One Step Ahead In The Talent War Across Call Centers In Manila

https://www.recruiter.com/i/5-tips-on-cultivating-your-talent-pipeline/

Came across this interesting article on LinkedIn. I’m always curious about that people are saying about how to have success with recruiting, because its perhaps the top challenges in my industry.

Recruiting good call center agents in Manila has got to be one of the hardest requirements to fill anywhere on the globe right now. Awhile back I came up with a formula for what makes up a good call center agent, and not the just the surface skills, but he core competencies. Here is what I see:

Conversational English (20%) – Conversations follow rules of etiquette because conversations are social interactions, and therefore depend on social convention.
Customer Service (20%) – Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.
Technical Training (20%) – Instruction to help agents use the systems and personal computers on which they are dependent to get their daily work done.
Product Knowledge (20%) – An understanding of a good or service that might include having acquired information about its application, function, features, use and support requirements.
Work Ethics (20%) – A strong work ethic is vital to a company achieving its goals. An example of someone with work ethic is a person who gets to work on time every day and always works long days to get the job done.

Of these, the hardest to teach is the fifth one, work ethic. So to me 5 ways to look for strong work ethic in a candidate are similar to the ones listed in the LinkedIn article. They are:

Recruiting at events is more the just showing our brand, but our story out there. It’s a crowded field and we are just one, small voice. But it’s a enchanting story that get people excited about working with us.
We too lean on Referrals for a high % of our new hires. There is nothing better than an endorsement for the job from someone doing the job.
Internships/OJT/Trainees let us see how they work and letting them see what its like to work with my team. Great way to make sure it’s a good fit from both ends.
Looking locally at schools and outside the industry places like retail and service jobs to attract new talent to the industry. The industry is full of job hoppers and money chasers, so going for them is not a good option.
Staying in touch by sending newsletters, inviting to trainings, text blasts is important to us. Staying top of mind and keep telling our story.

So there you, go that’s how we are helping companies stay ahead of the game when it comes to the talent war going on in the call center industry in the Philippines right now.

I am currently working on a book dedicated to helping HR & Recruitment professionals in the Philippines. The book should be ready by early 2017. In the meantime, you can check out my latest work, Putting Your Data to Work, for an overview of how to get started with analytics in your business. Connect with me and I will show you how to get a copy of my fast selling analytics guidebook.

HR & Recruitment Analytics – The recruitment and retention of top talent is the biggest challenge facing just about every organization. DMAIPH is a leading expert in empowering HR & Recruitment teams with analytics techniques to optimize their talent acquisition and management processes. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn how to get more analytics in your HR & Recruitment process so you can rise to the top in the ever quickening demand for top talent.

Talented Philippines! A Really Helpful Resource For BPO Professionals

http://www.talentedphilippines.com/

Came across this new book and just ordered it. Im pretty excited about it.

In a nutshell… Talented Philippines answers critical questions for multinational corporations currently operating in, expanding or establishing operations in the Philippines.

Some of the key questions tackled in the book:

What are the critical business issues for multinationals in the Philippines?

What are the key talent management implications?

How have the Philippine’s best organizations addressed those challenges?

talented philippines

Talented Philippines was created to address the critical business and HR issues impacting the Philippines today as the country continues to transform. Based on the responses of more than 650 business and HR practitioners at the forefront of HR innovation, thought leadership and implementation in the country, the book explores the people management priorities across small, medium and large enterprises operating in the Philippines. Combined with numerous case studies that highlight the experiences of leading organizations and insight from a wide cross-section of public and private sector enterprises, Talented Philippines offers global best practices for multinational companies looking to leverage the great promise of this flourishing nation and its talented workforce.

This is well timed as the last year has seen a quickening of the talent war in the Philippines as the issue of a skills mismatch between job seekers and employers has really come to a head. It is a must read for anyone involved in the BPO industry in the Philippines.

However, there is one thing that based on what I see so far, is missing form this book. The fact that no matter how awesome a company’s HR practitioners are… they are still trying to find talent when it is truly lacking in a natural state. As a companion piece to this book, would be solid advice on how, when, where and why to invest more in training… especially pre-hire training and training geared towards internal advancement.

