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New Research: Best Practices for Retaining Technical Talent

Feel like your support team is on the losing side of a Red Rover game?

The Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) recently conducted an exhaustive study on retaining technical talent in service and support organizations. This comprehensive report defines the keys to hiring, training, engaging and retaining the best possible service and support staff.

Download the "Best Practices for Retaining Top
Technical Talent", research report to discover expert recommendations for the most effective way to accomplish this goal.

Eugene Chosen for Call Center
Within a few months, customers in North America renting cars from Enterprise Rent-A-Car, or its National or Alamo affiliates, will chat on the phone with agents in Eugene, when the company opens a call center in the former Symantec building downtown. Enterprise, which is based in St. Louis and has call centers there and in Salt Lake City, plans to start hiring about 100 workers in mid-February, and eventually to have at least 200 employees in Eugene, company spokeswoman Laura Bryant said. [Source: Register Guard]

Sales Performance International Announces the New Solution Selling eLearning Suite
Sales Performance International (SPI), a sales training and performance improvement firm, announced a major expansion of its offerings with the new Solution Selling eLearning Suite. For the first time these skills development programs are available to sales people and managers everywhere regardless of location or company size. The Solution Selling eLearning Suite helps sales professionals improve their performance by providing on-demand access to a comprehensive, training curriculum that includes essential sales planning, execution and management skills.

Educational Institutions Turn to SuccessFactors to Manage Their Workforce
SuccessFactors, a provider of on-demand performance and talent management solutions, has seen a rise in the number of educational institutions turning to its on-demand Performance and Talent Management Suite to better and more efficiently manage their workforces, and maximize efficiency and productivity. By using SuccessFactors to automate their performance management processes and gain better visibility and insight into the skills, competencies and ambitions of their workers, educational institutions can operate more efficiently and more effectively to retain top talent – two of the top challenges modern institutions face.

New Web Shopping Portal Streamlines the Search for Training Solutions
From leadership development to forklift safety, keeping employees up to date, motivated and productive may be the most difficult assignment for companies of all sizes. But TrainingTime.com, a newly launched web site from Sunrise-based Everglades Direct Inc., was designed to make the task of training much easier. The site covers a full range of timely topics in today's training world, new technologies, ideas and information, tips and tools.

More People Need to Watch Their Language at Work
Despite the ready availability of free spelling and grammar checkers, 60% of all business correspondence still gets sent containing one or more grammar or spelling errors, according to the results of a study released by WhiteSmoke, developers of English writing software solutions. Many of the errors can be traced to free word processing checkers that do not perform context-based text modifications.

The findings are based on WhiteSmoke’s survey of 5,000 pages of business writing texts. The most prevalent error type turns out to be ‘missing words,’ with 32% of writers failing to use all the words needed for a grammatically correct sentence. Words most likely to be missed are verb auxiliaries (be, have, do), prepositions (in, on, at) and determiners (a, an, the, this), and missing nouns, says Whitesmoke.

Further data from WhiteSmoke shows that 28% of mistakes relate to punctuation; that is, knowing when to use a period, comma or question mark. Agreement between sentence elements comes up next in 8% of the data. More problem areas are spelling, using the wrong word, repeating words and misusing verb tenses.
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Top Trend Predictions for Recruiting in 2008
Polachi, a provider of Access Executive Search services to technology, life sciences, clean tech, venture capital and private equity clients, has released its top trend predictions for executive recruiting in 2008.

• Alternative Energy/Clean Tech to Tap Pharma Execs: Clean tech will continue to grow and will take executives from other industries to lead them. Pharma, and increasingly biotech, are attractive targets for alternative energy industries as these executives have relevant product development experience, and as the executives seek exits due to pharma's continuing pipeline and other woes.

• Finance Experience at the Board Level: Boards will continue to need outsiders, particularly qualified financial types.

