Encouraging Great Customer Service Excellence in the Philippines

Customer Service is something that is not given as much importance here in the Philippines as other countries do. The Philippine consumer appears to be less empowered and is not given as much importance and consideration as they should. If you visit your average local tea shop or sari-sari store, you will notice that some store owners or managers would provide you service and sell you goods without even looking you in the eye. While less often, the same practice can sometimes be seen in other middle class restaurants and fast food. A big percent of micro, small, and medium enterprise businesses in the Philippines close down within three years from its opening. The more advanced and more-success driven companies however know the difference that a good customer service can make for their company.

Your frontline staff who deals with customers, their direct supervisors, and your store managers all play a crucial role in providing a good experience to your customers. In a quick survey we have done among a small number of respondents, we have asked working class individuals age 23 to 40 about their favorite shops and why they go back to these stores. We have noted a very interesting response saying that she prefers to go to this certain mall because the sales ladies know where other stores are located and you can easily ask for directions. She compared this to another mall where she felt that even the security guards have totally no clue where to find stores in their establishment. Another respondent explained that she goes to this certain beauty and wellness store because their staff is really friendly. She said that they remember her name and always greeted her whenever she visits. In these examples, we can clearly that customer service can play a huge role in the decisions customers make when purchasing.

Good customer service builds customer loyalty. If customers are buying from your store only because they need a certain product, it is easy to lose them once a new store selling a similar or comparable product comes around. To add to this, having a staff that can build a friendly relationship with customers can help build trust. Customers look forward to getting recommendations about products that may be helpful to them and they usually want to get these from someone they trust. By having good customer service, you can increase your customer’s likelihood of buying more products. If you have excellent customer service, customers talk about you and refer you to their closest friends. While they do this, it helps you acquire new customers. Consumers tend to buy products that have worked for people within their community. They purchase products that are popular among their friends and those they have the closest affinities with. By having good customer service, you will be able to create an experience that your customers will likely tell their friends about.

If you would like to build your frontline staffs’ customer service skills to take advantage of these great benefits for your business, we encourage you to check our Effective Customer Service Workshop this coming 7 April 2017. For inquiries, you may also call us at (02) 433 3342.

Revisiting Our Understanding of Training Needs Analysis

In the experience of contacting HR professionals in the business of training in the Philippines, we often get multiple responses when we ask the question, “What did your TNA tell you in regard to your needs in… (topic)? It appears that some practitioners may not be aware what a TNA is a crucial factor in coming up with an effective program suited for their company. TNA stands for Training Needs Analysis, which is a very important aspect of developing a company’s workforce.

Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is a series of activities designed to identify what kind of training and development program may help remedy or solve a particular issue in an organization. These issues are usually identified by a gap between the expected performance outputs and the current performance and skills of the human resource. TNA is critically, the first step in initiating changes in the company.

Training needs analysis allows you to build a bridge between the training procedures you will utilize and how they can be translated to the operations environment. Without a good training needs analysis, your program will have a hit-and-miss chance at success. However, when you start with a good TNA, you can ensure that there will be maximum value for the investments in the training you will implement.

While most HR personnel may understand the value of TNA, some still overlook the process because of the challenge of what kind of TNA must be used. There are no fixed templates or guidelines you can use in preparing a TNA for your company. The kind of TNA you will use should be configured on the basis of factors such as the industry you belong to, the kind of skills required to address the performance gaps, the goals and requirements of your program, the nature of possible causes of performance gaps, and many others.

Easily however, TNA begins with identifying the performance and skill gap you need to address. Once you have identified what you are after, it is easier to take the next steps in chasing it. Once you know your problem, you can start gathering information about the factors affecting it and its impacts to your organization. Many methods can be applied in this step. You may use surveys, questionnaires, interviews, small group discussions, psychometric tests, observations, performance statistics, and others. Your procedure can be formal or informal depending on the scope and potential value of the activity.

When doing a TNA, it may be tempting to always conclude that certain training be implemented. However, if you have been able to complete a thorough TNA, there will be a few times that you will realize that a simple manual or visual job aid may do. This is all right. The most important thing about your TNA is that you identify the root cause of your issue. For most cases, your TNA has to uncover whether you need to address knowledge, skill, or motivation because this is where a good training program can start with.

