Stevie-winner Eterneva, a funeral company that converts ashes into diamonds has discovered a way to use their active social media presence to engage with their clients and community.

To many, the funeral industry sounds ill-suited for social media marketing. It is typically considered a low-tech, high-touch line of work, and the belief is that people don’t want to be reminded of death on social media. Things are changing, though, as professionals in this industry find smarter, more socially acceptable ways to engage with their local communities and to target audiences.

According to a 2019 survey on the mobile technology trends in the funeral profession, about 73 percent of the 1,172 funeral professionals surveyed were using social media to market their services. Facebook was the most popular platform for these marketers, with 67 percent of respondents using it. 

Marrying Life with Death

In an active social media managers group on Facebook, marketers are currently having a lively discussion on social media for funeral homes. One of the participants, Sam Barsanti, comments: “We are in the process of acquiring a new funeral home client. We aren’t extremely serious with them. We try to make their business seem as assistants to the celebration of life, rather than remorse for death.” 

Many funeral home marketers now echo this sentiment. Early social media posts from funeral services were largely obituaries. They are not so morbid anymore as marketers look for more meaningful ways to engage and to drive brand recall. 

Another factor driving a significant uptick in the industry’s social media usage is the emergence of “disruptive” funeral services, which are any services that move away from traditional burial. The practice of using toxic embalming fluids and burying tons of wood, metal, and concrete into the ground is rapidly giving way to more eco-friendly options. 

Capsula Mundi, a start-up based in Milan, Italy, places the ashes or unembalmed bodies of the departed loved ones in biodegradable, egg-shaped pods. This pod is then buried as a seed, and a tree chosen by the deceased is planted on top. This serves as a living, environment-friendly memorial. This company is very active on social media and has over 47,000 Facebook followers with a lot of engagement. 

Bios Urn, a start-up based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, also sells biodegradable urns, but theirs have seeds embedded inside. They have many environment-oriented stories and life celebration posts on their social media platforms and have a following of over 84,000 on Facebook.

Not all funeral start-ups are environmentally focused, though. AndVinyly, based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, presses ashes into vinyl records. The records contain music loved by the departed, as well as audio recordings from the deceased. Another outside-the-box funeral service, Heavenly Stars Fireworks, based in Stanway, Essex, England, creates pyrotechnic displays using the departed’s ashes. 

Stevie-winner  Eterneva, based in Austin, Texas, United States, converts ashes into diamonds in an eight-month process. They send pictures, videos, and updates to their customers every month, which is something positive for the bereaved to look forward to. Some customers even say this process helps them move beyond the grief. The company also maintains an active social media presence.

“Our mission is to #RememberRemarkably, so we leverage social media to pay tribute to remarkable people,” says Tracey Wallace, head of brand marketing at Eterneva. “For example, we do weekly inaugurations on Instagram Live, where our team welcomes each new loved one to the Eterneva family and shares his or her incredible story with our followers, which has evolved over time into a vibrant, highly engaged tribe.”

Eterneva won the Gold Stevie® Award in the Startup of the Year - Consumer Products Industries category at the 2019 Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Adelle Archer, an Eterneva co-founder, also bagged a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year - Consumer Products - 11 to 2,500 Employees category.

Interested in entering the next Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

The travel market is constantly experiencing change. Find out how Xuan Tinh Herfort, founder of Stevie-winner Indochina Travels, has learned to compete with major online booking platforms while meeting the growing demands of discerning travelers.

In May 2019, the founder and director of Indochina Travels, Xuan Tinh Herfort, received a Gold Stevie Award for Entrepreneur of the Year in the Leisure and Hospitality Industry category in the German Stevie Awards. Her company, a travel operator specializing in guided tours of Asia with a focus on the Indochinese Peninsula, also won a Bronze Stevie for Company of the Year in the same category.  

But what brought the successful Vietnamese businesswoman to Frankfurt? And what’s her recipe for success in the ever-changing travel sector?

