Eric: Welcome to the contact center cactus chat podcast. I’m your host, Eric Mulvin. And we’re back for the part two episode with Cathy here. And so today we’re gonna be talking about culture index and getting into people’s personalities and figuring out how can we find the right people for the right seat, so that when you do the businesses that are listening to the show right now, start working with a call center like us, how do we make sure we’re finding the right people for you guys? And so we’re gonna dig in that today and got Kathy back on the show. Welcome.
Cathy: Thank you again, Eric. Thank you very much for having me again today. And I hope to discuss a little bit more about culture index today and more about hiring.
Eric: For the people listening in the podcast, what is culture index so over the last 18 months now we’ve we put in place this tool culture index, which is a personality testing. So I know a lot of business owners and companies are somewhat familiar with that I agreed to bring it in over the Pac-biz, after I took the test at it, I had other people take it, and I think pretty consistently, it was giving people’s personality, within like a 95 to 98% accuracy. Like people were finding out stuff about themselves. And it measures a lot of really interesting things such as the event, not just personality, but like, there’s a thing called energy units where you’re measuring if people are getting burned out or not.
Cathy: Correct.
Eric: And, and that’s an area that we’re focusing on more, but initially, who brought it in for for talent acquisition. And I think, you know, in all those full circle, because, like you’re dealing with people getting brought on, but you’re also involved with, you know, helping out with a little bit other parts of the company, we don’t take care of the staff, and they quit, you’re gonna have to hire more people. Yeah, that’s more work. So there’s some incentive for, you know, like to have been an organization that keeps the people to go out to keep hiring more and more. But in, tell me a little bit about your cuz you’ve been leading the chart and thank you for like the last I don’t know how long you’ve been the champion of culture index. And I’ve really used it and brought it into Pac-biz so that we could use it, not just for hiring button from I think we’re getting into this next phase, this next year in 2023. Of how can we use it to manage our existing staff and build teams better? But totally, what is your experience been like with culture index?
Cathy: Oh, yeah. And thank you for bringing that up, Eric, because, you know, culture index has really been, it is really a fantastic tool. And, and that is true, it is a personality test. But I think more than a personality test, it’s really an appreciation, and a communication tool. And in our experience, it’s really been great because probably I’ll just to give you a like a background about what really this tool is all about, and why this is important, and why we’re investing so much on it. It’s because, you know, culture index, it focuses on people, like what we’ve mentioned earlier, people is the most precious resource of the company. So we want the people we bring in to be the right people, we want them to be placed in the right seat, because if they’re not in the right seat, it’s like writing with your non dominant hand, remember, our, you know, our workshop
Eric: Yeah, it is showing right, your name with your left.
Cathy: Correct. And it’s an it’s funny, and what it is, is that and if I may borrow, you know, Jackie Lord’s words, if I may quote her, she said, when someone is placed, is not placed in the right seat in the company, they will have an out of body experience. Correct. So that means, you know, the ultimate goal really of talent acquisition here in Pac-biz is really to get the right people and to place them in the right seat. So how do we do that? First, we have to identify the strengths of people. And we have to enhance the impact of that unique strength, because you and I may have different strengths, and, you know, basing on our trade profiles, but you know, we’ll discuss that later on maybe. And also with culture index, not only are we able to bring the right people for the right seat or for the right rule, but we are also able to help you know, better manage them, how are we how do we manage people? How do we communicate with people and how do we motivate them? And also, I think it is such a powerful tool, especially when it comes to training and coaching. And apart from that, I think it’s it’s one tool were in, were able to see whether you know, this person is this burnout, like what you said earlier, or you know, is his strength, you know, aligned with the job description of them. So, so that’s what it is. So essentially, with culture index, we’re able to get the right people keep the right people and keep them engaged as well.
