In this Issuu: Word From Rob Duncan . . . . . . . . 2 A SYKES News. . . . . 3-10 Employee Corner. . . . . . . 11 SYKES Health & Safety. . . 12-13 SYKES In The Community. . . 14-15
CONGRATULATIONS to RaeAnn Moran for winning this month’s SYKES selfie contest! Send your pictures to Home-GetSYKED@sykes.com
A WORD FROM ROB DUNCAN
SYKES North America Team
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We’ve talked a lot lately ab out millennials entering th e workforce and what it means for the fut ure of our company. As of lat e 2015, millennials are the generatio n that will be the majority of the U.S. workforce—a statistic that is ref lected in our brick an d mortar sites around the country. Becaus e of this, it is important for SYKES to be mindful of the values that mi llennials have, recognize th e similarities and differences of other ge nerations that work on our teams, and build success for our comp any around how to be stron gest through understanding of each other. With ever y new generation comes new thoughts, ideas , and values. Having grown up with techn ology available to them at th e tips of their fingers, millennials ha ve never knows a world wi thout continual technological advances and innovations. They are cons tantly seeking out ways to do things faster , better, and uniquely. I like to view this as an oppo rtunity for all of us to once again turn our brains around, think dif ferently, and give the very best of ourselves. SYKES is propell ing to new heights because we will not follow the status quo of the industry. Taking advantag e of the different perspective coming from th e large group of millennials within our company will continue to br eak barriers and set SYKE S up for future success. Gaining a fresh pe rspective is like an exciting adventure, right? Put on your helmets . Let’s GO!
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Best Regards,
SYKES NEWS
Ingredients for Your Recipe for Success
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ore of our SYKES A+ Agents have shared great advice on things that make them successful at their job. Think about implementing these into your routine if you’re not doing them already!
n if you’re really Be polite and confident (eve omer that you st cu e th re su As ). s! et ll bu sweating e. Even if the su is r ei th of re ca ke ta to g are goin ble ticket needs ou tr a d an ed lv so re be t n’ issue ca the assurance that to be opened, again, provide , and provide that things will be taken care of follow up. Tell to ed ne ey th se ca in r be m ticket nu of their issue t un co ac r ei th ng ti no re u’ them yo ck. should they need to call ba ell
DO YOU CONSISTENTLY MEET OR EXCEED YOUR METRICS? IF SO, WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! This section of the newsletter is devoted to SYKES A+ Agents -- a forum for employees to share and learn what other agents do routinely in order to perform at a consistently high level! Please email the key ingredient of your recipe for success to Home-GetSYKED@sykes.com.
~ Amanda Shaw
Kudos from Clients
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very month, we will be sharing kudos from our clients directed either to an entire team or an individual employee. This month’s quote comes from CitiPrepaid, a client at the brick and mortar site in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Congratulations to Elizabeth Hanson and her entire team for doing what it takes to earn these words of praise!
“Please pass along
a HUGE thank you to this
group for me. We all know this is not an easy vertical
for us and they are doing a FANTASTIC job!!”
Leanne Kellam, VP Customer Service Citi Prepaid Services www.SYKES.com
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SYKES NEWS
Millennials in the Workforce
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hen it comes to millennials, the numbers are iffy – some say millennials are born between 1982 and 2000, while others insist the millennial generation was born as early as ‘78
Colleen Case
Some reports suggest there are 80 million millennials in the U.S., while others claim a booming 92 million twenty-somethings are entering the workforce. Depending on what you read (and believe) millennials are the first digital natives. Still, some argue Gen Z are the true natives that will change business forever. The easy definition? Millennials are those who were coming of age in the new millennium and the technological revolution. There are more millennials in the workplace than any other generation, and their behaviors are changing the way we do business. Companies like Merrill Lynch and Ernst & Young, among countless others, are hiring consultants to help them hire, navigate, motivate, and engage millennials in the workplace. SYKES is also looking to crack the millennial code, since two thirds of our workforce fall into the millennial generation category. As we strive to revolutionize the call center industry, millennials and their predeceasing generations will have to join forces, reach understanding, and partner together in order to innovate.
