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COMPTEL PLUS Fall 2015 Business Expo
Beka Publishing,
www.bekapublishing.comCOMPTELPlus
|
Monday, October 19, 2015
29
DAY 1
absolutely notice the gap. Here are some examples
of values or philosophies that can be directly aligned
with employee benefit package design:
Cash is King:
Focus remains on compensation,
bonus and incentive plans with lower contribu-
tions to benefit plans and fewer options in the
overall benefit package. Employees have more
cash available to purchase benefits and services at
their own discretion.
Work-Life Balance:
More emphasis is placed on
flexible schedules, remote work, time off, fitness-
related benefits, and benefits. These can include EAPs
and workplace services designed to save employees
time, such as dry cleaning or grocery delivery.
Family Focus:
Organizations that highly value
and support family time may prioritize benefits,
such as time off, flexible schedules, paid or unpaid
maternity, paternity and family caregiver leave and
flexibility around supporting employees’ ability to
attend school activities.
Big Heart, Limited Budget:
Nonprofits often
fall in this category. Benefits that have less impact
on the budget are emphasized here, such as time
off, flexible schedules and mentor programs. One
of the most important and rewarding benefits of
working for an organization with this philosophy
can be the cause of the organization and serving a
higher purpose.
Industry Benchmarking:
Some organizations
focus on keeping up with the competition and
benchmark their benefit offerings and contribu-
tions against what other companies are offering.
Fiercely Competitive:
Competition is brutal in
some industries, and some organizations put exten-
sive effort and resources behind offering bigger,
better and cooler benefits than others in their
industry. Focus and priority may be dependent on
trends, demands and competitor packages.
Growth and Development:
Companies valuing
growth and development will emphasize training,
education assistance, professional development,
mentor programs and time off benefits, such as
brief sabbaticals.
Health andWellness:
Putting resources
behind health and wellness initiatives can have
significant impact on an organization’s bottom
line. Benefits emphasizing health and wellness can
include higher contributions to medical and insur-
ance benefits, wellness programs, fitness member-
ship subsidies, smoking cessation programs,
healthy meal or snack offerings, financial wellness
initiatives, safety aware-ness and resources, and
EAP services.
An organization’s HR team should be thinking:
What is our philosophy?What does our organization
value? Organizational values and philosophy may
align with one or a combination of the above exam-
ples, or a company may have its own unique set
of values and philosophies. Whichever a company
chooses, it should embrace it and use it to guide not
only benefits strategies, but also workplace culture
and recruitment and retention efforts.
Create a Strategic Plan
for Change
Now that a company has identified a strategy
that supports a short- and long-term business
strategy, it’s time to take action.
Next steps to consider:
1. Gain buy-in and agreement with the philos-
ophy and strategy from executive staff
and/or the Board of Directors.
The strategy
reflects the culture, and key stakeholders
must be in agreement to ensure consistent
messaging and strategic decision making.
2. Determine what benefits the company
would like to add, change or remove from
the current offerings to best support the
strategy.
It is usually difficult to remove bene-
fits from a package, but a benefit which does
not support the current culture or strategy
cannot be fully leveraged in recruitment and
retention initiatives.
3. Make a long-term plan for the changes
that have been identified.
It may take
several years before the culture or budget
support some of the benefits that a
company would like to offer. Organizations
should plan to make necessary financial,
cultural and resource requirements avail-
able over time.
o
(Iowa Network Services, continued from page 28)
N
ew Jersey-based CLEC 1st Point Commu-
nications (Booth 908) is expanding its
existing short message service (SMS)
network, adding hosted SMS Center (SMSC) to its
suite of services.
Based on its existing voice routing technology,
1st Point has added SMS to the mix for mobile
operators, supporting short-code and long-code
message origination and termination, as well
as both person-to-person and bulk message
delivery. The hosted SMSC meanwhile supports
a full suite of messaging capabilities, including
message termination and origination capa-
bilities, and flexibility in message routing and
delivery. The hosted SMSC also can be deployed
in an on-premise configuration for larger service
providers, and has full multitenancy capability.
“We are very pleased with both the capabilities
and the reliability of the platform,” said Erik Levitt,
1stPoint’s CEO. “Our hosted platform leverages
our nationwide, facilities-based network, data
centers and points of presence (PoPs), and has
network elements across multiple data centers to
provide very strong SLAs.”
In addition to supporting SMS-enabled DIDs,
1st Point’s routing network can intelligently
route messages based on source, destination,
cost or even content, and has an API and portal
for simple provisioning.
“In messaging interoperability is key, and
our SMSC has a wide variety of support for APIs
(and adheres to the SMPP 3.4 specification),”
said Levitt. “Because of that interoperability and
ease of configuration, our hosted customers can
build a complete SMS platform in days, choosing
from a wide variety of carriers.”
o
I
NDATEL (Booth 813) has announced that it
has reached a membership of 500 RLECS,
which together offer 90,000 route miles
of fiber, more than 1,100+ POPs and 40,000+
on-net and near-net fiber-fed buildings.
“I am excited about the team and tools in
place to meet Ethernet access, content delivery
and Internet access needs of our service provider
customers,” said INDATEL COO Max Huffman.
INDATEL is a team of wholesale carriers dedi-
cated to providing transport connectivity via
fiber optic network routes; its members, which
are primarily independent rural telecom service
providers, focus on rural and underserved markets.
The company said that this uniquely positions
INDATEL to provide a rural exchange connection
to many places other providers cannot.
INDATEL’s data and Internet aggregation
points-of-presence (PoPs) in Chicago, Dallas,
Denver and Minneapolis serve as places for
traditional carriers and emerging content/
service providers to access the group’s MEF
2.0-compliant Ethernet network via a single ENNI.
“One of our core objectives is to help service
providers deliver multi-location Ethernet access
solutions via INDATEL as a single point of
contact,” said Mel Wagner, INDATEL’s vice presi-
dent of business development and sales.
Added Huffman, “For us at INDATEL, it’s all about
the power of scale. It’s exciting to be a part of a
growing organization delivering innovative solu-
tions to a previously unmet need.”
o
1st Point Communications Extends SMS
Network, Adds Hosted SMSC Service
INDATEL Advances Its Footprint