No matter how great an HR team is, they still have to get the right people in the door to apply and that seems to be the issue… because even in country of 90 million there is just not enough Filipinos with the skill sets and/or aptitude for a BPO career right now. The demand will only be met if the supply is given more training, more preparation and more data to make good career decisions.

Dr. Data_Analytics in the Philippines
If you like this book, you will probably enjoy my new book as well. Putting Your Data to Work is a guidebook designed to help Filipinos get started with building a good analytics culture in their business. Connect with me if you are interested in purchasing a copy for only 600 PHP.

Why The Philippines? The Shift In Services Across The Globe Leads to My Adopted Country

“The world is currently witnessing a fundamental reorganization in the way services are delivered to customers. This is what is behind the movement to outsource. It’s a lot more than just saving money by shipping jobs overseas.” – Harvard Professor Robert E. Kennedy

In his book the Services Shift, Kennedy outlines 5 primary reasons for this shift in services. All 5 have a great deal of influence on why the Philippines has become the call center capital of the world.

The globalization of services, in which different tasks are being carried out by different individuals in different locations, is about gaining access to the best combination of talent, resources and markets.

Technological Innovations like easy access to the internet and stored data.
Emerging Market Growth in traditionally closed markets
Global Macroeconomic Liberalization of government polices toward trade
The Corporate Imperative to both reduce costs and improve quality
The Convergence of a Global Business Culture based on the English language and American business models.

There are so many forces for this move to outsource and analytics has moved to the top of everyone’s wish list of things to look globally for.

If you have been thinking about getting your feet wet in setting up a team in the Philippines, I can help. I have set up a dozen different teams of all shapes and sizes for various U.S. companies.

Adding a team in the Philippines will add a lot of value to your business, so connect with men and we can discuss a specific solution for you.

HR & Recruitment Analytics – The recruitment and retention of top talent is the biggest challenge facing just about every organization. You really have to Think Through The Box to come up with winning solutions to effectively attract, retain and manage talent in the Philippines today.

DMAIPH is a leading expert in empowering HR & Recruitment teams with analytics techniques to optimize their talent acquisition and management processes. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn how to get more analytics in your HR & Recruitment process so you can rise to the top in the ever quickening demand for top talent.

Act Like a Recruiter, Think Like a Candidate!

I just saw this blog post title on LinkedIn and was really intrigued because one of the central points I made in a Recruitment Analytics training class recently and it was just that. It is a candidate driven job market right now in the BPO/Call Center industry here in the Philippines.

SO, I was hoping to glean some additional insights that I could blog about. However, it was just a link to a whitepaper. Which of course to get the white paper you have to sign up. And once you do that you get 2 pages and you have to then pay a fee to get the full whitepaper. I absolutely HATE this!

Im all for finding creative ways to monetize social media and digital marketing. I’m of with paying for something if it seems to be of legitimate value, but when the call to action hides the whole story it is one of the biggest marketing turn offs ever.

I’d love to see some data to back up the lost opportunity here. How many people don’t subscribe because they are turned off as well. And then is that loss made up for in the ones who do hit purchase? For a recruiting white paper? I seriously doubt it.

Call me crazy, but the best way to make money off of people online is to be transparent and upfront with costs. Because that builds trust, which builds relationships. Going after money right away just builds a transactional relationship that easily slips away.

Back to my original point… we have entered an era of candidate driven recruiting, meaning we have to go to them not wait for them to come to us. We have to make things personal and have to meet them on their turf if we want to be successful.

So find ways to attract candidates that attract candidates to other things. What’s trending? What’s selling? What’s the big item everyone wants for Christmas? Use that to attract attention.

Once you have their attention then think like they think. They have many choices on where to work. What makes your place special? Why should they pick you? Use that to convert their interest into action.

That’s how I do it in my companies. We are always look for the best and the brightest across our consulting, training and outsourcing lines of business.

What Makes DMAIPH a Successful Outsourcing Partner?

