Outsourcing: Rick Ferry, COO of C3 (Part 5)

SM: Now, talk to me about the training. Especially, in the political debate right now, it comes up all the time that there are plenty of jobs. There are not enough skilled people to fill them. Talk to me about that in respect to your industry, which has traditionally been quite good with on-the-job training. It sounds like your company in particular is focused on that.

RF: We are absolutely dedicated to that thesis. We think if we can accelerate the learning curve, make people feel comfortable about the job, take away that queasiness that all of us have when we’re starting in new jobs and, in this case, for many people, a brand new industry, then they become more comfortable, and they’re able to look at the different aspects of the job, the enriching aspects of the position more quickly.

To that end, and again, keeping in mind our conversation a little earlier about this whole community of love-what-you-do, love-who-you-work-with, love-the-company-you-work-for, we put that all together in our performance area using a technique that’s not entirely different from the music technique of the Suzuki approach to music from some decades ago. I’m sure you’re familiar with the story. Suzuki is a mathematician who had a love for music and went in and developed a mathematically precise approach to education. We’ve kind of gone down that same path but enhanced it a little bit.

We don’t do any types of PowerPoint significant, lecture-based learning, primarily to get people engaged in the educational process right from the beginning. We use – if you’ll forgive the simplistic nature of the description – a boot camp approach where everybody is involved. We all have to pay attention right from the beginning because we can be called upon at any given point in time to provide a spontaneous answer. The whole approach is getting the foundation established through rapid rote so that the basic abilities, the innate knowledge required becomes if not automatic, autonomic from a response standpoint, just from repetition. We make it fun. We’re fully engaged. And then on top of that, what it allows the student to do is then focus more on the conversation and the execution of the transaction. So, I don’t have to think about breathing, for example. That happens autonomically. I can stop myself from breathing, but I don’t have to think about taking my next breath. That comes automatically. We do the same thing with the knowledge base, so that knowledge is inculcated into the environment early on. It’s got a rapid fire, high energy type of approach, full involvement, full engagement.

So, the students in the training class, by the end of the third day of  training in a typical four-week training program, they absolutely have a solid background as to the rote portions, the basic knowledge that’s required to execute the job. Everything on top of that is refinement. Everything on top of that looks at why is the customer asking this question? What is in the caller’s mind? How do I project the empathy? Let me concentrate on being empathetic and sympathetic to the customer. Let me also concentrate on exploring the customer’s greater need, because if she has a greater need, and I define that greater need for her, then I’m able to promulgate more of my client’s product to the customer. It makes her a stickier customer and a more loyal customer.

That’s basically an approach to new-hire training. Well, we continue that throughout the employment lifecycle. We think that the continuous improvement process is necessary because it keeps moving the horizon. It provides a greater near-term, mid-term and far-term horizon for those people who want to stay with the company. And it encourages people to do that because they see at each step that they’re getting something more back personally. And it’s preparing them for whatever their next step in life might be.

It’s typically not a terminal profession, in the United States anyway. By that I mean people are coming to work in the environment, for the most part – probably 80% of the people, 75% perhaps – are coming in for a particular situation at a particular time in their lives. They’re coming to work because they have a particular need at a certain point in time. They are looking to bridge circumstances. But what we get out of that is during that period of time, if it is, in fact, to be finite, full productivity. And in many cases – even in our short history, and we found this in our last engagement as well – that when those people determine that they have to move on geographically, what they want to do is see if they can stay with us remotely. They want to stay with the training program and to see if there is an opportunity to seed a new geography.

Interestingly, over 90% of our promotions for our management jobs are fulfilled from within. That’s an impressive number. We also are engaged now in discussions with three major universities about expanding our relationships with the universities  in order to take them to the next level and be able to offer people in our organization to matriculate in a degree program from fine universities that will definitely result in prolonging their stay with us. But also when they do choose to leave us, they leave much better prepared than when they came in. We think it’s a compelling story here in the US. We also are engaged in the wounded warrior program here in the United States.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Outsourcing: Rick Ferry, COO of C3
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