
  
  For example if you wanted a data entry clerk or creative writer then we would have hundreds of applicants per day for this position. If you choose a level 4 programmer then we would expect to process 5-10 applicants per week before we give you qualified resumes also note that on high level staffing you will be expected to be patient through this process to avoid disappointment.

• Q: How many hours per day, and days per week, does my employee work?

  A: The employee will work for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. This is considered an "exclusive" "full-time" employee, who is exclusive to your needs only and in direct communication with you.
  
  This is the standard 40 hour work week.

• Q: I don't understand what the set up fee is for, can you tell me more about it?

  A: Yes certainly, for every person that you hire there is a set up fee to start the process and what happens with your fee is that It gives you access to our human resource team who will do everything they can to bring you qualified resumes. We actually match the cost of this to get one employee going and these main costs are broken down here:
  
  If our costs go over the set up fee you paid, we continue to finance the recruiting process and there are no additional costs to you.

• Q: If something happens do I have to pay the set up fee again?

  A: No you don't pay the set up fee if you employee resigns or does AWOL, we must stress that this is also rare for this to happen, however there are no fees and we replace your employee at no extra cost to you.

• Q: Is there an evaluation period that we are given to asses the employee once he/she is deployed?

  A: There is a 5 days evaluation period, if in this time you decide that you don't think this employee you have chosen is the one for you, we will then change him at our expense and not yours.

• Q: What about reliability of hardware/software?

  A: All our computers are purchased brand new and well maintained, we don't practice in purchasing 2nd hand computers that you might experience with a competitor. We also make sure that we have emergency machines available in the event that your employee's machines develop any kind of issues. The terminal administrators are available around the clock should any such events arise and it will be promptly taken care of.

• Q: What are the procedures for making the actual hire?

  A: First, once the set-up fee has been deposited, and a job order has been made, all the possible candidates go through a very rigorous screening process in order for us to best provide you with the most suitable employee, based on your requirements.

• Q: What are the procedures in the event that my employee resigns, and will it cost me anything?

  A: Every employee must give 30 days written notice if they decide to resign, this should be enough time to hire a new employee and do the proper training (turn over) to your new employee.
  
  The average turnover can be done in less than 15 days, and it will not cost you extra. We change that employee at our expense and not yours.

• Q: What discounts or client incentives do you offer?

  A: We offer a FREE project manager with every 5 employees that you have. You can get a 1% discount of your bill if your monthly account is paid before the first of the month.

• Q: What happens if my hired employee ends up becoming a problem?

  A: Although we have systems to prevent this as much as possible, in the event that such a problem occurs, our Human Resource department will address any concerns with the employee, and we will do our best to assist you in order for you to resume your normal course of business.

• Q: What if my employee is absent? Do I pay for this or do I get credit?

  A: We implement a very strict attendance policy wherein if your employee does not report for work for more than 3 days in a month, then your bill will be adjusted to reflect these days.

• Q: What if my employee suddenly leaves without any prior notice, do I have to pay again?

  A: You are not required to pay for an employee that leaves without any prior notice; we will replace your employee at our expense and not yours. We also have strict contracts in place and we must stress that it is very rare that such a situation would arise.

• Q: What is offshore staff leasing / remote staffing and what is outsourcing?

  A: Offshore staff leasing is where you select someone that you want to work for you and we are your virtual office and remote human resource department, this is what we do at CASTOR.
  
  We are not outsourcing and please note the difference of "outsourcing," "offshore outsourcing," and "offshoring" are used interchangeably in public discourse despite important technical differences. To be consistent, "outsourcing," in a corporate context, represents an organizational practice that involves the transfer of an organizational function to a third party.
  
  When this third party is located in another country the term “offshore outsourcing” makes more sense. "Offshoring," in contrast, represents the transfer of an organizational function to another country, regardless of whether the work stays in the corporation or not. In short, "outsourcing" means sharing organizational control with another organization, or a process of establishing network relations within an organizational field. "Offshoring," on the other hand, represents a relocation of an organizational function to a foreign country, not necessarily a transformation of internal organizational control.

• Q: What payment methods/options are acceptable?

  A: We accept the following:
  
  1. International bank-to-bank wire transfer
  2. Epassporte
  3. All Major Credit Cards
  4. Pay Pal
  5. Western Union

• Q: What time zone does my employee work?

  A: We are on +8 hours GMT and we operate 3 shifts per day so we are confident that we have a time zone to fit anywhere you are in the world.

• Q: Why India?

  A: India is a very fast growing IT country and is also the largest English speaking country in the world, you will also find that Indian people are in general very creative and Hard working unlike some other staffing countries.
  
  There is also a huge resource of highly educated eager to learn professionals.

• Q: Will my employee have a fast internet connection?

  A: Yes, our office already has multiple T1 pines dropped in and bandwidth is not an issue for any types of files sizes.

• Q: Will my employee speak and understand English?

  A: Most certainly, Indians is the largest English speaking country in the world. It is one of our policies that every employee can speak, read, and write in English.

• Q: Will my existing staff see offshore staff leasing as a threat?

  A: Offshore staff leasing is a definite way for any company to compete with low cost competition. Winning internal support from your existing staff is critical to success. Once they embrace the idea, realize that staffoffshore.com is not a threat to their jobs but rather to support them and make their jobs more productive and innovative. Now you can afford to throw more brains on the same job and get it done a lot faster. this gives you a competitive edge to your company against competition and more time to your existing staff to work on new ideas.