Executive Director of Human Capital, TTEC
TTEC leverages digital technology to personify the customer experience for its clients’ customers. Executing on that mission begins with attracting the right talent that aligns to TTEC’s culture of innovation. For Gretchen Pfeifer, Executive Director of Human Capital at TTEC, that starts by creating and maintaining an inviting, empowering culture for its employees.
“Our mission is to bring humanity to business,” she explains, “To us, employee experience is a huge factor in ultimately providing great customer experiences for our clients. And it starts as early as the applicant experience.”
Gretchen turned to Sterling in 2011 to help create a seamless, frictionless experience for TTEC candidates as they went through the pre-hire and onboarding processes. “We were struggling with a previous vendor with everything under the sun,” she states, “from the quality perspective of errors in background checks to the technology perspective of not being nimble and flexible enough to accommodate the fast-paced nature of our industry.”
Gretchen explains that the biggest benefits her team realized out of the gate through its partnership with Sterling revolved around technology enhancements in its applicant tracking system. “We are in a very high-volume recruiting industry,” she states, “so every second matters in the efficiency of our processes. When we first partnered with Sterling, it was the only service provider that offered a seamless integration that was literally a one-click system.”
Gretchen says that other vendors started offering similar value propositions after some time, and so her team evaluated several different organizations as well.
“We’ve stayed with Sterling for several reasons,” she states, “starting with the level of service that we have gotten, and Sterling’s willingness to be flexible and adaptable to our business needs. I can’t think of a scenario where I was told ‘no’ by Sterling. Our experience with our previous vendor was very much, ‘If it’s outside of the box of the normal/standard protocol, then no, we can’t do that.’ ”
Gretchen explains that TTEC’s baseline expectation in background checks is that they are accurate. “Speaking for our clients,” she states, “we have little tolerance for mistakes and the inherent risks on their accounts.” But while background checks need to be accurate, she states, they also need to be done fast.
“Speed to hire is our biggest challenge,” she relates. “We’re in an industry where there’s a lot of attrition, so we are constantly in a war for talent, and constantly struggling with speed to hire. While we are quick at finding talent and interviewing, the other complexity is that we have a number of clients with varying background check requirements. So the background check process has to be swift no matter what. Sterling ensures that we receive the best solution to do this.”
Founded in 1982, TTEC is a global technology and services company that creates engaging customer experiences for the world’s most iconic brands in retail, automotive, healthcare, travel and hospitality, finance, government, and a host of other industries. With office locations on six continents, TTEC’s annual revenues are $1.54 billion.
World headquarters in Englewood, CO
It’s not just Sterling’s accurate and fast background check services that TTEC benefits from, says Gretchen.
“The above-and-beyond solution from Sterling has been a lot of the technology automation that we’ve put in place to both facilitate orders on our side as well as Sterling’s, the reporting and analytics that comes out of that, and Sterling’s knowledge of compliance and our market,” she says.
“The other unique factor in our relationship is the level of presence of senior executives within Sterling to help make sure we’re making the right decisions for our business. Sterling understands our wants and desires at a deeper level than what a typical vendor relationship would look like,” she concludes.
Founded in 1982, TTEC is a global technology and services company that creates engaging customer experiences for the world’s most iconic brands in retail, automotive, healthcare, travel and hospitality, finance, government, and a host of other industries. With office locations on six continents, TTEC’s annual revenues are $1.54 billion.
World headquarters in Englewood, CO
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