LEAD Awards 2018: Interview with Mark Monaghan, iQor

Offering a Career Path to Management Opportunities for Top Performers

  Category: Best Global/ International Leadership Program
  LEAD AWARD RANK: 7
 
  Organization: iQor
  Program: The sQholar Program 
  Program Director: Mark Monaghan, VP Global Learning
  Email: Mark.Monaghan@iqor.com
  Visit: www.iqor.com  
 
Our editorial team interviewed Mark Monaghan from iQor at the LEAD2018 Awards this past February. Here are some excerpts from the exclusive interview.
 
What is the overall objective of your program?
The sQholar program was designed by Corporate Training, Human Resources, and Operations to provide a career path to management opportunities for top performers. This 6-month program provides future leaders with the training needed to successfully execute and perform at a level that gives their team an opportunity to meet or exceed performance expectations. In order to meet client expectations and grow as a whole, the sQholar program provides a pipeline of high potential candidates who are ready and excited to become iQor leaders.
 

Our goal is to identify and help those who want to help themselves by providing a road map to success. The push for this program arose after capturing key feedback through our company's employee survey. We found that career development and growth opportunities were important factors to employees wishing to stay in the company, and without these opportunities, were more likely to leave. 
 
Who do you impact with your program?
The sQholar program is intentionally designed to help identify and vet high potential candidates who have demonstrated a desire to progress in their career, have natural leadership abilities and are team orientated. The program is a mix of eLearning, Team Building and HR Modules (9-11 hours) all of which are in alignment with our Leadership Competency Model.

After an extensive vetting process, we accepted just under 30 sQholar candidates for our class that started Q1 2017. We are pleased that all but one candidate passed the program with over a one-third already being promoted to a supervisor before graduation. Q2 and Q3 applicant submissions increased over 200% -- a testament to the support this program has received.  Our program has grown to well over 200 active sQholars working their way towards a leadership position. 
 
What are the lessons you’ve learned this year from facilitating your program?
The courses and curriculum a sQholar completes during their training period are proven performance accelerators. More than 2400 of our current supervisors have completed one if not all of the learning modules and courses within the sQholar program. Upon program completion, successful sQholar graduates will understand how to manage, coach and position their team to meet or exceed performance expectations in advance of promotion. Much of the knowledge and skills acquired during sQholar training can be applied to multiple aspects of the student’s current position.

Additionally, students are exposed to iQor’s management culture and real-time challenges managers face every day giving each of them a new appreciation for those who lead and a foundation to develop their own personal leadership style. We’ve also learned that this program requires an aggressive scheduling effort in order to keep the sQholar on track. We continue to work diligently from a communication standpoint as our Trainers not only are in contact with the sQholars, but their Supervisor as well. Without supervisor support, this program would not work. 
 
How do you measure the return on investment and success of the program?
Since this program is still in the implementation phases, overall impact cannot be measured directly. The company hires between 25 and 35 new call center supervisors every month. In most cases, these new supervisors understand little regarding of iQor’s unique culture, performance drivers, and supervisory challenges. Additionally, our exit survey data and company surveys have indicated that one of the main reasons agents leave is because they feel there’s no room to grow.
 
iQor believes that employees who understand program and client specifics as well as iQor systems will have less ramp time and will be more likely to succeed vs. external hires. We believe that internal candidates are less likely to leave the company or perform poorly.
 
sQholar graduates should have significant leverage over their externally hired counterparts thus lowering agent attrition, improving retention as well as employee engagement. Fully trained and engaged frontline supervisors have the most impact on agent attrition. The sQholar program focuses on developmental vs disciplinary management techniques. Our goal is to create a coaching atmosphere where agents feel fully supported and well mentored. Roughly, for every 1% yearly agent attrition is lowered, the company saves about $500,000 per annum.
 
What lies ahead for the program and how will it continue to succeed?
iQor has consistently demonstrated a willingness to invest in the development of its employees. We have a number of award-winning training programs available through iQor University, setting the stage for continued improvement regarding current program growth and support as well as our next phase of competency-based leadership training.
 
There is already a desire to expand this program offering more career choices within our centers as well as a Supervisor to Manager development path. While this program is not a fully-executed career path system for all positions within the company, it certainly lays out the framework for future expansion and program hiring needs. iQor feels strongly that the sQholar Program is a huge leap forward helping individuals grow while providing the company talented and newly trained leaders to fill its current and future growth needs.
iQor has a long history of promoting from within, some of our most senior managers started as agents. It is likely like that the company will offer this program twice a year rather than once every quarter, allowing our trainers more time with each student, better communications and more time to vet qualified candidates