“Love at First Sight”

Xuan Tinh Herfort first came to Germany in 2002. After completing her economics degree at the University of Hanoi and gaining some professional experience, the young Vietnamese entrepreneur grabbed her backpack and set out on a European tour, where she would also stop in Germany. She still describes her encounter as “love at first sight.”

She was so impressed by the land of poets and philosophers that she decided to apply for a scholarship from the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development as soon as she returned to Hanoi, and it wasn’t long before she was accepted onto a 14-month program with stages in Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt.

And of all the places, she was captivated by the Main metropolis. This is where she teamed up with Euvibus GmbH in 2004 to found a consultancy firm that took care of business interactions between German and Vietnamese companies and held events in Germany on behalf of the government in Hanoi. This also involved organizing business trips, which laid the foundations for her next business concept: Indochina Travels. 

Since 2008, Herfort has been creating and selling tour packages to South-East Asia from her office in Frankfurt, putting German holidaymakers in touch with her homeland. Her company has become one of Germany’s leading tour operators for Indochina.  

The Changing Face of Travel

The travel market is characterized by constant and sometimes rapid change. Medium-sized companies like Indochina Travels have to face competition from major online booking platforms while meeting the growing demands of discerning travelers. That’s why Indochina Travels has developed numerous innovations over the past two years to improve the experience of its direct customers and B2B partners.

“The behavior and demands of travelers are constantly changing – and they’re often highly diverse. For example, if you book a hiking trip to the Alps this year, you might be looking for a luxury beach holiday in the Caribbean next year”, explains Herfort. However, one incredibly important trend is the growing digitization of the sector, which is a tremendous challenge for smaller tour operators looking to compete against the major companies. “We see this trend as a challenge, but it’s also a great opportunity for our company. We’ve made quite an effort over the past two years, including the relaunch of our website and the introduction of a tour operator system to automate the booking process and improve our customer experience in the B2B sector”, says Herfort.

The relaunched website (www.indochinatravels.com/) allows the company to clearly and attractively present its wide range of package deals, which can now be booked in just a few clicks. Customers can check the availability and prices of over 300 different tours before making a quick and easy booking. The website came in second place at the Hessian Website Awards in September 2018 for its innovative design and presentation.

Authentic Trips with Exceptional Service

“We find it very important that our trips are authentic”, says Herfort. That’s why the company handpicks all accommodation and meticulously plans its itineraries.

The company is supported by Indochina Pearl, an inbound tour operator founded specially by Herfort in 2010. It’s based in Hanoi with offices in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos. What else makes Indochina Travels so special? “Indochina Travels is one of the few tour operators in Germany with its roots in the region. We work with our own local subsidiaries to purchase and operate the trips”.

The businesswoman also appreciates her employees’ personal connection to the travel destinations. “Each of our trained advisors has traveled around Indochina on many occasions or even lived there!”, continues Herfort.

The ingenuity of Herfort’s business idea is reflected by her company’s sustained growth. In November 2018, Indochina Travels moved to a larger office building directly opposite the famous Goethe House; its relocation was necessary, as the company had steadily increased its workforce to 17 people and wanted to continue growing in the years to come.

A Businesswoman with Heart

Outside the work that she puts into her own travel brand, Herfort also acts as the Director of Indochina within the Diplomatic Council, a UN-recognized NGO that promotes international understanding through successful business diplomacy. 

As part of her role, Herfort is committed to improving the education of disadvantaged children in Vietnam. Her company makes regular charitable donations in the Indochinese Peninsula. “We see ourselves as sponsors of the region. We support low-income families and promote the education of children in poorer countries. We’re constantly looking for partners to achieve our goals together. We’re also working hard to protect and preserve Hạ Long Bay”.

In 2016, Herfort was recognized by the City of Frankfurt as an “Outstanding Person from a Migrant Background”. Within the travel sector, the 40-year-old has also chaired the Committee for Travel Operators at the asr Alliance of Independent Travel Traders and currently sits on the advisory board at the Travel Industry Club (TIC).

Interested in entering the 2021 German Stevie Awards?

