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November 27, 2006

It is all about the People Says Gartner

When we first started our business in 1998, we were amazed at the number of software solutions for the call center industry.  We were more amazed at the small showing of solutions focused on people working in call centers, especially since labor is 65% of a call center’s budget.


In 2004 and 2005, several firms started focusing on how to improve agent performance via software applications.  This movement is referred to as Workforce Optimization (WFO), Performance Optimization, or Agent Development.  Using improved quality monitoring systems, coaching and development applications, workforce scheduling applications, and performance management dashboards, the operations team can pull data together that can help them improve their employee’s job performance.  We have long been critical of the WFO movement and the assumption that new hires can be magically coached and developed even though they may have neither the ability nor willingness to perform the job.  In our view, the critical missing element is making sure the right person has been hired in the first place.  


Now, in 2006, Gartner has added Recruiting and Selection categories to its Workforce Optimization / Contact Centre Performance Optimization map. Gartner includes three elements in defining performance:  1) Agent Performance; 2) Technology Performance; 3) Process Performance.
While much is still missing in the WFO space on hiring the right people, for Gartner to add recruiting and selection to the WFO categories is a fantastic step forward in how the WFO market is advancing. 

Posted by jeff at 03:18 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome to Our Blog

Welcome to our blog.  We’re hopeful that you’ll find interesting content and ideas that you can use in your business.  Our intent is to share content – ideas, research, opinions, and observations – with you.  In the recruiting world, we’re late to the blog game.  In the call center world, we’re a little early.  Since call centers pay our bills, I guess we’re in a good position.


Our company’s focus is helping customer contact organizations find, hire, and keep better employees.  We do that in two ways.  First, we build tools (web based assessment tests and hiring systems) that our clients use to make a more predictive hiring decision.  The goal here is to increase the odds of making a better hiring decision.  Second, we provide recruitment process outsourcing solutions to customer contact organizations.  We manage the hiring process from start to finish.


We collect a lot of data on job candidates, new hires, and how those new hires perform in training and in production.  We look forward to sharing our research on hiring successful job candidates, recruiting tactics, and performance management based on this data.

Posted by jeff at 01:19 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)