Whether the reason is the economy or just a desire to stay active, fewer workers are retiring once they reach their sixties. As a result, organizations are witnessing a new trend in age diversity, one in which groups share traditions and culture based upon the period in which they came of...
Tag(s): people, leadership, workforce enablement
Date Published May 25, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
What does leadership mean to today’s workforce? What do employees look for in their formal leaders? What is the importance of informal leadership in tomorrow’s organizations? What are our employees’ expectations regarding leadership in the future? What type of leadership will be required to move...
Tag(s): people, leadership, professional development
Date Published May 25, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
Technical support professionals thrive on helping others solve problems; it’s in their DNA. Provide these same people with the chance to give beyond the day-to-day, to serve the community in significant ways, and you have everything you need to make a difference in the world. No matter what you...
Tag(s): people, leadership, professional development
Date Published May 25, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
Who doesn’t want a workplace where good employee relations are the norm? Where the threat of an organized labor invasion isn’t looming? The vast majority of wise employers want to create and maintain an environment where everyone can flourish, where cooperation and collaboration are the norm....
Tag(s): people, leadership, coaching
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
Your CEO just returned from a two-week business trip. Company data is normally backed up to the network via VPN, but not this time. The only copy resides on your CEO’s hard drive and it can’t be accessed. You’ve been contacted because that data is mission critical to the enterprise and your CEO...
Tag(s): technology, process, business continuity, disaster recovery
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
A support center has two principle assets: a robust, well-managed knowledge base and talented people. Support centers typically invest significant time and effort into training and developing specialists, supervisors, and managers; a support center leader’s job is to ensure that this time and...
Tag(s): people, workforce enablement
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
Most businesses claim to use their customer service organizations as key differentiators in creating competitive advantage in the marketplace, but this claim does not withstand closer analysis. The service the vast majority of these companies provide is actually the same as their competitors, so...
Tag(s): customer service, people, process, business of support, practices and processes
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
It all started in the spring of 2009, after coming in as the runner-up for the HDI Team Excellence Award. We knew we were delivering great service to our customers, making recommendations to be more effective, and creating a great working environment, but there was something missing. After...
Tag(s): process, practices and processes, framework and methodologies, people, customer service
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
If there’s one thing service desks are good at, it is collecting information and reporting on it. If there is one thing they are terrible at, it is being able to focus on the few instead of the many. But one way to find out if anyone is actually reading the reports you spend so much time...
Tag(s): metrics and measurements, people, workforce enablement, process, business of support
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
Once upon a time, customers relied on advertising to shape their perception of an organization. Certainly, some money was poured into customer service, but only enough to keep things moving. If customers had problems, their complaints were usually isolated to a strongly worded letter to the company.
Tag(s): people, customer service, process, business of support
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016