Eric: Yeah. And it’s a fairly new thing, you know, we haven’t been doing it for that long, I can’t say that we’ve been able to grow the company using index for a year is it’s only been like the last year or so. And we’ve had, you know, you mentioned Jackie, which we’ll have on a future episode soon. So if you want to learn more about this, we’re going to have Jackie, on the show. So you get to get a little deeper on that. But yeah, it’s really just a take what we’re doing at Pac-biz into the next level, which, by the way, I feel like at explaining it is, you know, like, most companies, you figure this stuff about people, but it takes, it might take trial and error, like, hey, let’s put this person in this role. Who that was a bad idea. They’re not doing too good. We should layer we gotta put something else in, or this team is not functioning, you know, we need to change it up. It’s, so instead of guessing, and trying and seeing if it works, or not, like we don’t have time for that, and I don’t think our clients do either. They can afford to have us tinkering around and figuring things out with the staff and who goes where. So it’s really just about cutting that learning curve down. Yeah, we could work with people better. And we’re using it in so many different interesting ways that I never thought when I initially brought it on, because we’re not only using it with our staff, we’re actually using it with clients to crap. Yeah. And I know you’re helping get the surveys out. But just to share it, you know, for example, we’re doing virtual assisting here now in Pac-biz and the skills to be a really great virtual assistant is different than the skills to be good for customer service.
Cathy: Correct, yeah.
Eric: So I don’t know. Can you speak about that? A little?
Cathy: Yeah, definitely, Eric, because, you know, when you talk about customer service, or being a customer service representative, you need to be more of a people person. And, you know, you need to be more empathetic, so to speak. And, you know, in general, you really have to be a people person. But when you talk about being a virtual assistant, you don’t get to talk to people as much. I mean, I’m just talking about virtual assistants, per se, we’re in it’s more admin work, you know, work that doesn’t talk back to you. So obviously, you know, somebody who is great with people may not be as great doing, you know, work, that’s, that doesn’t pop back to them. Some people would like to be placed in a spot where they’re able to, you know, just interact with people on a daily basis. But others would just love to be there on their computer, doing worksheets, and just, you know, things that don’t necessarily need a response. So that’s why this is where culture index comes in there. And it’s really very essential, because we are really able to see the unique strength of our applicants, and which, you know, seat or which role they should be in. Because if, you know, eventually, they may be good at this at the beginning, but three, six months down the road, if that’s not really the seat, that’s right for them. That’s right for them, they get burned out, they just end they just quit. Yeah.
Eric: And we have high attrition here know what
Cathy: Correct, yeah.
Eric: We want to be like we I mean, you’re the one that oversees the hiring process. So I you know, how much work it takes to get that person to be here? Because we’re in is this is a training, right?
Cathy: Yeah, this is a training.
Eric: So, to get them to come to the training room to start training is a lot of work. And so we don’t want to go through all that. And then turns out, it didn’t work out. Because not only does that impact us internally, it uses or resources, getting nothing back to the clients, you know, what happens to your clients when you start working? Like there’s some of you people listening right now. And you might be thinking about using a call center, and you’re looking for, like, what’s some tips to look for? And I would say, you know, this is something to consider, you know, are they doing personality tests? Or what are they doing to hire the people, because there’s so much data that you can give people these days, that could be really useful. And we’re not trying to use it to eliminate people, we’re attorneys, how can we find our strengths? How can we find them to so they can thrive in that right?
Cathy: Correct, yeah.
Eric: That’s been my goal from day one. That’s why we’re so attracted to this tool, because I want people like if they’re in the right seat, and it’s the perfect job for them, they will leave and I don’t,
Cathy: Correct.
Eric: We’ve got over 200 people today working at Pac-biz, it’s February 2023. And I don’t think we’d have 50 people this year celebrating their five year anniversary when the company if we weren’t putting people in the right seat. And I last time I was out here is July 2022, about eight months ago. And it was really shocking isn’t my first trip back after almost three years. How many people were telling me you know, Eric, I then would the company now three, four years before this. I’ve never worked at a job for more than six months. At is like really like his validation for me because I started Pac-biz, cause I wanted to make this a job that people really loved and then that they felt home.
Cathy: Correct.
Eric: I don’t know, again, it just goes full circle because we got our core values of family and your Why are you going to bring someone into the family? That is disruptive or
Cathy: Correct, yeah
Eric: You know, yeah, not a good fit. But if you bring someone in and you know, they’re gonna be lasting three, five years. And so I get to tell clients that all the time, there’s, there’s a good chunk possibility that this team that you have taken calls for you, these three people, five people, you started with 10 people, that courtroom is still going to be there, three to five years from now. And that’s, like in our space. I feel like that’s pretty unheard on unknown. I don’t know how much experience you have with other call centers, talent acquisition, but I don’t know, I feel like that’s something that’s pretty unique here at Pac-biz.