—————————————————————————————————-

If you are looking for a training and development partner who can tailor programs to your specific needs based on your TNA and a reasonable investment, visit us at www.competad.com or you may also call us at (02) 433 3342 or thru (0998) 5624984 to 85.

Negotiation Skills – An Important Skill Often Overlooked

As professionals, we definitely invest time in developing our skills. We train our communication skills, leadership, presentation skills, our image, and many more. One of the most important often highly overlooked skills is negotiation. Good negotiation skills allow a professional to reach beneficial agreements, meet goals, and work well with varying individuals. In short, it helps you get the job done.

A wise HR professional is able to negotiate a good salary with incoming employees. He is also able to negotiate a balanced diversity of workload from his boss. He can look after the best interest of the business by negotiating with other employees. In managing performance, negotiating a reasonable objective for your employee is also very crucial.

Negotiation is achieved when you lead to an agreement through discussion and compromise. It is not about persuading a person to take a side an issue. In negotiation, there is usually a goal you need to achieve and you need to coordinate with other individuals to achieve it. While it may be very convenient if you can just have someone do as you bid, it is more often a rare case in the work place. You are usually tied to making agreements with coworkers, suppliers, and managers to reach your goals. Because of this, negotiation becomes a method that involves creating, keeping, and enhancing your relationship with others to create temporary or lasting benefits.

For a company, negotiation helps in effective purchases. Everyone, companies included, need to save for the rainy days. Because of this, employees are encouraged to negotiate at the best level possible with the intention of getting the best results. This can be done by knowing the value of what you are purchasing. For hiring professionals, it is about knowing the value of the skills you are hiring in the market.

In order to create, keep, and enhance relationships with people for better negotiation, it is necessary to be respectful and dignified in your conversation. If it is price you are bargaining, be willing to give it a little less than your tag price, but keep in mind that the business owner also needs to get some profit from the deal. In essence, you would like to keep a well-maintained balance between both parties involved in order to come up with a truly effective negotiation.

There are many ways on how you can prepare yourself for a win-win negotiation process. If you would like to learn and enhance your negotiation skills more, you may also enroll in our negotiation skills workshop. Simply click this link for more information. Call us if you want to know more thru (02)4333342 and (0998)5624984 to 85.

Photo credits to tradegecko.com

PHRG to Partner with NYC on HIV Awareness

22 February 2017 – The National Youth Commission (NYC), headed by Undersecretary Cariza “Aiza” Yamson Siguera, called out a meeting for the creation of an awareness program geared toward clearing the stigma around HIV+ individuals in the workplace. This is in response to the alarming rate of infections reported in 2016, majority of which was from the youth sector. The meeting was attended by Dr. Stella Flores of the Pilipinas Shell Foundation, Inc., and Mr. Philip Nucleus Sia I, Managing Director of COMPETAD and member of the Philippines HR Core Group of Volunteers, who represented the Philippines HR Group. The NYC meeting was facilitated by Peach Lopez of the National Youth Commission.

The discussion revolved around plans and activities that can be done to raise HIV+ awareness among different private corporations in the Philippines, particularly the BPOs. Several insights about the experience of the Pilipinas Shell Foundation in educating about HIV in various companies in the Philippines was shared by Dr. Flores. She expounded on the prevalence of HIV in the Philippines, explaining that as of 2016 we are now ranked 2^nd in Southeast Asia when it comes to countries with the highest infection being reported. An average of 26 Filipinos everyday is discovered to be infected with HIV and 24 out of these would be part of the youth sector and the working class.

The group agreed that the working population can potentially be highly impacted and must therefore be educated in regard to the alarming numbers. The NYC has sought the assistance of the Philippine HR Group to spread its word in the HR Community. Both groups believe that the Human Resource Professionals play a key role in breaking the stigma among HIV+ individuals. Providing the community with proper education about handling such cases of HIV+ in the workplace is crucial to realize the joint advocacy. Aside from this, the program also aims to educate HR professionals and employees alike about RA 8504 and DOLE Memorandum 102-10 which are laws forwarding the rights of HIV+ individuals.

