Welcome ,

White Paper: Improving Customer Service Using Web-based Support Tools

This white paper explores the undeniable benefits of using Web-based applications for customer service and support. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) model provides companies of any size with the power to leverage service and support technologies for competitive differentiation and is an invaluable asset when supporting today's generation of Web-savvy customers. These customers, when in need of service, often go to an organization's website first, hoping to be empowered with options to self-serve via knowledgebases and downloads, live chat sessions, and easy escalation paths. So, it is imperative that organizations impress existing and potential customers by providing the applications they desire, content that exudes both breadth and depth, and a support site that is easy-to-use.

Download Now

Ampad Implements Programs to Help Reduce Employee Commuting Costs
American Pad & Paper has announced that it has implemented broad-based programs to help employees cope with the rising cost of commuting to work. The programs are providing benefits to the Company’s approximately 300 U.S. employees. There are currently two major programs in place. Starting June 1, eligible employees are receiving $5 per week “special pay” as direct assistance to help defray the cost of commuting. Secondly, management has approved a change in production scheduling to change a large portion of plant operations from five 8-hour days a week to four 10-hour days at Ampad’s manufacturing facilities.

Peopleclick Unveils Onboarding Solution That Delivers an Enriched New Hire Experience
Peopleclick Inc., a global talent acquisition solutions provider, has announced the launch of Peopleclick Onboarding as an enhanced component of its Talent Acquisition Suite. This full-featured product integrates seamlessly into the Peopleclick Recruitment Management System (RMS) and provides organizations with the necessary tools to create engaged new hires from day one.

TheLadders.com Unveils Two New Candidate Search Innovations for RecruitLadder Service
TheLadders.com, an online platform for $100k+ jobs, has unveiled two new applications on its RecruitLadder service, an enterprise-level recruiting solution designed exclusively for human resources professionals. ResumeViewer and SmartMatch have been created to further aid recruiters in their search processes, enabling them to quickly scan and review candidate resumes and automate the candidate match process based on the unique attributes of each job posting.

HireRight Announces New Screening Solution Designed Specifically for Mid-Market Employers
HireRight, Inc., a provider of on-demand employment background and drug screening solutions, has announced the availability of HireRight Professional, an enterprise-class on-demand background screening solution that helps mid-sized companies quickly identify the best job candidates and provide those candidates with a positive hiring experience, while reducing screening-related administrative tasks and accelerating time-to-hire.

Google has Best Reputation in U.S., Airlines Fall
Not only has the stock market lost ground since last fall, but so has the reputation of Corporate America in the eyes of consumers. Seven out of 11 industries saw their reputation decline last year from 2006 and 16 of the companies with the worst marks fell even further, according to the Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient (RQ) survey.

But despite a slide in Corporate America’s image among consumers, the RQ found that a strong statistical correlation exists between a company’s overall reputation and the likelihood that consumers will purchase, recommend or invest in a company or its products and services.

What does it take to get to the top? Google provides a case in point. Four years ago, the company was not included among the top 60 most visible companies on the list. But this year, Google rose to No. 1, beating last year’s RQ reputation leader, Microsoft. Google also beat this year’s second-runner-up, Johnson & Johnson, which was the top ranked company, until last year, since the inception of the survey in 1999.

The top 10 companies on this year’s list in order of ranking include: 1) Google; 2) Johnson & Johnson; 3) Intel Corporation; 4) General Mills; 5) Kraft Foods; 6) Berkshire-Hathaway Inc.; 7) 3M Company; 8) The Coca-Cola Company; 9) Honda Motor Co.; 10) Microsoft.

From an industry perspective, the technology sector fared very well with Google, Intel Corporation, and Microsoft Corporation all being within the top 10 ranking. Coming out of its very public Board battles, Hewlett-Packard/Compaq was the biggest gainer and Intel, Apple and Google also showed significant positive rating changes from 2006 to 2007.

With mergers, bankruptcies, and media attention around cancelled flights frustrating consumers, the airline industry had the largest drop in rankings from 2006, with only 26% of Americans giving positive RQ scores to airlines.

Following are additional survey findings:

• Overall, more companies taking an active role affecting and managing their reputation are seeing positive results, while those that are not continue to see their reputation decline. Of those companies who scored in the Top 30, 19 (63 percent) improved their scores year-over-year, while 11 (37 percent) had scores that declined. However, of the companies that scored in the Bottom 30, just 14 (47 percent) improved their scores year-over-year while 16 (53 percent) declined even further.

• Despite a drop in the consumer products sector overall, many consumer packaged goods companies scored in the upper echelons with General Mills, Kraft Foods and The Coca-Cola Company ranking in the Top 10. Of interest, males tend to give higher scores to technology companies and women give top marks to consumer packaged goods companies.

