Management, Human Resources, and Life in a Customer Focused World

Human Resources is one of the areas that is a challenge.  The definition of Human Resources tends to be one that is nebulous because each company uses it differently. In some companies, HR is simply the people that handle internal complaints and concerns including hiring, firing, harassment, etc. In others, HR’s role is expanded to [...]

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I just reposted a post I wrote with some information about the compensation levels for call center functions at an agent level for 2007.  The same report (the U.S. Contact Center Compensation Survey by the Mercer Human Resources Consulting group) detailed some call center management pay for the same year (2007).
For Team/Group Managers, some of [...]

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Ask a Manager is a blog where people write in and ask questions of the writer.  The latest post is about scheduling — a very pertinent question in a call center environment.  The questioned asked, in summary, was
my boss has written me in for shifts without asking me if I am available.
Almost everyone in a [...]

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Back at the end of January 2008, MSN published an article called “10 Ways to Get Fired From a Home-Based Position” by the CEO of VIPDesk. (I can’t find the link anymore).
Here’s a few that I want to stress.

Having customers hear your kids playing in the background

Working in a noisy area or with the TV [...]

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MSN’s Careerbuilder.com wrote an article called 13 Things Not to Share with Your Co-Workers. Most of them make sense.
Medical history? Gossip? Religion? Politics?  You are at work, so keep it to a minimum or, preferably, not at all.  The fact is that people spend 40+ hours a week in the office together, nearly as much [...]

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I’m sure all of us have either asked or been asked this question — or both. It is a default question, a very boring question in an interview that tends to be responded to in a very cookie cutter fashion. How to answer them in a standard way can be found here, here, [...]

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One of the blogs that I read is by Penelope Trunk called the Brazen Careerist. She’s got some very interesting topics and subjects that she covers. In July of ‘08, she wrote a post called:
Figure out how much you should be paid (and three cheers for transparent salaries)
I thought it was quite interesting, specifically the [...]

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