Updated on 10/31/16

Our top focus is keeping your customers happy! If an outsourcing company like DMAIPH is doing things right, its seamless. Your customers will get the exact same level of service if they talk to someone in your corporate office as they would if they talk with our team in the Philippines.

We are not just some vendor providing service… WE ARE YOUR COMPANY.

We have already proven this with an online auction site based in Boston, a pharmaceutical sales consulting business in Houston and a social media networking service from New Jersey among a half dozen others.

Here are some reasons to adopt an outsourcing partnership with DMAIPH:

Lower costs: With no overhead, our partners save as much as 50% by outsourcing!
Time savings in hiring and training staff: Hiring the wrong person can and will cost your company money in the long run. Let us take that risk away from you.
Well trained workforce to handle customer needs and concerns. We train based on your requirements.
No need to invest in and maintain high end infrastructure and technology. We got that covered.
Feedback: You will get information from your outsourced contact center about where your programs have troubles. What’s working, what’s not? By being 6,000 miles away we have a different perspective then those in your own office.

Contact us today for a free consultation. DMAIPH has been providing outsourcing solutions to U.S. based small and medium sized business for over 3 years. Our offices in the Philippines are set up with state of the art technology and staffed with top local talent.

Analytics Outsourcing – DMAIPH has successful set up Filipino analytics teams for over a dozen U.S. based businesses. Offering both virtual and office based teams that specialize in problem solving using data, new technology and analytics techniques is our strength. Finding and empowering analytics talent is increasingly challenging, but we have it down to a science. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn more about how to set up an analytics-centric team in the Philippines.

Limiting You Core Values To Just 3

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-have-more-than-3-core-values-think-again-dave-kerpen?trk=tod-home-art-list-small_2

For DMAIPH, I have infused 3 core values into everything we do. They come from having seen companies succeed and seeing companies fail. The ones who succeed have the in common. Here they are:

Partnership

Integrity

Teamwork

For my the core valued of any business starts with the partnerships is has with its industry. For public trainings its all about having a robust network. Being able to get new business, mine existing business, and bringing back old business all comes out of strong partnerships.

Integrity is also super important. Being honest and doing the right thing. Have an identity that makes one thing of likability and trustworthiness. When you have that you take care of your customers, your employees are satisfied and engaged, and you ability to partner gets much easier.

And the third value is teamwork. Teamwork is based on trust. And trust comes from integrity amount partners. Work partnerships, between employer and employee and between each employee with their peers all lead to a more vibrant teamwork.

DMAIPH stands for strong partnerships among analytics providers and consumers, for being know for our rock solid integrity, and for engaged and empowered team we have.

What are your 3 Core Values?

If you cant recite them of the top of your head, then you probably have too many.

Analytics Leadership – DMAIPH specializes in arming the Data-Driven Leader with the tools and techniques they need to build and empower an analytics centric organization. Analytics leadership requires a mastery of not just analytics skill, but also of nurturing an analytics culture. We have guided thousands of Filipino professionals to become better analytics leaders. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to discuss a uniquely tailored strategy to ensure you are the top of your game when it comes to Analytics Leadership.

Outsourcing Tip > The Three T’s: Talent, Technology and Technique

I’ve been part of dozens of BPO team set ups and have directly implemented five this past year or so. In ALL five cases, we have had challenges because we didn’t have the right talent at launch, we didn’t have our technology lined up correctly and we didn’t have techniques in place to ensure a smooth transition of work and an optimal business flow.

Finding good talent here in the Philippines can be a difficult. I’ve blogged about this quite often, the skills gap is a major concern for the long-term success of outsourcing to the Philippines. There are so many good people with the right work ethic and the desire to learn, but so few of them are trained in a way that makes them day one ready to go in a call center environment. Making sure you have correctly identified the skills you need, allocating the appropriate recruiting resources, and building a pipeline to replenish loses and fuel expansion, is so much harder than it sounds.

In regards to technology, there are so many ways to connect clients, customers and operations here in the Philippines. The Cloud allows all sorts of processes to be easily shifted to remote staff and the culture in the Philippines is very tech driven, it’s a great match.