Financial wellness is a luxury that younger demographics seem to have a harder time achieving. Stevie-winner John Hancock is an insurance company refining its approach to develop financial solutions for the modern generation of consumers.

With the ongoing economic impacts of the Great Recession, astronomical student debt, rising housing costs, and myriad other financial factors, retirement looks a lot different today than it used to. Gone are the days of getting into a job, working for 40 years, and retiring with a handshake and a gold watch. Pensions and 401(k)s are increasingly hard to come by. Plus, with often insurmountably expensive real estate costs, fewer people are entering the realty market. As a result, many people don’t have valuable homes to supplement their retirement nest eggs.

Given these kinds of factors, it’s little surprise that the concept of “retirement” has shifted. In this landscape, one thing is clear: If financial services groups want to continue to stay relevant, they will need to change their approaches, advice, and outlook to match what financial wellness means to millennials and members of Generation Z.

Rethinking Retirement Age

In a 2018 study by Bankrate.com, millennials responded that they think 61 is the ideal age to retire. Despite this aspiration of early retirement, however, approximately two-thirds of millennials have nothing saved for retirement.

Because of increased debt and decreased financial opportunities, more people than ever are being forced to reevaluate what’s realistic when it comes to retirement. For many, this means bumping out that expected age of retirement. Some don’t even expect to retire at all, instead considering part-time jobs, second careers, or other money-making opportunities as they get into the later years of their lives.

Increased longevity further complicates the issue. Across the globe, people are living longer than ever, which seriously skews issues related to realistic retirement age, health insurance, and life insurance.

Rethinking Financial Wellness

Companies that provide financial planning and other money-management services are often viewed as symbolic of a bygone era. After all, someone who has nothing saved for retirement, doesn’t own a home, and is working on paying down $50,000 in student debt can feel as if these companies aren’t relevant to their financial realities.

That doesn’t need to be the case, though. These companies can still help younger clientele reach their financial goals; they just have to shift how they think about accomplishing this endeavor. Stevie-winner John Hancock, which is based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, is one such company successfully refining its approach. 

The people at John Hancock understand it’s time to look beyond outdated concepts like ‘net assets’ and to build financial solutions that fit into customers’ whole lives—with easily accessible products that reflect their values, their approach to wellness, and their holistic well-being. That’s why they’re redefining retirement, insurance, and investing for the modern generation of consumers to address both their health and wealth.

To connect with this modern generation of consumers, one key is reframing the idea of financial wellness as the most important kind of wellness. Financial service providers are finding that the younger generation prizes a more holistic approach to well-being, and providing advice that resonates means tailoring to that mind-set.

John Hancock believes good health and financial wellness are essential ingredients to overall well-being, and they want to help motivate people to make healthier choices—for themselves and their future.

With this goal in mind, the organization has had success especially with one initiative: a partnership with the Vitality Group, which can serve as a template for similar companies looking to connect with younger investors.

In 2015, John Hancock started a new chapter in their 155-year history when they partnered with the Vitality Group to help clients live longer, healthier lives. As the first life insurance company in the United States to offer a wellness-based rewards program, John Hancock life insurance with Vitality gives customers the financial protection they need while also helping them earn savings on their premiums, shopping gift cards, and travel discounts for their everyday healthy habits, such as going for a walk, eating well, and getting a regular health check.

John Hancock was honored with seven Stevie® Awards at The 2019 American Business Awards®, earning the company a Grand Stevie® Award. This designation is reserved for the top 10 most-recognized organizations at the event. The company’s honors included four Gold awards (in the categories of Mobile Site and App, Innovation of the Year, and two in Achievement in Management), two Silver awards (in the categories of Woman of the Year and Financial Services), and two Bronze awards (in the categories of Information Technology Team of the Year and Customer Service Team of the Year).

Interested in entering the next American Business Awards?

101,000 Votes Determined Public’s Favorite Customer Service Providers Among Stevie Awards Finalists

Winners of the 2020 People's Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service, a worldwide public vote, were announced today. Voting was conducted from January 16 through February 14, with the highest number of votes deciding the winners in 11 industry categories. More than 101,000 votes were cast this year.