The Philippine HR Group would be helping in spreading awareness among HR professionals through the use of its Facebook community, tapping its almost 40 Thousand members and followers (as of Feb 2017). In the next few months, the HR Community shall expect to learn more about the upcoming joint projects of the Philippines HR Group and the National Youth Commission. At the moment, the two organizations shall have follow-up meetings and discussions in order to develop more concrete ways of involving the HR community in the advocacy.

Below is one of the videos that will be used in this awareness drive. Credits to Pilipinas Shell Foundation for providing this comprehensive and socio-sensitive awareness video.

In Advancing Your Career, Does Looks Matter?

It would be a very comforting world if only our career’s success is purely relative to our talent, perseverance, and skills. In the real world however, have you ever considered that there may also be factors unrelated to these that play a crucial role?

In my experience in the corporate world, I have seen managers talking amongst each other after a final interview, sharing their thoughts about the potential candidates for an office staff position. One very interesting conversation I heard was about the candidates’ physical appearance. To quote one of these managers, he said, “Okay sana kaso mukhang katulong, di nya ba alam na final interview ito?” (She is okay but she looks like a housemaid, does she know that this is her final interview?). In another circumstance, a colleague who is doing workforce and scheduling task shared that when he was doing his final interview, his boss said, “Why are you wearing a jersey shirt? Did you think this is a basketball try-out?” Lucky for him there was no other qualified candidate, otherwise he would not have landed the job.

Studies have proven that a person’s looks truly has an effect in his success in the corporate world. American sociologist Dalton Conley and an associate conducted a correlation study between that shows that when women gain weight, there was a decrease in the level of their job prestige as well as their income. Another study funded by Procter and Gamble, and reported in the New York Times, showed that putting make up (provided it is not overdone) improves people’s perception of her likeability and competence. In a survey amongst employers conducted by National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) three-quarters of the participants responded that the applicants grooming would have an impact to their opinion of the candidate. Numbers don’t lie and we can definitely see that physical appearance has a huge impact in one’s success.

Despite these proofs, many hiring professionals would deny that a woman’s physical appearance has a great influence in their decisions for hiring. To most hiring professionals, appearance is considered a very superficial basis for assessment and using it is supposedly highly frowned upon. Reality however teaches us that it has an impact in the selection process and it is backed-up my many studies.

In light of this, what does a professional need to do to get ahead of the race? Some people may take interest in plastic surgery to make their facial features better. In Korea for example, a study showed that almost 20% of women have undergone some form of plastic surgery. This is according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. Koreans believe that a beautiful face is key to a person’s success.

Not everyone however agrees to or can afford undergoing plastic surgery to improve their looks. Not only is it costly, it also comes with great risks. We have seen celebrities who have gone under the knife and ruin their looks rather than improve it. Fortunately, there are other ways of improving ones looks.

Dressing well is one way that a person can improve his physical appearance. A person who is well dressed is perceived to be of a good social stature and education. While this cannot always be true, we have undergone a lot of unconscious social conditioning that programs us with this kind of pre-conceived notion. This is the reason why most sales person would be wearing a coat and tie or long-sleeves with collar rather than a jersey shirt. We tend to respond better to a person who is dressed well. It is therefore not a luxury to invest on good clothing that you can use for your day-to-day professional look as well as for special events. Observing basic personal hygiene also improves that way a person looks. Trimming your nails regularly, combing your hair and tooth brushing — all of these activities help you maintain a better looking self. Taking a bath everyday ensures that you remove dead cells that make your skin look dry and unhealthy. Simply following our regular hygiene definitely impacts our physical appearance. Regular exercise and a healthy diet are also key ingredients to improving ones looks. Obesity is rarely seen as ideal and that goes the same to being severely underweight. Eating right ensures that you get a good amount of nourishment for your body to build muscles and a healthy percentage of fat (yes, we need fat). A regular exercise regime ensures that the body maintains a good metabolic rate that results to proper functions of your body system and a normal processing of nutrients. For women, using make-up is also a very good way of managing your physical appearance. Make up improves likeability and perceived competence. However, applying make-up can be a tricky form of art. It can make you or break you. You should get the right blend – not too much, and not too less. You should also pick the right kind and color that matches your skin. You can decide to learn more about applying make-up by going online, reading about it, checking make up tutorials, and attending make-up education workshops.

