The State of Florida has reportedly renewed its BPO contract with Convergys Corporation for another five years. Convergys (News - Alert) has been providing the state government with human resources, benefits/payroll administration and recruiting services since 2002 under the state’s “People First” program.

 

“The renewed contract meets and exceeds recommendations from the Florida Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability related to cost savings and performance,” said Department of Management Services Secretary Linda H. South, in a release. “Working with Convergys allows us to take the People First product to the next level, with terrific improvements to service for state employees and significant cost savings for Florida’s taxpayers.”

Convergys claims its HR solutions enable the state to drive more value from employee relationships, foster greater organizational effectiveness and lower operating costs. Using these solutions, the state has standardized its HR technology and has been able to automate certain HR processes. In addition departmental managers have gained a greater level of workforce insight, thus enabling them to make better management decisions.

“Working closely with the Department of Management Services (DMS), we’ve identified additional enhancements to the original contract including important system modifications and updated performance metrics, which together are yielding significant HR improvements for those who serve the people of Florida,” added John Gibson, president of HR management for Convergys. “Our open and highly-productive relationship with DMS has benefited Florida taxpayers and the employees of Florida, and the extension of the People First contract means this mutually beneficial project will continue to be an outstanding success."

Convergys, one of the biggest and best-known call center technology and outsourcing firms, made news earlier this month when it announced that it had significantly expanded its international data center infrastructure, thus enabling the company to go “global” with its hosted contact center solutions. Previously the company only offered its solutions on a hosted basis in North America. Now Convergys can deliver its apps over its own dedicated network backbone as a managed service on a global basis, meaning that it has full control over application performance.

The company also recently announced that it is seeing good success recruiting agents for its call centers in the Philippines thanks to some new and innovative recruitment techniques it has implemented. Specifically, the company is allowing job prospects to start the application process by sending a text message via their cell phones. According to a press release, Convergys is currently running advertisements across the Philippines promoting career possibilities for Filipinos – all a prospect has to do is text the word ‘APPLY’ to the number 2600 to start the application process.