Employment Technologies Corporation Achieving Continuous Success
Deploys FSBDC at UCF ABC and SBI Programs to Full Advantage
October 29, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Hal Thayer, Communications Director, SBDC at UCF, 407.420.4850 or hthayer@bus.ucf.edu
Orlando, FL – Ask almost any business executive: “what’s the toughest part of your job?” Nine out of ten will tell you that it’s finding, hiring and keeping good people. It’s an age-old problem that Joseph and Eugenia Sefcik, the co-founders of Employment Technologies Corporation (ETC), saw as an opportunity. With Joe’s background in employee sourcing and human resources, and Eugenia’s hands-on experience building branch banking teams, they had the business experience to know that offering easy and effective employee testing and development tools would be the solution to a major challenge faced by the business community. They were both passionate about the potential they saw in their solution and about the opportunity it represented for them and for their future customers.
And so off they charged. Joe had watched employee training evolve from live role playing to computer-based automation. And in the back of his mind he knew that he had felt a yearning since childhood to own his own business. Then an opportune change in management gave Joe and Eugenia the opening they had hoped for. In 1995, through a spin-off from Joe’s previous employer, the Sefciks launched ETC.
Since then, ETC has established itself as a pioneer and world’s #1 developer of employment simulations. ETC’s signature line of EASy Simulations® improves hiring, accelerates employee performance, and inspires success.
ETC has evolved employment testing into the realm of simulation and, in so doing, has produced a solution that is more robust, accurate and fair than anything that came before. The company’s award-winning line of EASy Simulations offers significant time and cost savings to its clients while delivering proven bottom-line results, including substantial reductions in training time, absenteeism, and turnover—and dramatic increases in employee performance and productivity.
Over the years, Joe and Eugenia have focused on continuous improvement and have availed themselves to a variety of resources available to Central Florida entrepreneurs as they worked to grow ETC. One of the important and valuable programs they have participated in to great advantage is the Florida SBDC at UCF’s Advisory Board Council (ABC), an economic development program that operates within the Florida Small Business Development Center at UCF and is funded by Orange County Government. The program is a no-cost professional advisory service for local companies. By acting as a matchmaker between businesses and volunteer advisors, all of whom are professionals in our community, the Advisory Board Council program acts to positively impact Orange County businesses through revenue growth and job creation. Businesses also benefit by improved operations, marketing, financial management, reduced costs, leadership development and succession planning.
In the case of ETC, their Advisory Board contributes regularly to their financial management expertise, sales activities and marketing. The Board, which includes SBDC at UCF’s certified business analyst Roger Greenwald and ABC program manager Jill Kaufman along with four additional outside advisors, meets quarterly to assist ETC.
“Our Advisory Board from the SBDC at UCF has been invaluable,” said Joe Sefcik. “Their input, consulting and coaching have helped us make important decisions and chart the direction of the company. Having these objective, external experts put 100% of their focus on our business allows us to better benchmark our performance and guide our thinking. We are grateful for the support we have received from our Advisory Board.”
Another Florida SBDC at UCF program that ETC has taken advantage of is the SBDC’s award winning Small Business Institute® (SBI®) program. SBI® connects local small businesses like ETC to the resources and management expertise of UCF’s College of Business Administration (UCF CBA) and the SBDC at UCF by providing confidential and professional management assistance through consulting projects performed by UCF CBA students. In the case of ETC, the Small Business Institute® team assisted in producing and evaluating valuable market research that helped the company make new product decisions.
Thanks to the Sefciks’ leadership, the dedication and hard work of their team and support from resources like the SBDC at UCF, the results at ETC have been outstanding. Their products have won myriad awards, including being a five-time winner of the prestigious Human Resources Executive, “Top HR Product of the Year” award. Most recently, the company received the highly-regarded William C. Schwartz Innovation Award for their innovative practices and exceptional impact on Central Florida. The company has grown from four to 20 employees, and revenues have increased steadily. In fact, over the past three years they have worked with their SBDC at UCF Advisory Board, ETC has seen revenues increase 40%.
Importantly for Joe and Eugenia and their team at ETC, they have been able to use their success to help their community. They are an active supporter of the University of Central Florida, having donated a psychology laboratory to the school and employed interns and students from the school. One-third of current ETC employees are UCF graduates, most of whom came into the company through this route. Eugenia has taken a leadership role in supporting Kids Across America; in recent years her work has provided more than 250 scholarships for inner city teens to attend a summer camp designed to encourage, equip and empower urban youth and their mentors through camping and education.
The combination of providing pioneering employment simulation solutions for its customers, being a growing Central Florida business for its employees and staying a meaningful contributor for its community makes Employment Technologies Corporation a success story indeed.
— FSBDC —
About the FSBDC at UCF
With its main office in the National Entrepreneur Center located at the Fashion Square Mall in Orlando, the Florida Small Business Development Center at the University of Central Florida (FSBDC at UCF) is part of the UCF Office of Research & Commercialization and the Florida Small Business Development Center Network (FSBDC Network). THE FSBDC at UCF provides business seminars and no-cost, one-on-one business consultation to emerging and established businesses. The FSBDC at UCF serves an eight-county area that includes Brevard, Flagler, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Sumter, and Volusia counties and maintains 10 service centers across Central Florida.
In 2012, the FSBDC at UCF served almost 6500 entrepreneurs and small business owners through consulting and training, resulting in 9,961 Central Florida jobs created, retained or saved; $1.3 billion in sales growth; $50.4 million in capital formation; $104.6 million in government contract awards; and 108 new businesses started.
About the FSBDC Network
For over 35 years, the FSBDC Network has nourished a statewide partnership between higher education and economic development organizations, dedicated to providing emerging and established business owners with management and technical assistance, enabling overall growth and increased profitability for the businesses and economic prosperity for the state. The FSBDC Network is a statewide service system of 41 centers with 60 outreach locations, including the FSBDC at UCF.
In 2012, the Florida SBDCs served approximately 38,000 entrepreneurs and small business owners through consulting and training, resulting in 47,845 jobs created, retained and saved; $6.3 billion in sales growth; $235.2 million in capital accessed; $588.4 million in government contract awards; and 744 new businesses started.
In 2012, for every $1 of Florida public and private sector investment in the FSBDC program, $40 was returned to the state in tax revenue.
The FSBDC at UCF and the FSBDC Network are funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
FSBDC at UCF | 3201 E. Colonial Drive | Orlando, FL 32801 | p 407.420.4850 | f 407.420.4862
sbdc@bus.ucf.edu | www.sbdcorlando.com