This document provides a summary of a consulting engagement to help inContact improve its talent acquisition process. It conducted employee interviews and surveys to understand strengths/weaknesses. Key findings include: successful employees have strong communication, technical, learning and teamwork skills and are adaptable, independent thinkers. Possible weaknesses include unclear vision/goals and poor cross-department communication. It provides initial recommendations like clarifying the vision, standardizing processes and communication, and defining what skills/traits constitute top talent. The conclusion is to implement data-driven recommendations to ensure future adaptability and growth.
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Executive Summary
inContact
○ Revolutionizing how contact centers engage with their customers
○ Leading cloud contact center provider
Engagement – Our Team’s Purpose
○ Aid inContact in the development of an improved talent acquisition process through
datasupported recommendations
○ Researched current processes and best practices from an employee perspective using:
■ Phone Interviews
■ Surveys
Identifying Top Talent
○ Top four skills of successful employees
■ Effective communication, technical aptitude, learning agility, teamwork ability
○ Top four characteristics of successful employees
■ Adapt to change, independent thinker, selfmotivated, persistent solution seeker
Attracting Top Talent – Look at the Brand through the Eyes of Brand Champions
○ Top reasons to work at inContact
■ Rapid growth, superior technology, excitement for the future, direct influence on
company success
Managerial Competencies
○ Willing to hear new ideas
○ Collaborate with employees in and outside of own department
Possible Internal Operation Weaknesses that may be Detracting from the Brand
○ Lack of alignment
■ Unclear expectations for frontline employees
■ Constantly changing expectations
○ Ineffective Communication within departments
■ Different jargon used across departments
■ Unclear dependency procedures between departments
Phase 2
○ General preemployment question library
Phase 3
○ Interview questions based on competencies outlined in the leadership report
Conclusion
○ Implement datasupported recommendations to ensure company adaptability of future
changes and growth
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● Produce a company database to compile procedural information, department functions, and a
description of dependencies with other business functions
● Establish an internship program to cultivate and recruit talent
● Establish an entry level/contingency program for new employees
● Give tours of the company building(s) as part of job interviews, when possible
● Implement processes that ensure employees feel comfortable enough to voice opinions and give
feedback to fellow employees and managers
Identifying Top Talent
Before top talent can be recruited, the company must define what type of talent it wants to hire, and the
techniques it wants to use to hire this talent. Through interview and survey results, we have attempted to
articulate the skills and characteristics that constitute “top talent” for inContact. In addition, we have
attempted to articulate the characteristics and skill weaknesses that lead to failure at inContact.
Important Skills for inContact Employees
Top 4 Skills of Successful Employees
Based on results from the data, the top four skills that an employee needs to have at inContact are:
● The ability to communicate effectively and simplify complex concepts
● Technical aptitude/ability
● Learning agility The ability to apply data and learned concepts across a breadth of
circumstances
● The ability to work in a team
Other Important Skills of Successful Employees
● Problem solving when there are not necessarily defined steps for the solution
● Software skills
● Ability to address customers’ needs
● Ability to learn quickly
Top 4 Characteristics of Successful Employees
Based on results from the data, the top four characteristics that an employee needs to have at inContact
are:
● Be open to, and be able to adapt to change
● Independent thinker, and be able to thrive on independence
● Selfmotivated
● Persistence to reach a solution
Other Important Characteristics of Successful Employees
● Personable in order to address customers’ needs
● Creative
● Always working to improve
● Not afraid to voice opinions
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Additionally, below is a graph that quantifies the results of interview answers to the question, “If you
were to hire someone to fill a position within your department, how would you describe the perfect
candidate?”
Skill Weaknesses and Characteristics that Lead to Failure at inContact
Skill Weaknesses
● Ineffective communication
● Inability to learn new things quickly
● Not able to coordinate across departments
● Unable to resolve problems quickly and
efficiently
Characteristics that Lead to Failure at
inContact
● Not personable
● Not taking ownership of problems
● Not being accountable for work
● Unwilling to learn new concepts and
procedures
● Not advocating for yourself and your customers
*Note on a Characteristic that Leads to Failure in
International Offices: A characteristic for
international offices that may cause more problems
than it would at domestic offices, is not being
accountable for work. Employees in international
offices are farther removed from company
headquarters and may feel that they are less
accountable for their work.
Additionally, there are less managers in international
offices that deal with disciplinary issues, and this may
be impeding possible accountability problems from
being addressed in a more timely manner.
Educational Background and Experience
Other factors that must be taken into account when identifying top talent are education and previous
experience. Based on interview and survey results, candidates with Information Technology
backgrounds and experience working for phone carriers were the best candidates for inContact.
However, to highlight the importance of experience above all else, one interviewee said, “Experience
outweighs pretty much everything else.”
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Job Descriptions
Throughout the course of our research, we focused on the job descriptions as a vital part of the talent
acquisition process. Overall employee response to the effectiveness and clarity of the job descriptions was
very negative, and all of the individuals we interviewed believed that they could definitely be clarified
and improved.