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Colleen Case I am going into my senior year at Indiana University, and I’ve been interning at SYKES since the end of May. As an intern working with workforce management, I get an inside look at how scheduling works for our agents. This insight has made me realize how much I value my flexibility—having a schedule that allows me to maintain a work-life balance is very important to me as a millennial, and I understand that it is important to all of our agents as well. I was pleased to see how hard WFM is working to make flexible scheduling a reality, because in the end our agents are our biggest asset and it is important to do what we can to acknowledge their scheduling needs. Being a millennial, I also realize the importance of recognition, and WFM is working towards that by getting to know agents on a more personal level. Looking ahead, I know that SYKES will be a great place for my generation to work in the future. My experience here has shown me that SYKES really does care about what I have to offer as a millennial, and I appreciate the opportunity to provide a different perspective and to make an impact in the company.
Franchesca Kader
Mahalia Ramirez
Franchesca Kader Throughout daily life, I always hear people speaking about how different this generation is compared to when they grew up. The values, beliefs, and even ways of performing different tasks have shifted. I have been employed at Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated in Malvern, Arkansas since July of 2009. I started as a Customer Service Agent with plans to move to another department. I set out to find my place within the company that was the perfect fit for me. I was lucky to have been able to experience so many different positions within the company; from Floor Support Representative to Quality Analyst and even Interim Receptionist. I currently am learning the roles and responsibilities within Human Resources and I think I have finally found my perfect fit. SYKES is a fantastic company that wants you to succeed with the future you want and will always help you with meeting and achieving the goals you have set. Millennials have also been brought up more open minded because of the rapid changes in society today. The biggest advantage for being a Millennial is that fact that we have all grown up to where technology was readily available to us. I think being a Millennial is great for SYKES; we can provide so many advantages to make the company succeed and make an overall difference!
Mahalia Ramirez Search ‘Millennials’ in Google and up comes an onslaught of tips and tricks of how to work with what seems to be a very different generation than past age groups. I knew my generation was different, but the number of hits that pop up (over 8 million) seems excessive. It would seem millennials are not a code that is easily cracked, but SYKES is working to do just that. As a summer intern in Denver, I have gotten an inside look into how businesses are adapting to fit the varying needs of millennials. At SYKES, a true atmosphere of caring for employees is strongly emphasized and flexible schedules are in the making in order to accommodate life happening outside of work. My job entails working with communications and community outreach. I quickly learned that SYKES is more than customer contact solutions, SYKES is a family, and that means communicating to everyone with respect and compassion. Constantly working towards a better way of interacting with people around the company exhibits the high value SYKES places on all of their employees. As a millennial, the values that SYKES exhibit are what I seek out in a company. S www.SYKES.com
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SYKES NEWS
New Site Openings
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YKES is excited to be expanding with the openings of new brick and mortar sites in Montgomery, Alabama; Morristown, Tennessee; and Boise, Idaho! Throughout the past two months, executives visited each city and were welcomed with open arms. “We look forward to a great relationship with our new friend and partner SYKES,” said Montgomery County Commission Chairman Elton Dean.
Similar regards were made in Morristown about SYKES’ arrival. “We are elated that SYKES chose Morristown as the site for the call center,” said R. Jack Fishman, Chairman of the Industrial Board of the City of Morristown. Throughout July and August, job fairs are being held at each site in anticipation of opening later in the summer and early fall. Hundreds of jobs are being created in each community, and SYKES is eager to welcome more people to our SYKES family! S
The Boise Metro City of Commerce was most appreciative of how community-minded SYKES is. Bill Connors, president and CEO of the Boise Metro City of Commerce, said, “Boise is particularly pleased that this company is coming here... We’re happy to see a good community supporter.”
Morristown Opening: Bill Rose answers questions about the new Morristown site to open in September 2015.
Montgomery Opening: Rob Duncan, at the Montgomery press conference, talks about how the people of Montgomery are a great fit for our company’s People First culture.
