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| U.S. Job Satisfaction at Lowest Level in Two Decades | |||||||||||||
| Americans of all ages and income brackets continue to grow increasingly unhappy at work-a long-term trend that should be a red flag to employers, according to a report released today by The Conference Board. The report, based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. households conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, finds only 45 percent of those surveyed say they are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent in 1987, the first year in which the survey was conducted. "While one in 10 Americans is now unemployed, their working compatriots of all ages and incomes continue to grow increasingly unhappy," says Lynn Franco, director of the Consumer Research Center of The Conference Board. "Through both economic boom and bust during the past two decades, our job satisfaction numbers have shown a consistent downward trend." Fewer Americans are satisfied with all aspects of their employment, and no age or income group is immune. In fact, the youngest cohort of employees (those currently under age 25) expresses the highest level of dissatisfaction ever recorded by the survey for that age group. The drop in job satisfaction between 1987 and 2009 covers all categories in the survey, from interest in work (down 18.9 percentage points) to job security (down 17.5 percentage points) and crosses all four of the key drivers of employee engagement: job design, organizational health, managerial quality, and extrinsic rewards. | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Jan-21-2010 | |||||||||||||
| Employers Increasing Use of Social Media to Reach Employees in Study Finds Consumers want Increased Automation in the Contact Center | |||||||||||||
| Nuance Communications, Inc. announced the findings of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting. The study revealed that consumers rate automated telephone customer service higher than live agents for certain straightforward interactions. In five out of ten posed scenarios, consumers preferred automated telephone customer service systems over live agent interactions for tasks like prescription refills (66% rated automation highly, compared with 52% for live agent), checking the status of a flight from a cell phone (61% versus 49%), checking account balances (59% versus 36%), store information requests (55% versus 37%), and tracking shipments (53% versus 47%). The survey also revealed that automated telephone systems are an expected and accepted customer service channel with 82% of US online adults having used an automated touchtone or speech recognition system to contact customer service in the past 12 months. That figure trails behind only live agent interactions, with which 93% of consumers have engaged. In the survey, consumers provided their level of interest in a variety of specific proactive notification options within five different industries. The aggregated results of the industry-specific questions show that a strong majority of consumers are interested in at least one proactive notification alert via their choice of email, voice message, or text message. Consumers were most open to notifications related to the travel industry (93%), which include such things as flight status updates and confirmation of reservations for flights, hotels, and car rentals. Eighty-eight percent of consumers were interested in notification from a financial services institution, with strong interest in transaction confirmations. With regard to health care, consumers strongly favored appointment reminders � something that could be adopted in a variety of other industries as well, such as utilities or professional services. Other key findings: According to Forrester's study, when it comes to evaluating a great experience with automated speech recognition customer service systems, two-thirds of consumers value having the ability to speak to a live agent at any time. Forty-two percent of consumers value the ability of the speech recognition system to understand them the first time a response is spoken, and 39% of consumers prefer not to have to repeat themselves. Similarly, when asked to identify what would improve speech recognition customer service experiences, the top choice (75%) of consumers was to offer the option of speaking with a live agent throughout the interaction. Being understood the first time (63%) and improving menus to direct callers to the appropriate destination (45%) round out the top three answer choices. | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Jan-21-2010 | |||||||||||||
| Are Employees Twittering the Day Away? | |||||||||||||
| Whether they're shooting off their own "tweets" or following others, workers using Twitter are creating liability and PR risks with their 140-character rants, raves and company gossip. Example 1: A PR exec landed in Memphis and promptly posted on his Twitter account, "I would die if I had to live here." The problem: Memphis is home to FedEx, one of the PR firm's largest clients. FedEx reps were not amused. Example 2: A 22-year-old applicant who was offered a job with Cisco sent a "tweet" saying, "Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work." Needless to say, the woman Twittered her way out of the job. Advice: Draft a brief policy on your organization's expectations for employees' use of Twitter and other social networking sites (plus video). It could serve as a complement to your e-mail or e-communication policies. As the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) points out, "If your company ignores the impact of Twitter, the company's silence might cause confusion." Here are some suggestions from SHRM for your Twitter policy: Remind employees that they can be disciplined or terminated for making online disparaging remarks about the company -- even if they're made on their own time from their own computers. | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Dec-18-2009 | |||||||||||||
| US Contact Centers Predict Return to Growth in 2010 | |||||||||||||
| New research published by ContactBabel reveals that there has been a significant drop in employment within the US contact center industry, which employs around 3.6% of the nation's working population. In 2009, headcount declined by 3.9%, equating to a net loss of just over 200,000 jobs. This year, both Opex and Capex budgets have been cut, with 43% of respondents decreasing their Opex and 39% their Capex. Few have been able to increase their budgets by anything more than a small amount, and the tightening of Opex has meant that there has been a significant decrease in headcount as well. The Manufacturing, Finance, Insurance, Retail and Healthcare sectors were all hit harder than average, with more than half of respondents from these sectors experiencing a drop in headcount. However, the majority of Services and Technology/Media/Telecoms (TMT) contact center respondents posted headcount increases. The next 12 months is expected to see a large rebound in agent figures, with respondents to the survey stating an average expected headcount growth rate of 5.7%, equating to a net gain of 290,000 jobs US-wide. Public Sector and Insurance respondents are least bullish, but the Services, TMT and Outsourcing sectors all expect significant increases in headcount. | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Dec-18-2009 | |||||||||||||
| Employers Increasing Use of Social Media to Reach Employees in Challenging Times | |||||||||||||
| In order to communicate messages to workers in a complex business environment, a majority of companies plan to increase their use of social media in the coming year, according to a survey by Watson Wyatt, a global consulting firm. Almost two-thirds (65 percent) of companies plan to increase their use of social media in 2010, according to the Watson Wyatt 2009/2010 Communication ROI Study, which surveyed 328 companies from various regions around the world. Overall, 78 percent of global respondents have increased their electronic communication in the last 24 months, and 55 percent have increased face-to-face communication. However, nearly half (48 percent) have decreased their print communication over the past 24 months. While interest is growing, many employers report common hurdles to implementing social media. Among employers that did not expand their use of social media, more than one-third (36 percent) cited the lack of information technology support or inadequate technical capability. Forty percent indicate limited knowledge of the topic, and nearly half (45 percent) of companies cite the lack of staff or resources. For now, the traditional communication channels remain the most popular for many of employers' messages to their workers. According to the report, most employers prefer to communicate changes to business performance via staff meetings (73 percent). Employers view financial education as best delivered through their intranet (43 percent). And employers still prefer communicating changes to pay and job security face-to-face (58 percent and 48 percent respectively). | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Dec-18-2009 | |||||||||||||
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