Looking good physically may be easy to overlook as we want to focus on working and making the most out of the limited time in our day. However, it is still very important, that as you work your best, you also look your best. They say dress for success and this may be something that is trivial but worthwhile of your efforts and investments.

If you would like invest a reasonable value to learn more about proper professional make-up, COMPETAD Training and Professional Development is offering a workshop about this in March 2017. Check out this link for more details: Basic Face Make-up Workshop 2017. This is an intimate small-group workshop so you can truly learn and ask questions from our make-up expert.

Coaching People and Maximizing Your Influence

by Philip Nucleus Sia I

When you hear the word coaching, what probably comes to mind is the idea of telling people what they need to do, like in a basketball team’s huddle. So when you take on a role in the corporate world that requires leading people, you’d probably see it normal that bosses would do the same. While it is true that you sometimes need to give instructions to people, there is more to it than just that. Let us learn and see what other things comprise the recipe for good coaching so we can be more influential in leading people.

Coaching involves building a relationship. As a pre-requisite to coaching, it is important that you know who you will coach. Knowing their personality will help you choose the right words and the motivational points that will influence the person. While you do not need to know every minute detail about the person to achieve this, you have to learn about the reasons that your employee is working with you. Every person has a dream or a goal, albeit some are not aware how they can achieve them. As a leader, you have the power to help the person realize those goals by guiding them. Let them see how their actions now can help them get to those goals. When doing your coaching, you can connect their personal goals to the tasks they need to do. This provides them with the inspiration to work on tasks with less supervision. In a country like the Philippines, where we value the concept of “pakisama” (getting along with others) very much, being a leader requires that you know who you are working with in order to be effective. So go talk to your direct reports about personal matters, say hi to them every day. Thank them for coming to work. Ask them about how their family members are doing. It isn’t prying into their privacy. It is learning more about them so you would know how to help them.

Coaching requires listening. While it can be tempting to be the one talking during your coaching session, it woulld be great to show your employees that you can listen. You have probably experienced at a certain point working with a manager who only gives orders. How does it make you feel? Does his actions positively influence how you work? Does it inspire you? Needless to say, very few people would like someone who does not listen. When you listen, not only do you encourage the person to see you positively, it also allows you to filter between excuses and real reasons. Ask questions to solicit a conversation. Let the person tell you what happened based on their perspective. This will allow the person to think through and reflect on their own mistakes. Not all questions are good however so you have to be cautious about what you ask. Questions that assume that the employee is at fault may result to further damage such as, “Why didn’t you do anything about it?” Questions that start with “Why” generally encourage a defensive behaviour so stay away from questions like those — use What, Where, When, and How. Questions such as, “What happened?” “Where do you think you can make a difference?” or “How could you have helped the situation?” are very powerful questions that allow your employees to reflect. Encouraging this kind of reflective thinking helps people get out of their learned helplessness, which may minimize your supervising work later on. It is important to ask questions that are blame-free and neutral.

Coaching must have a call for action. After each of the coaching sessions, it is important that we ask the person what they will do if they are faced with a similar situation. This allows you to check what learning they got from your coaching. This also provides them with accountability and ownership for their promised solution. If the action solely came from the leader, employees may be impartial about the required action thereby resulting to a lower level of commitment. This commitment increases when the leader knows how to solicit an action item coming from the employee themselves. Sometimes, when employees could not come up with solutions, it is important for a leader to guide the employees through a series questions. Your ability to do this will help improve your scope of influence among your direct reports.

If you would like to learn more about how you can be a more effective coach to your direct reports, or if you would like to learn the art of asking questions that will guide your employees, you may attend our workshop on coaching. We also offer in-house workshops. Please contact us through (02) 433 3342 or (+63) 998 562 49 85.

