In a career spanning more than two-and-a-half decades, Dave Palmer has worked extensively within the contact center / outsourcing industry. Starting off as an agent for AOL in 1994, he has come a long way to acquire his current position as the president of Everise. During this time, he has sharpened his skills and expanded his knowledge in vendor and program management, strategic planning, business development, customer experience, process improvement, customer relationship management, and business process outsourcing.

Through all his professional outings, Dave has always worked as a senior executive with the responsibility of managing a very large workforce of employees globally. Being from an industry with a high percentage of women in the workforce, he says he is often left shocked and disappointed by the gender pay gap in the corporate world. In this chat with Women Icons Network, he speaks about the ways to make the workplace more friendly for female employees, role of male colleagues in supporting gender equality and several other aspects of an inclusive work environment.

Gender Disparity @ Workplace

Gender disparity, Dave feels, isn’t just an issue specific to any one industry. Though he realises he shouldn’t be surprised by this, he is still shocked and disappointed every time he hears about situations where there are gender-based gaps in compensation and opportunities. He believes it is the moral obligation of business leaders and organisations to ensure there is equality in both areas.

“It is critical to establish corporate frameworks that root out systemic inequity. This is equally true in diversity and companies that don’t embrace this will ultimately suffer. A good and effective leader should have gender equality as a priority in their strategic planning agenda,” he says. Another important aspect of employee retention, according to him, is the organization’s performance in terms of shouldering its social responsibility.

He insists that understanding the state of a business in terms of demographics is an important first step in determining whether and what changes are needed to support the workforce from a diversity and inclusion standpoint. He believes establishing clear expectations, educating the workforce, establishing the right frameworks to support Diversity (in all its forms) & Inclusion, and reinforcement by the top leadership in adhering to those principles is critical for any organization that states they have a Diversity & Inclusion agenda.

Male Allies

Despite the organisational goals, Dave feels, it ultimately comes down to individuals making up the organisation upholding the values held dear under the D&I initiatives. A company’s ability to drive positive employee experiences and growth in this regard is, in part, dependent upon men in leadership roles engaging and rooting out systemic inequality, he feels.

He thinks that men who work with and around women on a day-to-day basis have a responsibility to treat their female counterparts fairly in addition to participating in Gender Diversity and training programs. “Equally important is self-reflection on what they as individuals can do differently to ensure there is an inclusive workplace,” he states.

Though his own industry has more women employees, he suspects there will be a fairly large shift in demographics that are attracted to the contact center space in the near future. He reasons that the global pandemic has opened opportunities from a Work at Home (WAH) perspective, which he feels could be adopted by the industry as a more permanent approach. This makes it more important, in his opinion, for all employees to ensure in a personal capacity that gender equality is upheld in all aspects of professional experience.

Leading by Example

Fortunately for him, Dave has been a part of very progressive organizations who understand the importance of Diversity, Inclusion and Gender Equality. In each professional outing, he had the opportunity to not only participate and support in initiatives across all three areas but actively worked to ensure his direct leadership organization reflects the composition of that company’s workforce.

He led by example in all of these roles by eliminating the notion of gaps in pay by monitoring male vs. female pay ratios by position, being transparent about those findings, and taking the necessary steps to eradicate any negative trends found. This was his way to illustrate his personal as well as organisational commitment to equality. Another initiative that he took as a leader was to ensure any positions for advancement opportunities and candidates who apply, have equal access to those opportunities, irrespective of the gender, race or other leanings of the person.

In the 27 years that he has worked in the contact centre industry, he has come across a range of incidents that run from microaggression to offensive language and even harassment. Any time this happened, he would communicate to everyone involved that his personal tolerance level for such occurrences is zero. After this, depending on the severity of the act, he would act swiftly to correct the inappropriate behavior and reiterate expectations of all employees under his leadership.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration, Helen Franco decided to change the course of her career. Soon, she was accepted as a candidate for a Juris Doctorate degree. After working for two law firms, she transitioned to an in-house position and has since thrived in the corporate world.

In 2010, she was appointed as the corporate counsel with BPO outfit C3 (Customer Contact Channels) that was acquired by Everise in 2016. She saw this as an opportunity to utilise her knowledge of the company, its people and its operations in order to embark on a new adventure. She speaks with Women Icons Network the legal framework that ensures gender parity in the modern workplace.

Working at Everise

When Helen met Everise CEO and founder Sudhir Agarwal and other senior leaders of the company, she understood she shared their passion of making the company stand out among its peers. Five years later, she says, neither the excitement nor the passion of the leadership has waned. In fact, she has had several opportunities to feel increasingly proud of the company’s achievements, especially in its promotion of diversity and inclusion in all areas of its operations.

“There are enough legal safeguards in Everise to ensure that our people feel comfortable in their work environment. The HR Department’s robust open-door policy, together with a whistle-blower hotline that was initially set up in 2011 allows employees to speak their mind and be assured that they will be heard,” she elaborates. In fact, she believes that the thinking process of the entire team has constantly evolved through the years.

The leadership takes developments surrounding new legislations regarding diversity and inclusion very seriously, she asserts. The company, she says, is always striving to be at the forefront of the industry in ensuring the right safeguards are in place to make its employees comfortable in their daily interactions with each other, with management and with the customers they serve.

Positive Policies

Helen thinks that gender equality has become a priority across industries. She cites a recent report by Women in the Workplace to point out that one-third of mothers face opting out of or scaling back their careers. It was the realisation of this fact much earlier that made Everise declare its mission as ‘people first’. It is due to this approach that 65% of the company’s workforce is currently female, with 45% being in leadership roles. She proudly declares that a majority of the colleagues with whom she interacts on a daily basis are female.

