Tag: human resources

Meeting Ambitious Talent Recruiting Goals 

Our featured guest on this episode is Flo Navarro, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at iQor Philippines and Head of Global Recruiting. Flo has a huge responsibility. In addition to overseeing all traditional HR functions for roughly 27,000 iQorians in the Philippines, she also oversees global talent recruiting. 

As a BPO with a presence in nine countries, we’re constantly recruiting to meet the needs of our clients’ customer care programs. Whether it’s a new client or an expansion of a current client program, we’re always recruiting to attract and retain customer support talent. And Flo is the leader who oversees all of it. 

Flo is quick to point out that talent recruiting is a big team effort. Her team partners with Operations, Marketing, and Workforce Management to create awareness for the available customer support agent opportunities and fill the pipeline with qualified candidates. 

Flo says that recruiting thousands of new hires is both complicated and fun. It’s an end-to-end recruiting process that starts with sourcing, then screening, selection, and onboarding. In each step, the team devotes time to ensure they use best-in-class methods to achieve the recruiting goals for each client.

Flo’s professional background includes two decades in the BPO industry. She has seen many different recruiting strategies in her career. She is very appreciative of the leadership team at iQor for the high level of support given to recruiting. Likewise, the investment made in technology has been a game-changer. She is very grateful for having access to the right systems that enable her team to source and hire thousands of contact center staff each year. 

Talent Recruiting is a Team Effort

Flo is very intentional in declaring that everyone on her team is very involved in the talent recruiting process. Her team is hands-on with designing digital marketing ads to communicate the company’s culture and values, not just the job details. They work with Marketing to attract viable candidates through digital advertising and a digital bot named Qori, who can help candidates fulfill an application process digitally. They also provide valuable input on the messaging to ensure consistency with the brand and convey our irresistible culture with authenticity. Her team ensures that the content effectively communicates the benefits of working at iQor. 

iQor’s Response to COVID 19 

Flo explains how we acted very fast in response to the pandemic. Under Flo’s leadership, HR created a dedicated COVID-19 group. The group provides a direct line for employees to contact for any reason to report something or if they need help. The group is trained to answer questions about COVID-19 and iQor’s procedures and will escalate if the question can’t be answered. If someone tests positive, someone from this group checks in with them every day. If the employee is alone, the iQor COVID-19 group will do whatever is needed to provide meals to the individual. Contact tracing is also provided to ensure the safety of employees who are working in the office. 

Talent Recruiting Success Story

Flo points out that there are many examples of recruiting success, but she shares one example. One client has an annual need to add thousands of agents to support their program during a peak season. Flo’s team is ready with the processes, recruiters, and technology to launch the recruiting effort. She proudly proclaims that year-over-year, her team exceeds the recruiting goals of this client. As always, Flo recognizes her team, including the recruiters on the ground and the technology that enables candidates to apply with great convenience. She gives credit to the collaboration between her team and Operations, Marketing, and the Workforce Management team to successfully hire thousands of new agents in a matter of weeks! 

Fun Time

Flo shared two ways that she has fun. In pre-pandemic times she and her family enjoyed hosting parties. She looks forward to going back to throwing parties in a post-pandemic world. In current times, she is very satisfied with binge-watching shows on Netflix with her family. 

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.

After nine months in the call center agent role, and with a lot of mentoring and coaching from supervisors and peers, Strawberry was promoted to Subject Matter Expert (SME). A SME is a “walking Google” (her words) that helps agents handle calls. Strawberry had mastered the personality of the client’s brand and the customer service issues, enabling her to be an effective SME. Her managers started developing her for the next role. With mentoring, she was promoted again, this time to supervisor apprentice.

Now, Strawberry managed her own teams, monitored performance, and served as a mentor to agents. By this time, she was very motivated to continue her career journey at iQor in leadership roles.

She entered the sQholar program, which is part of iQor University. Its purpose is to develop call center employees into leadership potential. The sQholar program is comprised of online courses and live classes designed to help agents become leaders. She says it was a fantastic experience. The program requires employees to complete the training in a six-month timeframe plus an entire week of leadership training. This experience was very instrumental in preparing her for a leadership role.

However, she didn’t complete the sQholar program within six months, which was a temporary setback for Strawberry. She was removed from the apprentice program, and she returned to the SME role.

While Strawberry was disappointed in herself for not completing the program in time, she reflected on what she had learned and regrouped with her mentors and coaches. Her support system was solid. They encouraged her to assert herself, and she planned her next career step at iQor.

Strawberry volunteered to host a year-end party to showcase her skills and to get exposure. It paid off. Hosting the event gave her visibility with other departments, displayed her skills, and quickly gave back her confidence.

She returned to the sQholar program and completed it on time, graduating with honors! Then the door opened for an opportunity to become a trainer. She spoke with her mentors, got their advice, and applied for a trainer role. And she got the job! She was ecstatic to join the training team, where she went through the trainer certification program. She became certified in level one and has also completed level two. She is currently in level three of the train-the-trainer program. Not surprisingly, Strawberry has stepped up and proved to be an effective trainer.

At the time of this podcast publishing, she is a training manager handling frontline leadership development at her site in Talisay, Philippines.

Strawberry’s story is inspiring because she didn’t allow a setback to derail her career journey at iQor. Instead, she double-downed on her strengths and, with guidance from her mentors, put an action plan in place for her next career step at iQor.

Her advice to anyone considering joining iQor is to be open to learning. Learning is what she attributes her success to, along with having access to mentors. She encourages others to leverage their previous experience. And never stop learning for fun. Strawberry enjoys spending time with her two sisters and her teenage son going shopping, relaxing at the beach, and taking food trips. She and her son share a love for rock music and fantasy adventure too.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.