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Chris Monnette speaks at the Boise Chamber event, detailing how excited SYKES is to become a part of their community.
oise Opening: Chris Monnette, B Dave Norwood, and Rob Woodruff in front of the Boise City Capital.
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SYKES NEWS
People First Profile: Being Blind is No Barrier to Success for Agents Nehemiah and Dale
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ehemiah Jenkins has been blind since he was 10 years old. Loss of his sight meant giving up his desire to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a police officer.
Dale Barefoot
Nehemiah Jenkins
Nehemiah is one of the 3.5 million visually impaired Americans of working age. Although he wasn’t able to pursue his dream of becoming a cop, Nehemiah is more fortunate than the 70 percent of working age blind Americans who are unemployed. Nehemiah works as an agent at the SYKES Lakeland Florida call center. Belo Cipriani, author of Blind: A Memoir writes, “One major reason blind people struggle to find employment is that public misconceptions of the blind affect hiring managers’ perceptions of potential candidates who are visually impaired.” This is a difficulty both Nehemiah and his fellow Lakeland colleague, Dale Barefoot, who lost his sight in 1995, have experienced. “When you walk in with a stick [white cane], they are doubting,” Dale says. “They are asking ‘what can he do?’ And they don’t know.” Since SYKES hired Dale and Nehemiah, they have shattered misperceptions about the capabilities of the visually impaired. Both are among the top-performing agents at Lakeland. “Dale and Nehemiah do a great job, both performing in the top 10 percent,” says Amy Deaton, their account manager. “Dale has an average of 97 percent QA score for the past three months and Nehemiah has a three month average of 96 percent.” Nehemiah is grateful. “SYKES gave me a chance,” he 8 www.SYKES.com
says. Adds Dale, “People with disabilities are grateful for every day they work.” Both Nehemiah and Dale work with SYKES client Home Preservation Foundation (HPF). HPF is a nonprofit group that helps financially challenged homeowners navigate their budget problems and, whenever possible, help them avoid mortgage foreclosure. This means that both men are often on the phone with people in crisis, whose circumstances have made them angry or afraid. “Callers are really upset,” says Nehemiah. “Some are crying. They are all looking for help.” Dale says empathy and compassion are key to calming the callers down enough to get basic information from
them required by HPF. “I look at the callers I talk to as if they were my family. Some of these callers are older. I think of my older relatives who are 87 years old. You have to remember that some of these customers have no where else to go for help.” Both Dale and Nehemiah obtain information from callers to help determine if they qualify for assistance programs offered by the client. The agents must follow a script and enter the responses onto their computers. In this task they are assisted by JAWS. No, not the great white shark that terrorized vacationing bathers off the shore of Amity Island. That JAWS ate commuters. This JAWS aids computers.
SYKES Lakeland is active in the visually impaired community in central Florida. Fran Harrington, Site Director for SYKES Lakeland, supports the Tampa Lighthouse for the Blind, a nonprofit organization that provides training services to help those who have lost their vision perform daily living tasks independently and maintain their employment. SYKES Lakeland has also hosted a career day for visually-impaired students, complete with mock interviews to help get them ready for career-seeking. Both Dale and Nehemiah are well liked and respected by their peers. Their experience at SYKES dispels many of the common myths that persist in the workplace about hiring the vision impaired, such as
“ When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?” ~ from Anthony Doerr’s novel, All the Light We Cannot See JAWS stands for “Job Access With Speech.” JAWS enables people with vision loss to navigate a computer without being able to see the screen or use a mouse. JAWS is a screen reader, verbalizing both the script and navigation instructions for vision-impaired users. For Dale and Nehemiah, this means listening to JAWS reading their script to them and telling them how to navigate the computer (using the number pad on their keyboard). While this is going on in one ear, they listen to the caller in the other ear. “I call it karaoke,” laughs Nehemiah. Just about everyone else might call it impossible multi-tasking. “It’s like doing three jobs at the same time, while for someone who is sighted it is one,” says Dale. “The information comes at you at 90 miles per hour,” Dale continues. “You just learn it. It’s a ‘wanna’ thing, you gotta want to do it.” Nehemiah agrees. “I just want to work. I just want to have my own,” he says.
