seat58F
outsourcing relationships: international, inter-economic, interpersonal
September 7, 2010 ~ 03:35:41 AM * -07:00ST
workers with attitude
Post # 129 by
rc on March 27th, 2009 ~ 05:35:42 AM
Posted as hr |
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outsourcers do have a stake in workgroup morale;
a SLO would be really nice, but like the elusive ” cu-sat “, it would be a statistical swamp. better to examine the service provider’s HR policies and practices.
obviously, what are the salary and benefit benchmarks?
not so obviously, what investments promote delivery effectiveness; what are the retention strategies?
pre-employment screening (background checks) are common practice, but agency agreements don’t enable ongoing evaluation of agent attitude. the outsourcer really wants to be aware of this trend to limit information continuity risk. in this way, retention metrics may actually be counter-productive.
how disgruntled are they?
Post # 124 by
rc on March 26th, 2009 ~ 11:47:34 AM
Posted as continuity, hr, metrics |
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a pissed off workforce adds momentum to outsourcing discussions. awareness that employee attitude can influence information continuity issues moves executive team”discussions” into “negotiations” and some of the exposure is ultimately reduced.
two simple process areas bubble to the top of information continuity risk management: access control maintenance and separation of duties.
access control is not complete unless there is ongoing maintenance. the composition of outsourced workgroups is constantly changing; access to specific applications needs to be revoked if the agent’s role changes. KPIs? how about list review completion (%) by individual supervisors?
separation of duties is important in the application services space - developers should never have access to production systems.
a third, rarely seen, approach is to limit the access windows to certain assets. we think we are in an always-on world, but there are still many functions that only need to be executed at certain times.
make HR work
Post # 72 by
rc on March 17th, 2009 ~ 06:17:56 AM
Posted as hr |
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The average support agent stays on a desk for about 18 months. By that time, they usually know the client very well and they deliver effective solutions. They are tapped out for future growth on the desk, so you are planning to further develop that resource, or, maybe not. One way or another, you have to continue loading the development pipeline with new talent, and the most effective way of doing this is to involve (wait for it….) HR.
1) define competence levels: ensure HR understands the entry criteria for a new agent. Language skills, available work schedule, education are starting points.
2) provide training to meet minimum delivery skill levels: develop expertise in supported services and technologies.
3) evaluate training results: don’t put agents on the desk who can’t meet the minimum. The client will not be impressed, the agent will not be motivated to stay on the job.
4) align employees to quality objectives: supervisors need to read tickets and monitor queues.
5) maintain skills and training records: refresh training in a group setting gets agents to share solution strategies.
walk-in, take-over: misperceptions
Post # 80 by
rc on March 16th, 2009 ~ 04:06:06 PM
Posted as hr |
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Despite common sense that led the CIO to understand that specific functions are not part of the organization’s core competency, he still believes that his former employee, now a badged employee of the service provider, will essentially continue doing the same job. The deliverables are the same or enhanced in some way, but the cost is going to drop over time. Think about how this is going to happen, and select one of the following:
1) the employee will voluntarily take a pay cut or accept reduced benefits, and the savings are going to be passed on to the outsourcer
2) the employee will work harder, freeing up time to work on another one of the service provider’s deals and reducing billable hours charged to the outsourcer
3) the employee’s base rate will be reduced because the outsourcer does not invest in employee skill development.
4) the service provider isn’t planning to make any margin, as that would make it impossible to demonstrate cost savings to the outsourcer.
Bonus question: Which scenario leads to improved service levels for the CIO?
You really need to think about this in advance. To reduce the cost to the CIO AND to make a profit on the deal, service provider needs to make the workforce more efficient. The workstreams handled by the former employee will be prioritized in a way that allows quality to drop on the low priority stuff while increasing the volume on the high priority stuff. When kicking the tires of a service provider, look carefully for transaction throttling in the current tools and processes.
Secondly, to make his margin, the service provider needs to move your deal to a shared delivery model where services become more generic and a standard skillset can be applied across multiple deals; that dependable former employee will be transformed into a generalist who will touch your account occasionally.
Don’t expect outsourced employees to deliver the same service they had in the past. That’s not going to make the service provider’s business case.