A couple of decades back, when she was at the outset of her career, she got into an uncomfortable situation with a male colleague. She reported the incident to the relevant authorities, resulting in the erring staffer being removed from his position of authority. This incident cemented her belief in the power of communication to address difficult situations.

Even today, Helen holds that the best way to address gender diversity and inclusion is to keep an open line of communication between the employees and management. “In this regard, I have instituted a detailed and user-friendly Whistleblower Policy and an anonymous whistle-blower hotline (via phone and email) that works globally and is easily accessible to any of our employees no matter where they are located,” she states. The HR and legal departments then work together diligently to ensure that employees are aware of the hotline and use it, she adds.

The company highlights its policies addressing equality through email blasts that provide real-life examples of hiring and promotion of women, she informs. She feels her journey in the company bears witness to its gender-blind promotion practices. Her efforts helped her get promoted from Director to Vice President to Senior Vice President and now Chief Legal Officer within a span of five years.

Improving Gender Equity

Corporations need to make their employees aware of the potential harm to the company’s reputation in the labor marketplace of persistent gender inequality, both on hiring and on promotion, feels Helen. To that end, exchanging information and showing a united front by having companies join roundtable discussions on the topic would be helpful, she thinks, especially on topics such as salary transparency, maternity leaves and flexible working hours.

When asked to share her vision of the future of the workplace in terms of gender parity, she talks of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). She feels that they would provide new work prospects and paths for economic progress in the age of automation, which will only add to the already long list of hurdles that ambitious women need to jump through to achieve their career aspirations. As a means to offset this, she suggests encouraging female leaders to act as mentors to other women coming up through the ranks.

Over the past two decades, William has worked between Europe and Asia across various industries and leadership roles. Since 2017, William has been an instrumental figure behind the transformation of Everise from a pure-play BPO into a next-generation omnichannel customer experience company. Serving as Global CFO, William has managed the full spectrum of finance and merger acquisition activities for Everise in a journey that has included the sale of Everise to Brookfield Business Partners in January 2021.

William, a Chartered Accountant of Singapore, began his career learning the fundamentals of auditing with Deloitte. These first seven years of his career grounded William with a structure, discipline, and technical knowledge that would serve him well in the future. William’s skills were further fine-honed after joining Keppel Corporation, a prominent Singaporean conglomerate consisting of several affiliated businesses specializing in offshore and marine, property, infrastructure, and asset management businesses. Keppel selected William for a high-profile overseas posting, where he led the Finance team of a pan-European group headquartered in Belgium. William thrived in a culturally diverse environment where his strengths in remote team management and business stakeholder management were critical to success.

William entered the world of private equity and his first global CFO role at Knowledge Universe, one of the world’s largest for-profit education groups at the time. The sale of Knowledge Universe for a good investment return was an opportunity for William to plan his next steps, and he seized the opportunity to join Everise.

The importance of mentoring

When William met Everise CEO and founder Sudhir Agarwal and other senior leaders of the company, he was drawn to the team’s energy and ambition to stand out in the industry by building an inclusive culture that would unlock the team’s potential and become a decisive business advantage.

Just as crucial for William was the opportunity to contribute to positive workplace culture. “I see my role here in two parts,” explains William. “Firstly, I am passionate about serving as an executive anchor or sponsor of policies that help everyone here bring their best self to work regardless of background or gender.”

“Secondly,” continued William, “I feel that I have an important role as a leader to mentor the women in my team to give them every opportunity to grow, thrive, and become role models to women not just in Everise, but across the broader community too. I meet many women who are more than qualified and capable of thriving as a CFO; however, perhaps lacking confidence because of social norms and expectations, they haven’t taken the final step. They would have been fantastic CFOs, and this is society’s loss. When we look around, we unfortunately see all-too-often the outcome when financial or leadership decisions are not inclusive, be it at a family level or a business level. I feel many nations could become a lot stronger with more women leading in their governance, too.”

Notes William, building a diverse team is a constant work in progress. “Putting a good team together is not a science but an art. While we don’t always achieve an optimal combination of skillsets right at the start, we make incremental improvements and progress towards the right mix. I think that an ability to work in a team environment, and a willingness to make compromises for the team’s benefit, are critical attributes in new hires.”

The business edge of diversity

For William, there is a tangible business advantage to a well-balanced and gender-diverse team. “I believe diverse teams create an “iron sharpen iron” environment. The best teams enjoy diversity across gender, experience, and skills while remaining united by shared goals and a “team first” mentality. Having a diversified team also prevents Groupthink.”

Adds William, “I am very proud to work for a company where women hold 45% of our leadership positions, and we see the business impact of that diversity on a daily basis.”

The Everise focus on diversity has won industry awards and acclaim, and an industry leading Glassdoor.com rating, for these efforts that have helped the women of Everise flourish.

The Everise focus on diversity comes through clearly across many of 6,500 reviews on the Everise Glassdoor.com entry. Everise holds an average 97% approval rating for CEO Sudhir Agarwal, a 96% “Recommend to a Friend” score, and an overall rating of 4.7/5 stars. Similarly, on Indeed.com, over 6,200 reviews average a “Work Happiness” score of 80, a “Satisfaction” score of 84, and a total rating of 4.2/5 stars.

The greatest challenge facing diversity

“Sadly, I think the biggest diversity challenge is a prejudice about what diversity means and why it matters, particularly the idea that diversity is just something that “has to be done.” This attitude does a disservice for everyone in the workplace. To me, the benefits of diversity – from how it helps companies strategize through to how it empowers improved performance – are clear. I feel we can all do a better job at spotlighting these measurable and tangible benefits.”