having a higher absentee rate. Both have superior attendance records. Another is a common but simple misperception – that blind people will need help getting around the office. Nehemiah tells of the time power was knocked out at the center by a severe Florida thunderstorm. He and Dale were the ones leading fellow employees around the call center floor in the dark. Nehemiah’s philosophy is, “If you have to do it, you can do it.” Dale puts it like this: “You’ve got to make it the best way you can in this world. The world isn’t going to stop for you.” From the results they produce and the esteem they’ve earned from peers and management alike, it’s clear that Dale and Nehemiah are more than making their way in the world. They are leading the way. S www.SYKES.com
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SYKES NEWS
ERF: A Year in Rewind
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uly marks the one-year anniversary of the foundation of the SYKES Employee Relief Fund. The infographic shows a sneak peek of the impact the fund has had in 12 short months. As you can see, employee contributions have increased steadily since last July, and everyone who has benefitted from the fund has nothing but gratitude for everyone who has made a donation. One grantee’s husband suffered a serious lifethreatening illness that came on very quickly. In order to take care of him, she had to miss work, renovate her home to accommodate a new wheelchair ramp, and take care of other sudden mishaps in her home that caused a surge in bills. “By everyone contributing to this fund, the stress and worry of how I am going to pay the utilities every month are no longer a worry. ‘Thank you’ is not even close to the gratitude I have as words can’t express how grateful we are for this program and everyone’s contributions.”
So far, 144 total employees and their families have been given assistance through the fund. There have now been 892 payroll deductions that exceed $11,000 per month—imagine the number of employees the ERF could assist if all 15,000 SYKES North America employees gave just $1 per pay 10 www.SYKES.com
period. The fund would raise over $360,000 every year from employees alone! More of our SYKES family could feel the relief of not worrying about bills when tragedies happen. We are so excited to look back and see how this fund has grown into making a true difference in peoples’ lives, and we look forward to seeing how the ERF continues to help even more SYKES employees and their families. S
EMPLOYEE CORNER
Summer at SYKES
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ummer is off to a fun start around SYKES! Employees are participating in fun events around the company to get into the spirit of summer. Allentown Picnic SYKES Allentown recently had their first summer picnic. There was food, games, and tons of fun had by all. Next year they hope to host over 200 attendees!
Aloha Bloomsburg! Employees at SYKES Bloomsburg were encouraged to wear their best Hawaiian gear and take fun pictures!
Allentown summer picnic where over 100 employees and their families attended!
Week of Fun in Vansant Vansant, VA dedicated a whole week to Summer fun with theme days such as Ice Cream Sundae, Summer Fun Day, National Peanut Butter Cookie Day, and National Corn on the Cob Day accompanied by a family movie night! S
Fior Lopez and Milta Coronado share a Coke and a smile at the Allentown summer picnic.
Aloha! Shaina Kishbaugh and Marc Grassley pose in Hawaiian gear in Bloomsburg, PA.
Brittany Tester plays a SYKES corn hole game during Vansant’s summer cook out. www.SYKES.com
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SYKES HEALTH & SAFETY
How to Minimize the Negative Health Effects of Stress
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ne of the greatest things that negatively impacts health and well-being is stress. There is evidence that excessive or continuous, prolonged stress may cause various medical conditions and diseases. These include heart disease, migraines, anxiety, depression, and drug and/or alcohol abuse. Stress can have a negative impact on virtually all body systems. Excessive, prolonged stress can trigger high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases, asthma attacks, harmful blood sugar fluctuations in those who have diabetes, and it can cause skin rashes, gastrointestinal (stomach) disorders/disease, some cancers, and even early aging. Those who experience stress are also more likely to develop colds and other infections. (Are you stressed out just reading this? If so, fear not…)
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While it is not realistic to think that we can just “wish” stress away from our everyday lives, there are things we can do to minimize its harmful effects.
