Archive for the 'Career' Category
Posted by Ted Hopton on March 25, 2008
What do you think when good people leave your company? Of course, good people leave companies every day, and it’s well documented that career mobility is the norm now: my father’s lifetime career with one employer rarely happens anymore.
When one person leaves for sunnier shores, it’s something to applaud. “Good for you, and best of luck with your new opportunity!” That’s what I said to a direct report who took a new job recently, and I meant it. I’m struggling to replace her, but that’s the way the work world operates and I understand and support her advancing her career.
But, to use an overused term, where is the tipping point? When two people leave within a short period of time, do you assume it’s a coincidence? When three leave, perhaps it’s just a confluence of unrelated factors. So when do you start to question why you are still here when so many of the people you respect Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Career, Leadership, Management | Tagged: Career, morale, turnover | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on February 5, 2008
If you’re looking for (or considering) a call center management position, you should read Layne Holley’s article in ICMI’s Customer Management Insight (CMI), “Sales and Analytics Driving Contact Center Compensation,” first. In addition to being a rich source of call center management salary data compiled from various sources, the article offers valuable insights regarding the skills being sought in call center management roles.
“The individuals who are going to be highly sought out or compensated differently to some degree are those with the proven ability to develop a sales or service strategy — or both — and who have strong analytical competence to measure and manage metrics — not just look at the numbers, but interpret that data and either develop a successful customer segmentation strategy or a cross-sell or upsell component to get more value out of each call,” he says.
Check it out.
call center management
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Career, ICMI, ICMI's CMI, Management, Research | Tagged: Call Center Management, salaries, compensation | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 30, 2008
I started two groups on LinkedIn. One is for ICMI Members, and only current ICMI Members are eligible to join. The other is for the ICMI QueueTips Community, and that’s open to anyone to join. Both are intended to facilitate networking among call center professionals by leveraging the power of LinkedIn’s 10 million+ members.
However, I was curious about other groups on LinkedIn. For example, is there an alumni group for my college? I could not find any list of all the groups on the LinkedIn website, which seemed strange. There is a list, but it’s only a few pages — surely there are far more groups than those listed. And there’s a note at the moment saying that new groups are not included (the note has been there for at least a month).
Well, today I found an index of sorts to LinkedIn groups. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Career, Networking, Web 2.0 | Tagged: Career, Networking | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 27, 2008
Have you heard of “social entrepreneurs”? I hadn’t either, until I read William Kristol’s column in the NYT, “The Age of Ambition.”
Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways. Bill Drayton, the chief executive of an organization called Ashoka that supports social entrepreneurs, likes to say that such people neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry. If that sounds insanely ambitious, it is. John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan title their new book on social entrepreneurs “The Power of Unreasonable People.”
It’s an inspiring account, and I recommend you read it. There is more good being done by more people than we generally know, and that’s heartening news.
Posted in Career, Economics, Innovation | Tagged: entrepreneurs, social | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 16, 2008
Good stuff here from Polly LaBarre’s blog in a posting titled, Freedom = Success (And not the other way around). Insights into why people are successful at work, and a nice summary of the results of Best Buy’s radical initiative, ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment). Good reading.
Posted in Career, Management | Tagged: Career, Management, productivity | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 15, 2008
I knew I had read news about how popular LinkedIn is becoming, and when I searched just now one of the top results was this blog entry titled, Networking on steroids: LinkedIn growing in popularity. Marilynn Mobley expressed some of the same feelings I have been having about dealing with link requests from people you don’t really know:
It strikes me as irrelevant to connect to someone I’ve never heard of who happened to find me using a keyword search. The way I see it, my connections aren’t relevant to me - or others - if I can’t personally speak to why I’m connected to them.
Furthermore, I think she’s right on target when she says,
I suppose it’s possible that some people actually know - and can credibly introduce - hundreds or even thousands of people, but frankly, when I see people with so many connections, I automatically raise an eyebrow.
She’s harsher than I am about what she thinks of them, though I bet her term (”Link Ho’s”) probably does fit some people!
Back to my original question that I was searching to answer, one of her links took me to a news story citing more than 9 million LinkedIn members and 350 corporate customers — but that the news story is a year old. Another figure, from April 2007, is in this report on LinkedIntelligence, citing a LinkedIn press release, which says there are 10 million users on LinkedIn. So, I am not sure how many there actually are now, but it’s an awful lot. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Career, Networking, Web 2.0 | Tagged: Career, Networking, social networking, Trends, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 14, 2008
Leadership has nothing to do with titles. J. Frank Brown, the Dean of INSEAD, has met a lot of CEOs in his two-and-a-half decades in business and many of them are little more than LINOs – Leaders In Name Only.
This article, an interview with the author of The Global Business Leader: Practical Advice for Success in a Transcultural Marketplace, presents a perspective on leadership:
Brown lists the hallmarks of leadership: openness, integrity, humility, a view of the present and the future, an optimistic outlook, the proper use of authority, and an understanding of personal and organisational objectives.‘Transcultural’ leaders at the helm of international companies also need to be sensitive to other cultures and national differences. That means leaders today need to be willing to explore and travel. They need to be curious about other people and customs.
However, it’s pretty much the same-old, same-old and not much that I would consider new thinking. If you’ve read much about leadership, then you don’t need to read this article.
read more | digg story
Posted in Career, Leadership | Tagged: Career, Leadership, Management | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 14, 2008
Managers today juggle more responsibilities than ever and for many of them networking becomes an afterthought. That’s a potentially fatal career mistake. Managers who neglect to build their networks risk failing or remaining stuck in middle management.
I highly recommend this article! Written by Herminia Ibarra, INSEAD Professor of Organisational Behaviour, it’s a good examination of the value of networking and it breaks networking down into 3 types so you can understand the differences. Good insights, good advice — compelling reading if you care about your career. Here’s more: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Career, Management, Networking | Tagged: Career, Management, Networking | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 14, 2008
Old-time sales pros always believed in the importance of face-to-face contact. Now new media is making that contact easier than ever. Emphasis on socialization is growing for digital media, including social media such as such as blogs, wikis and social networks.
eMarketer’s article, “Business Gets Social,” has useful stats, insights from several people studying social media, and it’s a hot topic, worth keeping up on.
read more | digg story
Posted in Career, Management, Networking, Web 2.0 | Tagged: Marketing, Networking, Sales, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 12, 2008
There’s a nifty feature in LinkedIn that lets you join groups, and once you’ve joined then the group’s logo shows up on your LinkedIn profile. (Take a look at mine, for example.) Even better, as a member of the group, you can see the other group members on LinkedIn, even if they are not in your LinkedIn network. So, it’s another way to find people you have some affiliation with — in other words, to network.
I’ve set up two Professional Groups on LinkedIn, and if you’re part of them already (or want to join), I encourage you to add them to your LinkedIn profile and add another resource to your professional networking toolkit.
If you’re a subscriber to ICMI’s QueueTips, you can join the LinkedIn ICMI’s QueueTips Community Group.
If you’re an ICMI Member, you can join the LinkedIn ICMI Membership Community Group.
In both cases, you may need to wait until you’re “approved” before the logo shows up and you are accepted into the group. Since parts of that process are not automated, please be patient if there’s a delay.
So, if you’re part of the call center community, show your affiliations and wear your badge with pride! You just may make some valuable professional connections, too.
Posted in Career, ICMI's QueueTips, Networking | Tagged: call center, Career, ICMI, Networking, QueueTips | No Comments »
