Fresh Insights

The US Division of S&P Data has recently begun working on an expansion to its Cleveland location. This expansion is the direct result of the tremendous success that has been realized in the greater Cleveland area. The new site adds an additional 240 seats to the day to day operational capabilities in Cleveland which began with 160 seats back in 2009, this new location will be home to

5 key business verticals:

• Business to Business Sales
• Financial Services
• Satellite Broadcast Services
• Cable Services
• Energy

In addition to the 240 new seats the Cleveland expansion will also house 3 new training rooms and will result in 350 new jobs for the Cleveland area, and there is more in store!
“The growth in our Cleveland based operations has been incredible” according to CEO Dan Plashkes “The Greater Cleveland area is strategically very important, particularly as we look toward expanding our health care portfolio. In the future we will consider a geographically diverse center in another area of North East Ohio.”

The new expansion bodes well for S&P Data and American based business in general, as more and more outsourcing work is brought back onshore S&P Data is committed to investing in American Infrastructure to make sure those jobs have a place to come to.

To see pictures of the new site, be sure to check out our Facebook page at:
www.facebook.com/SPDataLLC

On Thursday May 2nd, 2013, the Ontario Liberal Government produced their budget, while billed as a win for small to medium business there was one proposed cut which concerned us. On page 262 of the proposed budget (available here) the government is proposing to cut the Apprenticeship Credit for three skilled trades, namely:

• Information Technology – Contact Centre – Technical Support Agent (634a);
• Information Technology – Contact Centre – Inside Sales Agent (634d);
• Information Technology – Contact Centre – Customer Care Agent (634e).

In short, what the government is saying with these measures is that our industry, the contact centre business, is one that they are not interested in seeing grow in Ontario and that our people are simply not worth developing. During a time when we are seeing an increase in unemployment among Ontario’s youth (16.8%, more than double the average for the overall workforce) we are having support pulled from an industry that is a major employer for that exact demographic.  It boggles the mind.

This comes at a time when the demand for onshore contact centre is at an all-time high, many companies are seeing increased pressure (and rightly so) from their customers to bring the outsourced jobs back home to Canada. You need look no further then the hot water RBC found itself in recently to see how self evident this is. The question about whether or not this industry is a growing one is answered with a resounding yes by any CEO or business leader engaged in outsourcing; the only question that remains then is whether or not the Liberal Ontario government is interested in having any of those jobs here.

The answer appears to be no.

Fortunately, there is something we can do!

If you want to bring more jobs back to Ontario and help fix our growing youth unemployment problem please write to your local MPP and the leaders of the provincial parties, and let them know you want to see the “Contact Centre Apprenticeship Credit” continued, and that canceling it is a tragedy and a disservice to the youth of this province.

Andrea Horwath (NDP Leader) ahorwath-co@ndp.on.ca
Tim Hudak (PC Leader) timhudak@niagara.net
Kathleen Wynne (Liberal Leader)  kwynne.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

This week we’ve been doing a series on the 15 rules of leadership, originally penned for use by those in the Military over at RangerUp.com (Here), we have taken those rules and translated them for use by business and corporate professionals. What follows are the last 3 rules, for the previous 4 rules check out yesterday’s post! On Sunday we will compile all the results into one post for you all.

Rule 13: Disagree in private; Unity in public

There will be times when you disagree with your boss, and if they’re a good leader they’ll give you ample opportunity to voice your concerns. However, once the decision is made you need to act as a team member once you’re out in front of the front line people. Disputes need to be resolved in private, don’t make a spectacle of it and have a melt down because you have to do something you don’t like; it will only encourage that behavior among the people that work for you (See point 12)

Otherwise your boss may become your enemy.  Have you ever been contradicted in public and appreciated it? Especially in front of people you supervise give the courtesy.  People can appreciate the honest council behind closed doors and even more so will appreciate your support while knowing you disagree.  Support could be as simple as smiling next to them while they make their pitch rather than burning them down.

Rule 14: Don’t take yourself too seriously

Sometimes things are going to get hard, and often they’ll just keep getting harder. The more successful you are, and the higher you climb the harder and more stressful it will be but it is absolutely critical that you keep positive. Your team will look at your behavior to discern how things are “Really” going and if you’re beaten down and serious looking all the time they will read that to mean “poorly”.  So smile, joke around, be approachable and a real human being, be a little self deprecating even.  Be serious when you need to be, firm even, but don’t let the job make you unbearable because you will inadvertently make your teams job unbearable.

We all have bosses and sometimes we all have to do things that suck.  People can appreciate the honest person who acknowledges things may not be ideal but your head is down and working towards completion.  Smile and laugh while doing the worst of it. Heck give em a good old fashion WHEEEEEE to lighten the mood.  There are times on deployment when things are just horrible and sometimes all you can do is look around at those going through it with you while having a good laugh.  Business is no different because people are a constant and people can get you through

Rule 15: Do the right thing

Simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing to do in business, but it is likely the most important of these rules. It’s easy because identifying the right thing is easy. Be honest, don’t cut corners, do right by your people. It’s hard because so many people have failed at this before, and they will pressure you to instead do the easy thing. Their expectations are based on doing the easy thing, and sometimes their business model is predicated on doing the easy thing. Let me be clear on this.

Never compromise your integrity for a quick fix.

And that’s it folks! Thanks for following the article, if you like what you read be sure to check us out on Facebook at:

www.facebook.com/SPDataLLC

as well as our partners on this article RangerUp and Rogue Dynamics at

Co-written by;
Lino Di Julio, Creative Officer at S&P Data
Logan at Rogue Dynamics