Job Description Weaknesses
● Unnecessarily long
● Some potential applicants are deterred from applying due to feeling unqualified after reading the
job descriptions
● Inconsistency One interviewee highlighted that the title of a position changed three times over
the past three years
● Many applicants are unclear as to the actual job role, and come to their interviews with a long list
of questions
● Superfluous at times because sometimes they include job duties that do not happen on a
daytoday basis
The job descriptions, however, cannot just be clarified and improved in general terms. They must be
improved relative to a specific metric. As was previously discussed, top talent that possesses the skills and
characteristics for successful inContact employees needs to be identified. Following this, the job
descriptions need to be improved and clarified in order to attract this top talent. At their core, job
descriptions should be the first step in sifting out the talent that could truly add value to the company. For
this reason, the job descriptions need to be based off of the behavioral fit profiles of the business units,
among other things, and of course the core vision that the firm has established. In order to improve the job
descriptions, two questions need to be addressed:
1. Do these job descriptions attract top talent for inContact?
2. What is it that makes employees excited to work at the company and how is this excitement for
the brand of inContact articulated in the job descriptions?
Suggestions to Improve Job Descriptions
● Have managers over specific positions write the job descriptions, and then submit these
descriptions to the HR Department
● Make job descriptions broader and less specific since job roles are constantly being adjusted
● Include ideal characteristics for the job
● Focus on the technical aspects and soft skills required to complete the job
● Implement a defined process to ensure job descriptions have better quality, represent
expectations, and provide a better description of dependencies with other business functions
● Interview a focus group of new employees after they have been working for the company for
three months to get their feedback as to whether or not the job descriptions accurately described
their duties
● Include information about a job’s department and functions of the department in addition to the
actual job description
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One interviewee expressed the sentiment that there is goal confusion “from corporate culture to the
daytoday activities in my department.”
Causes of Goal Confusion (lack of alignment)
● Lack of clear expectations for frontline employees
● Constantly changing expectations
● Breakdown in communication of changes between leadership, managers, and frontline employees
Suggestions to Mitigate Goal Confusion
● Set clear expectations for employees
● Have a communication specialist for each department, or each section of each department, that
receives changes from the executive leadership of the company and communicates these changes
to frontline employees
Ineffective Communication within and between Departments
Many interviewed employees also expressed the sentiment that there exists a lack of effective
communication within and between departments at inContact. They expressed that each department has
such specialized jargon that sometimes members of other departments are unable to understand this
jargon. A quote from one of the interviewed employees sums up this idea perfectly: “I talked to a guy
yesterday about how this man that he knows is working on his ability to communicate to others in a
foreign language, and how it’s about more than just knowing the words, but being able to use them in a
way that they mean to the person the same thing that they mean to you.”
In addition, some expressed that new employees do not have enough training resources to properly learn
their job duties. Sometimes they do not know where to go for help when presented with problems. In
many cases, one employee or a select few of the employees within a department know how to solve a
particular problem, and as a result, are bombarded with questions from new employees. Consequently,
they spend their time answering questions and communicating procedures to new employees, rather than
adding value to the company in more tangible ways. However, with the absence of a standardized way to
compile knowledge and procedures, if these employees with high amounts of knowledge leave the
company, their problemsolving knowledge and knowledge of proper procedures goes with them as well.
There needs to be a standardized way to compile this information.
Causes of Ineffective Communication between Departments
● Terms that one department may understand but another may not
● Not being able to coordinate across different departments
● Lack of collaboration between departments
Causes Ineffective Communication within Departments
● Lack of resources for new employees to go to for help
● Not understanding dependency procedures between different departments
● Lack of standardized manner to compile training and procedural information
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Suggestions to Improve Communication between Departments
● Produce an inContact dictionary for the entire company that encompasses the different terms
found in each department
● Produce a companywide database that includes information about each department’s functions
and how to complete known procedures
● Encourage an increased focus on communicating complex ideas in a simple manner when
communicating with members from other departments
● Provide a better description of dependencies (possibly in a database or in online modules) with
other business functions that answers the question, “Which departments perform which functions
and what departments do I need to be familiar with to do my job?”
Suggestions to Improve Communication within Departments
● Produce an inContact dictionary for the entire company that encompasses the different terms
found in each department
● Produce a companywide database that includes information about each department’s functions
and how to complete known procedures
● Produce standardized training materials for new employees that are modified to their new job
duties
High Levels of Customization for Customers
inContact prides itself on its ability to provide software customization to its customers. However, a
possible weakness in this approach is that as inContact gets larger, it may overextend itself in providing
customized solutions to each customer. Will it be profitable to provide high levels of customization for
customers despite the level of service required to maintain these solutions? inContact is at a fork in the
road as it transitions from a smaller company to a larger company, with one path being to continue its
customization for customers and the other being to offer a specific set of products with minimal
customization.
In one interview, an interviewee expressed concern that if inContact continues to customize at such a high
level for each client, it will need to hire much more employees. Another employee said, “Every time we
do something nonstandard for the customer it’s a new product, which makes it hard to support that
oneoff customer.” Customization is favorable to a certain extent; however, too much of a focus on
customization can be detrimental to the company as it continues to grow. The questions that must be
posed with respect to customization are:
1. Is our number of employees commensurate with the level of customization that we provide to our
clients?
2. Are we following and staying true to our product line as we provide customized software
solutions to clients?
3. Does too much customization mitigate our growth because it is so hard at times to service
customized solutions?
4. What are our strengths and does our growth maximize these strengths?