The challenge is sometimes the technology needed is not as easy to introduce as expected and telecommunications and online access very greatly across the country and the workforce. Having a tried and test technological solution and being prepared to deal with the connectivity issues will help assure a much smoother transition of work from abroad.

Most call center operations I have worked with don’t have a clear concept of what they want the day-to-day to look like. The lift and shift approach where you just take a process from overseas and apply it here never works without adjustments. Many times you can find more optimal ways of doing things when you set up because you are able to look at the process end to end. Taking advantage of fully understandings the process being outsourced, documenting it and training on it with a clear plan are all keys to success.

So in conclusion, often what people assume would be the easy parts turn out to be the hardest when it comes to the talent, technology and technique needed to se up a successful outsourcing operation. DMAIPH specializes in helping call centers bring more data to their decision-making and ensure a more optimal approach.

The Mission of the DMAI Family of Companies: Creating More Analysts

I just wanted to share this blog post from the World Bank as it addresses exactly what we at DMAIPH have been saying and are trying to address; the need for more high end skills training in the Philippines.

8 of 12 from this training batch found jobs with BPO companies within a couple weeks of completing the two day Introduction to Analytics training!

http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/node/3096
======================================

The Philippines faces an enormous jobs challenge. Good jobs—meaning jobs that raise real wages or bring people out of poverty—needed to be provided to 3 million unemployed and 7 million underemployed Filipinos—that is those who do not get enough pay and are looking for more work—as of 2012.

In addition, good jobs need to be provided to around 1.15 million Filipinos who will enter the labor force every year from 2013 to 2016. That is a total of 14.6 million jobs that need to be created through 2016.

Did you know that every year in the last decade, only 1 out of every 4 new jobseeker gets a good job? Of the 500,000 college graduates every year, roughly half or only 240,000 are absorbed in the formal sector such as business process outsourcing (BPO) industry (52,000), manufacturing (20,000), and other industries such as finance and real estate.

Around 200,000 new job seekers find work abroad, and around 60,000 will join the ranks of the unemployed, go back to school, or rely on financial support from family for the time being.

This still leaves 600,000 new jobseekers who have no choice but to work in the low-skill and low-pay informal sector in rural and urban areas.

Higher growth can provide more Filipino workers with good jobs. With sustained GDP growth of 7 percent per year and the removal of constraints in fast growing sectors (e.g., addressing skills shortages so that the BPO industry can accelerate its annual growth from 20 to 30 percent), the formal sector will be able to provide good jobs to around 2 million people in the next 4 years – that is double the current figure.

Even so, the majority of Filipino workers will still be left out. By 2016, around 12.4 million Filipinos would still be unemployed, underemployed, or would have to work or create work for themselves in the low pay informal sector such as selling goods in sari-sari stores (small retail stores) and peddling on the streets, and driving tricycles and pedicabs.

Addressing this jobs challenge requires meeting a dual challenge: expanding formal sector employment even faster, while rapidly raising the incomes of those informally employed.

To create good jobs for the 12.4 million, a comprehensive package of reform is needed to create a business environment that is conducive for the private sector to create jobs and increase human capital. Reforms that will secure property rights, open the economy to more competition, simplify business regulations, and increase investments in health, education, and infrastructure are needed.

But will the private sector have the incentive to invest and create jobs for the 12.4 million Filipinos who are left out of the fast growing formal sector?

What do you think is key to creating more and better jobs in the country? Creating jobs for millions is a daunting task, but perhaps we can agree to start somewhere.

Analytics Training – DMAIPH offers a wide range of analytics centric training solutions for professionals and students via public, in-house, on-site, and academic settings. We tailor each training event to meet the unique needs of the audience.

If you need empowerment and skills enhancement to optimize the use of analytics in your organization, we are here to help. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to set up a free consultation to learn which of our DMAIPH analytics training solutions is best for you.

Analytics > Based on the Principles of Logic

One of my trainees recently asked me for some help with an assignment she had in her philosophy class. Now I am such a Star Trek fan aka Trekie, that of course the first thing that comes to mind in the character Spock.