• Of the 52 companies measured in both 2007 and 2006, 15 experienced noticeable changes in their reputations – nine went up and 6 declined. What’s striking, is that in the previous four years combined, 2003 to 2006, there had been 14 significant movements, 4 of which were declines.

• In addition to significant shifts for technology companies, other big gainers in 2007 included Berkshire Hathaway, BP and Verizon Communications. Berkshire Hathaway benefitted from its strong financial performance as well as the halo effect of Warren Buffets’ $37 billion donation to charity the previous year. BP, which had a number of challenges in recent years including the CEO’s resignation over an affair, a plant explosion that resulted in employee deaths, and pipeline leaks in Alaska, likely benefitted from continued goodwill from its "Beyond Petroleum" advertising campaign as it has outranked its oil and gas competitors in recent years, despite low marks for the sector overall in corporate reputation.

More...

Social Workers and HR Managers in High Demand as Weak Economy Hits Home for Many
It's a sign of difficult times for many. Social workers and counselors are now among some of the nation's most in-demand professionals, according to new findings in the Jobfox Top 25 Most Wanted U.S. Job Candidates: June 2008 rankings.

Social workers and counselors ranked as the seventh most-wanted professionals, according to the June report from Jobfox, a free online service that uses precision matching to help qualified candidates link up with compatible job opportunities. The Counseling/Social Work profession cracked the Top 25 for the first time since Jobfox began tracking job trends in March 2008.

For about a year now, there's been a steady increase in the demand for social workers and counselors. With increases in gas and food prices, we are seeing more stress and more demand for outreach services  — especially among low-income families. Money and job pressures are often the triggers to higher levels of anxiety and emotional problems.

The Jobfox rankings also indicate increased hiring activity for human resource executives – perhaps more signs of what’s well, what’s not so well and what remains a challenge for U.S. businesses in the current economic climate.

Human resource executives are now the 25th most wanted, according to the Jobfox rankings report for June. Recruiting/Staffing professionals also ranked 24th – the second-consecutive month that recruiters have held this position.

Many professions remain in high demand, according to Jobfox. The most wanted professions include Software Design/Development, Sales Representative/Business Development, Accounting/Finance Executive, Accounting and Nursing.

Rounding out the Top 10 are Networking/System Administration, Counseling/Social Work, Business Analysis – Research, Business Analysis – Software Implementation and Mechanical Engineering.
More...

Executive Leadership, Not HR, Should Drive Diversity Hiring Efforts
More than two-thirds (68 percent) of executive recruiters say diversity hiring efforts should be spearheaded by top company leadership, according to international recruiters who completed the latest edition of the quarterly Executive Recruiter Index, released by Korn/Ferry International, a global provider of talent management solutions.  This overwhelming trend reflects the importance of diversity hiring practices in today’s competitive market for talent.

Other champions of diversity, according to global recruiters, include the company’s board of directors (13 percent) and the human resources department (11 percent).

Additionally, nearly half of recruiters (46 percent) reveal that minority candidates are present in 25-75 percent of their executive searches. More than one-fifth of recruiters (21 percent) report that diversity candidates had been included in three-quarters or more of their recent engagements.

Almost half (49 percent) of recruiters attribute the increased visibility around diversity issues to globalization, while another 30 percent cite the increased presence of women and minorities in the workplace as the leading reason.

Lastly, nearly 9 out of 10 recruiters (85 percent) agree that companies that have successful diversity programs in place enjoy a competitive advantage in the marketplace.  Effective diversity programs provide a more robust talent pool for organizations around the world, allowing them to attract and retain more top talent amidst today’s shortage of skilled professionals.
More...

Small Businesses Have Strategic Opportunities to Compete for  Employee Talent
Workplace benefits are being viewed as an important employee retention tool by small businesses. More than half (55%) of smaller employers, those with fewer than 500 employees, say benefits play a very important role in employee retention – a top objective, according to MetLife’s 6th annual Employee Benefits Trends Study. However, many current benefits programs are not being utilized to their full retention potential. According to the MetLife study, only about one-third (34%) of workers at these smaller employers say the benefits they receive are a very important reason to remain with their employer, contrasted to more than half (53%) of employees working at larger companies. In addition, just 37% of employees at smaller companies, compared to 49% of employees at larger firms, say they are highly satisfied with their workplace benefits.

A majority (60%) of smaller employers – those with less than 500 employees – say they have a strong sense of loyalty to their employees compared to 45% of larger companies. Yet, many employees are not sensing this – only 44% of workers at these smaller companies believe that their employer has very strong sense of loyalty to them. This is despite another study finding that, among employers that offer benefits, a higher percentage of smaller employers contrasted to larger employers are paying all of the costs for many benefits including medical, dental, vision and prescription drugs.