• Diversity at Larger Companies: Larger companies are especially putting on a big push for diversity. They recognize that having a more multicultural representation leads to improved products and services for the ever-expanding minority and international markets.

• Rise of the "Outside" Chief Technology Officer: The demand for VPs of Engineering and CTOs continues to be strong and looks likely to continue. In particular, companies in the $100 million to $300 million range with aspirations of growing to $500 million and beyond will be looking to bring in fresh ideas with CTOs from outside their company.

• Sales & Marketing of Enterprise Software: With more enterprise software companies targeting businesses as well as consumers, there is a growing need for sales and marketing executives who have experience selling into both B2B and B2C markets.

• Global Interest from VC/PE Industry: An increasing number of venture capital and private equity firms will progressively seek international exposure. There is a particularly high level of interest in China and India.

• Favoring of Strategic Leadership Skills: Strategic leadership skills will increasingly be favored over specific domain expertise amongst CEOs and other senior functional executives. There’s a swing back toward the recruiting environment of the late 90's and away from the excessively stringent selection criteria imposed by investors and boards that was common in the early years of this decade.

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Dwindling Popularity of the Annual Holiday Bonus
Once a tradition of the holiday season, the annual holiday bonus continues to lose credibility as an effective way to reward employees. Indeed, according to a new survey from Hewitt Associates, a global human resources services company, 63 percent of companies said they would not award holiday bonuses last year. However, the news isn't all bad. Ninety percent of companies are relying on variable pay plans (performance-based bonuses that must be re-earned annually) to show their appreciation to hard-working employees in 2007.

Hewitt's 2007 holiday study of more than 350 organizations reveals that more than half (53 percent) have never offered a holiday bonus, while 10 percent have discontinued their programs. Of those that canceled their holiday bonus initiatives, 53 percent did so between 2000 and 2007. Companies said they eliminated holiday bonuses primarily due to cost (50 percent), development of pay-for-performance programs (37 percent), or difficulty in administering bonus programs (16 percent). Of those companies that never offered a holiday bonus program, 54 percent said that all rewards are tied to performance, 34 percent said it was due to cost, and 29 percent never considered such a program.

Conversely, of the 35 percent of companies that offered a holiday bonus program in 2007, 42 percent said they would provide gift cards, 41 percent would award cash, 25 percent would give employees a gift of food (e.g., turkey or ham), and 20 percent would give some type of catalog gift. For the few who receive gift cards, the amount was likely go up, with companies giving an average of $52, up from $37 in 2006. The average cash gift given was expected to be $842 compared to $837 last year.

Overall, organizations continue to provide holiday bonuses as a way to say thank you and/or show appreciation (69 percent), maintain tradition (11 percent) or boost morale (16 percent). More than two-thirds (70 percent) of companies surveyed who offer holiday bonuses said that all employee groups are eligible, while 17 percent said only full-time employees are eligible.

Hewitt's study revealed that the prevalence of holiday bonus programs varies greatly across industries with the insurance industry leading the way (61 percent), followed by health care
(50 percent), manufacturing (39 percent), retail (37 percent), financial services (16 percent) and the pharmaceutical industry (8 percent).

While U.S. workers can expect to see only modest base pay increases in 2008, they have the potential to earn more than three times as much through performance-related awards. In 2007, actual company spending on variable pay as a percentage of payroll is 11.8 percent. Spending on variable pay in 2008 is projected to remain strong at 11.6 percent.
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Green Initiatives Pick Up Momentum Among U.S. Financial Institutions
New research from TowerGroup finds although the impact of financial institutions on the environment isn't as substantial as that of the coal, automotive, and chemical industries, the financial industry does have a role to play that is larger than its own carbon footprint. The report finds that sustainability initiatives -- which include both environmentally friendly and socially-responsible actions -- are growing as a market force among financial services institutions in the United States.