I imagine that is anyone ever took a formal survey of analysts and analytics professionals, most would list Spock high on their list of “cool characters.” The use of logic to solve problems is a key plot point in several episodes and movies. Anyway, I digress…

The assignment is to look at the paperwork in a business and determine how logic and logical principles are applied. I look at logic as being used primarily in two different facets of paperwork.

1. to set priorities… using deductive reasoning to decide what priority is more important and which one to work on first. This is something that is hard to teach and a common interview question. Trying to determine if a person knows how to establish priorities tells you a lot about how logical they think.

2. to establish procedures… logic is used to set up a process like an assembly line or a pipeline where things are done in a routine that is most logical. Being efficient and optimizing a process require a lot of logic in the design and implantation of the process.

So for paperwork… the paperwork that gets done first is the highest priority like payroll… logic dictates that paying employees is the most important and logic helps you set up a process for paperwork… like if a form needs three signatures, you would use logic to set the order of whose signature you get first, second and third

When you have a problem with a process or too many priorities to accomplish all, you use logic to help you solve the problem.

Analytics, or the discipline of using data to drive decision-making in a business, is closely related. Logic is used to identify the data you need, logic is required to interpret the analysis and logic is needed to determine how bet to communicate your findings.

When you look at any business (or government, organization, structure, etc.), you need to employ logic to make that business run and paperwork is a big, big part of the resulting of using logic. Forms, reports, summaries, etc… they are all receptacles of logic that are used to keep things moving.

So when asked why I do what I do when it comes to the paperwork in my business, I am going to tell you because its logical to do it that way. Or as Spock might say, “Logic dictates how and why we use paperwork.”

General Analytics – Analytics is the application of using data and analysis to discover patterns in data. DMAIPH specializes in empowering and enabling leaders, managers, professionals and students with a mastery of analytics fundamentals. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to find out what we can do to help you acquire the analytics mastery you and your organization need to be successful in today’s data-driven global marketplace.

13 Months in the Philippines – Lesson 13 – May 2013 – Exit Plans

Lipa City, Batangas, Philippines

At the end of April, I set a line in the sand. If we couldn’t line up enough co-marketed trainings and consulting gigs by the middle of the month, I would pull up stakes and head back to the US for a while. As the days went on we had several set backs as a key marketing partner decided to cancel the four training dates we had set up in May and a couple of potential consulting clients decided to wait on our training. In looking at expenses as well as several pressing personal issues it became pretty clear by the middle of the month that it was time for another change.

In looking at the amount of money we would need to keep things going versus the short-term revenue options the analytics suggested taking a pause and trying again once we have more capital. A lot of companies use data and analysis to look at where they’ve been, but not as many use analytics to help predict behavior. I think any solid predictive analytics exercise would suggest that there is a lot of money to still be made doing what we started. The market is there. The need is there. The raw talent is there. It’s just a matter of a better plan with more dedicated partners.

At about the same time, my partners also decided to officially disband BPO Elite. It has kind of just hung our there as an empty shell since October. I occasionally used the name and identity for people who new me as the man behind BPO Elite before I launched DMAI. It was a pretty sobering day to say the least when two years of work came to an end. However, it severed its purpose. It opened up doors, it allowed me to have the time of my life and it helped a lot of trainees achieve their dreams of finding jobs.

So after 13 months, I got on a plane and headed back to the United States a man who will never have to say he didn’t go all in for the sake of chasing his dream.

Little did I know, the labor and hard work of these past 13 months laid a foundation that would soon led to some amazing opportunities to come back and try it all again.

Analytics Tool > Business Intelligence Applications > http://www.gatner.com

Analytics Concept > Predictive Analytics > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_analytics

YouTube Resource > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjznLJcgSFI&feature=share&list=PL8D46F50D27222FD4

My Analytics Story – My passion is solving problems by bringing together the best talent, cutting edge technology and tried and true methodologies. DMAIPH is all about empowering people towards better Decision-Making through the use Analytics and business Intelligence. This is what I do best. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly for a free consultation about getting more analytics into your career and your business.

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