How can you minimize stress? Suggested Activities: • Exercise. Even a short 10-minute walk can help minimize stress. • Make better food choices. Eating small, healthy meals consisting of lean protein and lots of fruits, leafy green and colorful vegetables, and water will give your body the support it needs to combat stress. • Consider slow breathing, meditation, yoga, and other exercises. It may sound silly, but learn to breathe. When you breathe slowly and deliberately, you can calm yourself down and stay relaxed. Meditation and yoga are excellent stress relievers and are good for the body and spirit. • Sleep well. When you get enough rest, it is easier for your body to deal with stress. Go to bed each evening at a regular time and avoid spending time on your phone or device right before bed. • Take time out for you. Life is busy and we are either at work taking care of the needs of our customers or we are at home taking care of our families. It is important that you take a little time out of every day, just for you, whether it is a walk before or after work, or doing something you enjoy. • Go offline and UNPLUG. Take some time away from your smartphone, unplug from your iPad, and turn off the television and radio. Instead, spend personal one-on-one time with your loved ones, take some time to be outside with nature, and let the stresses of the world wash away.
Slips, Trips, & Falls
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et’s be honest, everyone loses their footing once in a while. Whether you’re in a hurry or simply distracted by something else, slips, trips, and falls can happen to anyone. SYKES cares about the safety and wellbeing of employees, therefore, continued emphasis is placed on being careful and aware of your surroundings, whether you work at home or at a site – prevention is key. It’s important to remember that in some states, a slip and fall injury may not be covered by Workers’ Compensation (WC) since it is not work-related and/ or did not occur during the performance of work.
All employees should: • Have an understanding of what causes falls & how to prevent them • Be aware that all incidents may not be compensable under state WC regulations • Reduce the risk of falls by changes in behavior • Report all incidents or injuries no matter how minor Primary causes of slip, trip and fall injuries: • Icy or wet surfaces – Outside • Wet surfaces – Indoors • Uneven areas both inside and outside • Stairs, steps, and curbs • Faulty equipment such as chairs • Obstacles in aisles, on the sidewalk, or in the parking lot • Frayed or wrinkled mats or carpets Steps for prevention: • Be alert and aware of your surroundings • Keep walkways and aisles clear of debris • Keep stairs, sidewalks, and parking lots well lit so that obstacles can be seen • Wear shoes with adequate ankle support to ensure balance and control • Keep floors and walkways clear of water, ice, and slippery materials
• Use slip resistant mats or rubber studded covers • Report and correct any potential hazards immediately • Do not run in the office • Clean up spills quickly • Use caution in wet areas • Do not use damaged equipment, chairs, etc. • Use handrails, when available, to go up and down steps
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SYKES IN THE COMMUNITY
Bloomsburg Donates to Pool Effort
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he Bloomsburg site was once again featured in their local newspaper, this time for their participation in a clothing/blanket drive to help open the public pool in Berwick, PA which had been closed for over 2 years. Work is finally underway to reopen the pool!
Employees at SYKES in Scott Township recently donated several bags of clothing items to the Berwick Area Swimming Pool Association. The group is raising funds to reopen the public pool. Pictured, from left, are SYKES employees Cheryl Maier, Karen Eckart, Wendy Colosimo, Loretta Capece, Candy Rupert, and Geraldine Turner; and Josh Kishbaugh, Ginny Crake and Matt Getty of the pool association.
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SYKES in Boise
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YKES is going to Idaho! During the visit to Boise to announce the site opening, Chris Monnette, Rob Woodruff, and Dave Norwood took some time to explore the tight knight community.
Chris Monnette (left) and Rob Woodruff (right) presenting a check to The Wyakin Warrior Foundation-a nonprofit organization based in Boise dedicated to helping wounded veterans.
Rob Woodruff, Senior Director of Operations, is all smiles while packing corn at The Idaho Food Bank!
Chris Monnette, Dave Norwood, and Rob Woodruff getting ready to help prepare meals at The Idaho Food Bank while in Boise. www.SYKES.com
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