Staff Training: A Worthwhile Investment for your Human Resource

Any business regardless of industry needs some form of training for their employees. You may require your new staff members to undertake some training which can be job specific or of general importance. This equips them with the rudimentary pieces of information they need to perform their job at an acceptable level. But as they stay longer in the company, they still need to have more training than just that.

Some companies see continuous training as a cost-generating process or function that has a small added value. To some it may be seen as a mere requirement for ISO audits. For others, it is just a day where employees get to skip regular work. For these reason, some companies get service from training providers possible without regard to the quality and appropriateness of the training they are getting. Sometimes, they put training at the bottom of the priority list. But there are a lot of reasons why HR professionals should consider training as a valuable investment for their business.

First, high-quality training provides individuals a sense of development. This means that other than improving the skills they need for their job, they feel that the company is showing a genuine commitment to progress their careers. Developing some expertise and learning new techniques motivate people to do better in their work. It also builds excitement and a sense of change, which battle rust-out. Rust out is when employees develop distaste for their work as a result of doing tasks again and again in the same manner over long periods of time. Having the feeling of development and change among your employees ensure that they have a steady flow of motivation and empowerment to perform their jobs well.

The second benefit of quality training is that it allows you to retain your employees. A recent survey showed that up to 40 percent of employees who receive poor to no training at all tend to leave and seek better opportunities within the first year. In the Philippines, the BPO community puts a lot of efforts in ensuring efficient training processes as they have seen a similar trend. Employees leave as early as within the first 6 months because the training has not been sufficient to the requirements of their job. A good training experience provides employees with the confidence to see that they can perform the expectations of their tasks over a long period of time.

Another benefit of high-quality training is an increase in yield and revenue. If you have productive individuals and you are retaining your employees, you can ascertain a higher and consistent productivity which translates to a better earning for your company. With more workers retained, the need for over-time work is less and production becomes more efficient. With less need for replacements, you can also avoid the high costs of hiring and replacing employees.

With these, we can see that despite the initial costs, training pays back your investment indeed. Every company is in need of training and there is always something that you can help your employees learn so that they can be motivated. Whether it be job specific training such as Customer Service, Communication Skills Training, Engineering Specific Courses, or a more general training like Leadership, Work-Attitude and Values Enhancement, Personal Financial Management, etc., there will always be a pool of rich learning opportunities that you can give to your employees so that they can be a better individuals employed in your company.

To learn more about how you can provide high-quality, tailor-fitted training to your staff that is truly worth your investment; please visit us at www.competad.com. We provide a range of training from soft skills to electrical engineering. You may also contact us at (02) 433 3342. You may also like us at facebook: www.facebook.com/competad.

To download a copy of our 2017 calendar, you may click here: competad-training-calendar-for-2017

Protective Relaying: Power System Protection Seminar Series

Course Duration: 2 Days

A very important part of any electric power system is Protective Relaying. While usual operations may not require its analysis, troubleshooting any unusual changes, faults, and disturbances makes a good understanding of it a necessity. Protective relaying requires specialization and knowledge of all aspects of electrical power generation from production, to distribution, and consumption.

The training offers a strong foundation knowledge about applications and advances in protective relaying that is very useful in planning, operating, and managing electric power systems.

Who Should Attend:

This course will enhance the understanding and increase competencies for:
 Design Engineers
 Project and/or Construction Engineer
 Utility and/or Maintenance Engineer
 PEE, REE or graduate of Electrical Engineering

Topics to be Discussed:

A. Power System Protection
 Review on Fault Calculations
 Feeder Protection
 Time Overcurrent
 Instantaneous Overcurrent
 Directional Overcurrent
 Example Calculations
B. Power System Protection 2
 Differential Protection
 Transformer Differential
 Generator Differential
 Bus Differential
C. Power System Protection 3
 Line Protection
D. Power System Protection 4
 System Grounding
 Generator Protection
E. General
 Protection requirements
 Protection zones
 Primary and backup protection
 Fault Discrimination
 Protective Relay Performance
 Information Application
 Per unit Calculation Review

Comprehensive Power Transformer Preventive Maintenance

Course Duration: 2 Days

The 2-day course (16 hours) will focus on the Preventive Maintenance of Electrical Transformers. A basic understanding of a transformer and its construction will be discussed, and the theories of the electrical test to be performed. Proper procedures on testing will also be discussed on the first day. All procedures will be based on the InterNational Electrical Testing Association (NETA). On the second day, safety and testing procedures will be implemented before hands on training. Testing of power transformer will be performed.

