HTI rolls out mobile office

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With 13 offices and 140 employees, HTI already covered a lot of ground, but with the addition of a few square feet, the HR services company intends to reach more square miles.

With a Greenville Chamber ribbon cutting and a party to follow it, Human Technologies Inc. on Wednesday unveiled the Job Mobile, a rolling office that CEO Herb Dew said will serve job seekers as well as the companies who hire them.

Equipped with application stations, an interview room and — most important — Internet access, the Job Mobile can take HTI services wherever they’re needed.

“We can go to them,” Dew said. “South Carolina has many places that don’t have offices for staffing services — places like Abbeville. There’s no office in Abbeville and the unemployment rate there is higher.”

Dew and Brian Buchanan, vice president of operations, said they talked for more than 15 years about the idea for a mobile branch office and decided to go for it a couple of years ago when the labor pool started getting shallow.

Buchanan said the Job Mobile will start working right away, sometimes onsite for specific cleints who are hiring, and sometimes pulling up to an area to take general applications for all HTI clients. Depending upon the situation, he said they can deliver a variety of services from the coach, including fast-track hiring on the spot, with drug screens, e-verify and even job offers contingent upon drug screen results.

“Sometimes what happens is a company will need 75 people in a month,” Dew said, “and they want to do a job fair, and they want to do something at their site and they may also want to do tours. With the Job Mobile, we can mobilize; we can do all of that there”

Buchanan said the Job Mobile is the first mobile HR services vehicle in the state. The brightly wrapped coach also will serve as a rolling billboard for the growing company.

HTI recruits talent and manages projects, mostly for manufacturers and distributors. The company started in Greenville but now has offices across the state and others as far away as Belwood, Ill., and Ardmore, Okla. The company handles payroll for more than 3,000 contract employees each week and makes around 350 professional placements annually, according to Alicia Leary, sales and marketing specialist.