Cathy: Yeah, yeah, I think so to Eric, well, I don’t really have that much experience in terms of, you know, how long people would stay, you know, in a call center, or, or in a company for that matter. But I think when when we’re talking about the BPO industry, there’s really higher attrition compared to others. And I’ve been with a couple of BPO’s before. And, of course, I can really see that people don’t stay for that very long. And in my interviews, I would often, you know, get amazed by people who stay maybe two to three years down the road in a in one BPO. Because that’s really, that’s really, really amazing. So, and I’m also quite impressed in like what you said, we have 50 employees who have been with us for five years. That’s, that’s pretty amazing. That’s that goes to show that, you know, the environment that we have really is everyone is really aligned to our core values of, you know, family respect, teamwork, compassion, and personal growth. And that also shows in our, what we call employee satisfaction survey, which we run every year. And although not, everyone’s really happy, because you know, there’s no perfect organization, you can’t really please everybody, but you can really see that people are just really happy with the family environment, with the camaraderie that teamwork, and there’s just genuine. There’s just genuine love if I may use that word so boldly. It’s just genuine love and support in this in this company.
Eric: Yeah, and it might sound weird to say like, oh, you’re talking about a company. And those are words you’re not might not typically hear. But I could tell you, you know, this trip here, I brought brought a lot of people out, not me, personally, that family here that we brought from the US. And a lot of I think there’s probably like 30 or 40 people who’ve never been to the Philippines before, that are experienced experiencing it for the first time. And a lot of them got to attend the celebration a year celebration. And they’ve been telling me just even this morning, I was having breakfast with some people. And they’re like, it was so incredible that your event like you could see you could feel how happy people are. And I think it’s true. I mean, it is so so for you guys listening, like it’s possible to build an organization where you got staff members that feel like that. It takes effort, and it takes work.
Cathy: It is, yeah.
Eric: You know, that has taken eight years to get to this point. But yeah, that’s pretty cool when we get there and, you know, now we can build out now my goal is okay, how can we get a lot more people to fill? Because though we got 200 people, why not? Why can’t we get 400 people?
Cathy: Yeah, yeah, and, and you know, eight, they say said lucky number. But of course we don’t just believe in luck. But we of course, believe in hard work and teamwork. So it’s, if I may, quote, Father Bam from our mass, it’s just onwards and upwards. From here on for Pac-biz. Yeah, definitely.
Eric: And they say that luck is where hard, hard work needs prep.
Cathy: Correct, yeah, and yeah, so I couldn’t agree more.
Eric: Yeah, we make make our own luck up putting ourselves out.
Cathy: Right, right.
Eric: Cool. Well, hey, Kathy, it was so awesome to have you on the show. I really loved the conversation we had and were able to share that with our listeners. And I think this will probably be the, it’ll probably be part two, because this is long enough and two parts. So hope you guys got a lot out of that. And if you want to learn more about culture index, we’re going to have a future episode with Jackie who’s one of the people that helps implement this at companies based out in Scottsdale, Arizona. Really amazing person. She works with a few other businesses I know as well. And I know you guys love that episode as well. We’re gonna dive deeper into that. But for this episode, yeah, thanks for sharing a bit about your ad went deep and a little bit of your background. So I appreciate you opening up and thank you so much for all the info at Pac-biz with helping bring in all these talented people at And, and helpless out here over these last years.
Cathy: Yeah, thank you very much, Eric, thank you very much. It’s really such an honor to be here at your podcast and our podcast, if I may say so. And thank you very much for having me. I really had fun today.
Eric: All right, great. Well, until the next episode, please. You know, if you know other people that are dealing with call centers, maybe they’re thinking about outsourcing, maybe their business gets a lot of phone calls. They’re looking to improve their customer experience, please send this podcast I think there’s a lot of really great information that we’re gonna keep sharing. I’ve got we’re starting to build up some really amazing guests that are going to be on the show this next year. And so keep that so make sure you subscribe. Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, any social media platform. We’re sharing clips from the show. So look for us out there and until then we’ll catch you guys on the next episode. Thanks for listening.