Emerging demand from customers and employees is helping push financial institutions to forge a strategy around incorporating products and services that are environmentally friendly. However, because the regulatory environment is still immature, there is currently no comprehensive or single blueprint for institutions or their suppliers to follow.

A number of leading financial institutions have already adopted some sustainability measures. These initiatives range from sourcing power from "green" suppliers or affiliating themselves with associations such as the US Green Build Council, to offering "green-friendly" products to the marketplace (which includes a growing push to reduce paper statements and increase online account access by customers).

Inside the financial institution, sustainability initiatives must be shaped around key internal dynamics (such as corporate culture), operational processes (such as recycling and telecommuting) and image/marketing (such as the "branding" of sustainable initiatives). As these efforts broaden and deepen, the sustainable financial services enterprise must also address and engage three external constituencies: suppliers; regulators; and customers.
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Successful Strategies to Increase Service Revenue

Manufacturers are constantly seeking ways to improve their bottom line and gain a reliable annuity stream from their existing customers.

Download "Successful Strategies to Increase Service Revenues: A Manufacturer's Guide" to discover new strategies for the most effective ways to increase your bottom line.

Learn how to gain visibility into your service lifecycles, improve registration rates, increase renewal service opportunities, grow your product refresh business, and transition previously uncovered assets while boosting attach rates. Capture untapped service transactions to generate substantial, repeatable revenue streams.

Click here to download the white paper...

New Workers Sorely Lacking Reading, Writing Skills
There is a glaring deficiency in reading and writing among new entrants in the American workforce, and that is troubling employers who are being forced to invest in additional training — or simply look for skilled workers offshore — for one of the most fundamental job skills in the 21st century economy.
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Are You Embellishing Your Resume or Just Plain Lying?
Most people embellish their resumes. In fact, there’s quite an art to wording accomplishments so that they appear better than they actually were. But if you’re not exactly forthright about your education or dates of employment at previous companies -- facts that are easy to check -- you could be cutting your own throat.
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What Makes A CIO Effective?
It's a discussion suited to a late night with friends and a few glasses of beer: How do you become a more effective person? It's also the stuff of popular culture: There's a "secret" to personal effectiveness, and/or it's the result of seven particular habits. In this article, InformationWeek explores the characteristics, personal traits, technology skills, and business acumen that make for a highly effective individual in one of the most demanding jobs in today's corporate environment: the CIO.
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CEO Succession: Has Grooming Talent on the Inside Gone by the Wayside?
The recent departures of two of the world's most prominent chief executives in the wake of major financial losses at their firms -- Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch and Charles Prince of Citigroup -- have focused renewed attention on an important but often neglected component of corporate management: succession planning.
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The Office: The Bad and the Ugly
There's a reason Dilbert, The Office, and their ilk are so popular. Satire gets old fast, but the appeal of realism endures. And the real world, sadly, is full of lousy bosses. Someone ought to do a study on where these louts come from. Were they abused by their own bosses? Did they toss overboard the ballast of human kindness to hasten the ascent of their career balloons? Or is this an example of absolute power corrupting absolutely? Such research might also demonstrate how ubiquitous miserable managers are. This article details seven signs of a bad boss.
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Whether we’re talking about United States presidents, CEOs, Major League coaches, or wartime generals, leaders are remembered for their best and worst judgment calls. Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis have each spent decades studying and teaching leadership and advising top CEOs such as Jack Welch and Howard Schultz. Now, in their first collaboration, they offer a powerful framework for making tough calls when the stakes are high and the right path is far from obvious.

Visit the SupportIndustry.com Blog
The SupportIndustry.com Blog is another way stay on top of the service and support industry. Our blog, updated at least once a week, is dedicated to covering the latest topics related to service and support, call center management, customer experience management, web-based support, help desks, workforce optimization and more.
Check it out today!

White Paper: Using Web-based Support Tools to Improve Customer Service
This informative white paper examines the latest trends and technologies in using Web-based support tools to improve customer service.
Get your copy today!

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