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Compliance (C)

Situation: Private company has no compliance process or procedures in place and as a result the President/Owner has no “in compliance” Comfort level.

Issue Overview: This company is a small mid-western firm with roughly 8 years in the collection business and just 2 years as a debt buyer. Company has 10 full time Account Representatives and 3 part time. Other management and technical persons brings total employee base to 24. Some services are outsourced. Supervisor reported to Owner that the company was not in compliance with selected FDCPA requirements. In solving that problem promptly, the owner discovered other areas where “we are either outside compliance standards or we are shaky”, including licensing.

Solution: A full study of the company was accomplished in 2.5 days including interviews with all management personnel, several
supervisors and 3 account representatives. Accountability charts
were constructed along with compliance requirements. The
recommendation included appointing one management level
individual as the company’s Compliance Officer with shifting
some of his duties to one of the supervisors. Consultant worked
with management to construct a job description for this
position, compliance measurements for all compliance activity and
appropriate reporting forms.

Result: Effective compliance program has been operating for 10 months. owner has high degree of confidence and receives monthly reports and in some cases, weekly. Company licensing issues have disappeared and management anxiety over such issues has abated. Compliance Officer meets with Account Representatives on regular basis as part of their staff meetings to educate and inform them. This action was the idea of the Compliance Officer.

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Human Resources (HR)

Situation: Company continues to experience high turnover and is unable to promote from within to roles of supervisor or group leader.

Issue Overview: The ABC company employs 50 full time Account Representatives in a collection role. Turnover is measured at about 80%. The 20% that consistently stay on are the lower producers, are not seen in a leadership capacity by their peers or have no interest in supervisory roles. Consequently, ABC invests a lot of its resources in the hiring process and training. There is little esprit de corps among the Account Reps and no incentive to help one another reach individual goals.

Solution: After considerable study and based on the findings and recommendation of the consultant, ABC company deployed the following changes (partialist): retained an outside firm to complete initial screening of potential hires, utilized a screening tool to identify potential leaders; fast tracked identified supervisors after 6 months; paid for supervisor level training; increased base pay for supervisors and allocated a percentage of the commission on accounts resolved by those being supervised; allocated company time weekly for supervisors meetings.

Result: Turnover decreased by 55% within 8 months. Supervisory level staff are going on 18 months in supervisory roles. Account Representatives are doing, overall, a better job. Less complaining. More on time. Less goofing off. On their own, Account Reps decided to have monthly pot luck lunches to which they invite managers as well as supervisors. Measureably happier environment.