For example, more than one-third of smaller employers (36%) say they pay the entire share of employees’ medical coverage and 29% pay all the cost of prescription drug coverage compared to only 15% and 13%, respectively, among employers with 500 plus employees. Breadth and depth of benefits offerings may have greater impact on employee loyalty than cost-sharing proportions. Employees at smaller companies indicate an interest in paying more to get more – 91% of those surveyed say they are interested in having more voluntary benefits offered with 40% saying they are very interested.

Of course, some personal issues confront all employees regardless of their employer’s size. For example, about one-third of all employees say they have a limited amount of time to do necessary research to help them make financial decisions – likely a reason why only about one-third express confidence in their ability to make the right financial decisions for their families. Money is also a concern regardless of employer size – about four in ten employees say they live paycheck to paycheck. With time, money and confidence levels on par, it seems surprising that fewer employees at smaller companies have taken steps to determine their family’s financial needs in relation to financial protection such as life insurance, retirement income and disability income insurance than their neighbors at larger employers. For example:

• 52% of workers at companies with less than 500 employees have taken steps to determine their families’ life insurance needs compared to 62% of employees at larger employers.

• 47% of workers at companies with less than 500 employees have taken steps to determine their families’ retirement income needs compared to 59% of employees at larger employers.

• 33% of workers at companies with less than 500 employees have taken steps to determine their families’ disability income needs compared to 47% of employees at larger employers.

Communication materials may be one cause for the disparity. Both smaller employers and their employees are in agreement that benefits communications is an area that needs improvement. Only about one-third of employers and employees believe that current benefits communications are highly effective. More than half (54%) of employees at these smaller businesses say receiving personalized benefits information with costs for options would make it easier when making choices.

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.

Click Here to Download....

Gender Discrimination Lawsuits: Essentials to Avoid Them
There's bad news on the gender discrimination front for employers: When cases do go before a jury, judgments have skyrocketed. For example, in 1991 the average harassment award was $141,000. Now, it’s more like $1 million. What’s more, some states, are imposing personal liability on those who know of harassment and take no action to stop it. The takeaway from these dispatches from the harassment front: It's both good business and the right thing to do to set up a program that discourages harassment from happening, and that responds quickly and effectively if it does.
Full Article...

Five Things You Should Never Tell Your Boss
In the information biz, more isn't necessarily better. Though full disclosure and transparency are buzzwords today, that doesn't mean your boss wants to hear about everything going on in the office. In fact, there are some things your CIO definitely doesn't want to hear, and if your career is going to thrive, you'd better know what they are.
Full Article...

Four Secrets to Becoming a Rising IT Star
Success is not easy or simple. Even in the best of times, workplaces are fraught with changing conditions, political jockeying and limited room for advancement. Yet some IT staff manage to get noticed — and in all the right ways. What are the secrets of their success?  How do some IT leaders manage to shine?
Full Article...

How Stay-at-Home Moms Are Filling an Executive Niche
Lots of employers would like to be able to hire cheap, temporary teams of seasoned pros with experience managing $2 billion investment portfolios, running ad campaigns or earning Ph.D.s in neuroscience. But few know the secret to finding temps of that caliber: Look on playgrounds and at PTA meetings.
Full Article...

HR On Demand: Lowering Cost Through Software
Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock, is famous for giving out his Social Security Number on the radio and TV in an effort to show the effectiveness of his company’s theft identification system. Apparently, however, that drive for effectiveness extends beyond the company’s products to its internal workings. The fast-growing 350-employee company uses an array of on-demand human resources tools to streamline its HR processes, increase the effectiveness of its processes, and reduce costs.
Full Article...

The IT Talent Crunch and Why it’s the CIO’s Fault
In order to survive the IT talent crunch, CIOs need to stop looking for people with particular certifications or technical talents. They need to look instead for technical people who are willing to learn.
Full Article...

The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Demographic Storm
by Kenneth W. Gronbach

2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey Results

Supportindustry.com has announced the release of a free white paper outlining the results of the 2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey. This annual survey explores the state of enterprise service and support -- current industry trends, future plans, technology adoption, workforce issues, benchmarking strategies, metrics and other areas.

Get your free copy of the survey results today! http://www.supportindustry.com/2008supportmetrics.htm

Manage Your e.Newsletter Subscription
Log-on to the member's only page and you can to change newsletter formats, remove yourself from the list, or update your member profile.

Editorial suggestions, feedback & comments:
Carolyn Healey, Editor - chealey@recognizeserviceexcellence.com

Advertising Information:
adinfo@recognizeserviceexcellence.com

Thank you for reading RecognizeServiceExcellence.com's weekly newsletter!

Copyright © 2008, RecognizeServiceExcellence.com