Objectives:

The objective of this seminar is to inform the participants of the importance of preventive maintenance of power transformers, its major components, and to guide them on the testing and evaluation of results of the power transformer.

At the end of the program, the participants will be able to:

Explain different types of transformer
Know the major parts of a transformer
Discuss the nameplate data
Know the safety procedures in preventive maintenance of transformer
Discuss the electrical testing performed on transformers
Evaluate electrical test results gathered
Knowledge in present technologies in preventive maintenance of transformer

Methodology:

Classroom discussion and hands-on training

Topics to be Discussed:

DAY 1

Introduction
What is a transformer
- History
- Principle
- Types and Design
- Construction
- Cooling Classification

Components and Indicators
- Major Components
- Indicators, Alarms

Nameplate
- Nameplate data
Importance of Preventive Maintenance of Power Transformer
Theory and Procedures for Transformer Electrical Test
- Visual Inspection
- Insulation Power Factor Test
- Insulation Resistance Test
- Transformer Turns Ratio Test
- Winding Resistance Test

Special topics
- Excitation Test
- Impedance Test
- SFRA Test
- DGA and Oil Quality Test

DAY 2:

Safety procedures in Testing
Hands on Power Transformer Testing (As per ASTM NETA Guidelines)
- Insulation Power Factor Test
- Transformer Turns Ratio Test
- Winding Resistance Test
- Insulation Resistance Test with P.I.

Evaluation of Results

New technologies in testing

Thermographic Surveying Course

Course Duration: 1 Day

Infrared thermography is one of the most valuable tools available for inspecting electrical systems. Too often, however, the use of the technology falls short of its potential full value. Why? A primary reason is our failure to understand the basic heat transfer science involved and, thus, misinterpret the thermal signature of a component possibly headed toward heat-related failure.

Objectives:

This course will present case studies that present real problems that the thermographer will experience in the field. This course objective is to give a proper training to engineers engage in this field, giving them a good understanding of radiation laws and parameters to take into consideration when carrying thermographic inspections and measurement. Participants learn to avoid costly mistakes.

Who Should Attend:

New Thermographer Surveyors.
Those intending to buy or use Infrared Thermography.
Service Providers providing Infrared Thermography services; and
Maintenance Engineers who are interested to learn Infrared Thermography as an advance tool in maintaining their own facility/assets.

Topics to be Discussed:

1. Infrared Safety.
a. Blast Hazard.
b. PPE.

2. History of Infrared Thermography.
a. Electromagnetic Spectrum.

3. Uses and Applications of Infrared Thermography

4. Thermal Instrumentation Overview.
a. Contact Sensor.
b. Non-Contact Sensor.
c. How does Infrared Camera work?

5. Basic Thermal Science
a. Definition of Heat.
b. Temperature vs. Heat.
c. Temperature Defined.
d. Units for Measuring Temperature.
e. Absolute Temperature Scales.
f. Relative Temperature Scales.
6. Basic Heat Transfer

a. Direction of Heat Flow
b. Conduction
c. Convection
d. Evaporation / Condensation
e. Radiation
f. Black Body
g. Real Targets

7. The Infrared Camera Measurement Functions
a. Level
b. Span
c. Isotherm
d. Spot Meter
e. Area Function
f. Image Capture

8. Thermal Image Interpretations & Shooting Techniques
a. High Emissivity
b. Low Emissivity
c. Thermal Gradient
d. Thermal Analysis
e. Thermal Tuning
f. Palettes
g. Reflection Recognition
h. Avoiding Spot Reflection

9. Reporting and Documentation.
a. Methodology.