Reference no: EM132749442

Critical Thinking Case Study 1: Home Sourcing at Sykes Home

• Sykes Home is part of Sykes, a 55,000-employee company that is a digital marketing and customer-service global outsourcer headquartered in Tampa, Florida. The company has over 65 locations in 20 countries, and its employees speak over 30 languages.

• Sykes's Work at Home program hires customer service representatives in the United States and Canada to serve Sykes company clients around the globe while working from their home. Sykes has been offering this Work at Home program for over 20 years, and it is the most experienced and largest employer to provide this type of work arrangement. In fact, Sykes Work at Home is a pioneer in this virtual contact-center industry.

• Using cloud-based technology allows Sykes Work at Home to meet client needs without geographic limitations. The company's well-designed operational delivery platform ensures increased collaboration and consistent support, regardless of the physical location of the over 7,000 home-based locations across 40 states in the United States, as well as in Canada. The company employs email, phone, chat, Web, social media, and digital self-service to communicate with customers. Results reported by the company show a 20% improvement in performance management, and the ability to cut down on recruiting time for new employees by one-to-two weeks over the traditional brick-and-mortar process, thus ensuring better productivity and quicker scale-up to meet client needs. The average age of employees is 41 and the training program is intensive and ongoing.

Problem 1: What types of jobs are best suited for home-sourcing arrangements?

Problem 2: As a manager, what challenges would you anticipate for designing jobs for individuals who work off site in their own homes? As an employee, what challenges would you anticipate to experience working from home?

Problem 3: What are the greatest risks associated with this job design approach? What are the greatest benefits associated with this job design approach? As a manager, what would you do to overcome those risks?

Problem 4: Visit the Sykes Home website and other articles you can find about this company (include your reference list with your answer). Would you want to work in a home sourcing arrangement for Sykes Home? As an employee, what challenges and opportunities would doing so present?