All organizations honored in the Customer Service Department of the Year categories of this year’s Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service were eligible to be included in voting for the people’s choice awards. The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, now in their 14^th year, are the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development, and sales professionals.

More than 2,600 nominations from organizations of all sizes, in virtually every industry, in 48 nations were evaluated in this year’s competition. Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 180 professionals worldwide in seven specialized judging committees and were announced last month.

This year’s people’s choice winners, who will each receive the coveted crystal People’s Choice Stevie Award, are:

Airlines/Distribution/Transportation: DHL Express Bangladesh
Computer Hardware & Services: SiteGround Hosting Group
Consumer Products & Services: 4ocean
Financial Services - Up to 100 Employees: Wells Fargo Merchant Services - Account Management
Financial Services - 100 or More Employees: DenizBank
Healthcare & Pharma: UPMC Health Plan
All Other Industries: VIPKid Teacher Support Team
Public Services & Education: OmniUpdate
Software - Up to 100 Employees: Carbonite
Software - 100 or More Employees: Loopio Inc.
Telecommunications: AireSpring

Nicknamed the Stevie® from the Greek word “crowned,” the awards will be presented to winners at the 14^th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service awards banquet on Friday, February 28 at Caesar’s Palace Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada USA. Tickets for the event are now on sale. More than 550 executives from around the world are expected to attend.  The presentations will be broadcast live via Livestream.

Sponsors of the 14th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include HCL Technologies, Sales Partnerships, Inc., and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

Request an entry kit for the
2021 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

In an age where AI is changing the business landscape, agencies like Digital Resource are stepping up to help organizations gain online traction. Adopting AI can mean creating personal connections between businesses and clients.

Hollywood’s dire predictions of artificial intelligence (AI) taking over the world might not be coming true any time soon, but there’s no denying that AI’s capabilities are revolutionizing many industries. With newfound access to big data, machine learning, and in-depth insight into consumer behavior, the marketing industry, for one, is undergoing a complete overhaul.

Most businesses today have the wrong idea about online marketing. It is not so much about the tools and platforms you use as it is about understanding human behavior and motivation. The deeper your knowledge of your target audience, the more impactful your marketing efforts will be. To that end, AI is a powerful ally for marketers who are willing to accept and to adapt to its capabilities.

AI for Your Marketing Team

Businesses across the world are using AI and machine learning insights to sharpen their marketing focus and to increase personalization. For instance, AI can help create ads that convert better by enabling deeper keyword searches, social profiling, and exhaustive online data research—all of which are not scalable efforts when done manually.

Intelligent analysis of search patterns, conversational chatbots to increase retention, individual-level user analytics, and several other marketing use cases of AI are all emerging globally.

“Marketing initially scared me because you couldn’t measure it,” said Susan Johnson, CMO of SunTrust Bank, in a conversation on AI with John Koetsier of Inc.

“I never thought we'd be here, where technology and marketing are completely intertwined,” said Johnson, who trained as an engineer and worked at Apple before making the shift to marketing. “Now, with technology, we have some degree of certainty about what is happening and why.”

This sentiment echoes the thoughts of savvy marketers everywhere.

AI Adoption and Marketing Impact in Numbers

Recent research and survey reports reveal the pace at which AI is changing the marketing landscape. For example, according to the Digital Intelligence Briefing, 2018 by Adobe, top-performing companies are more than twice as likely to be using AI for marketing (28 percent versus 12 percent) and Marketers' adoption of AI has grown at a rate of 44 percent since 2017 from the State of Marketing, 5th Edition, Salesforce Research.

Change Is Good

Stevie-winner Digital Resource, which is based in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, is a full-service Internet marketing agency that works with businesses looking to gain online traction. Started in 2014 by Shay Berman, who was twenty-two at the time, the agency aims to go beyond vanity metrics and to give businesses unfiltered, measurable results. With that goal in mind, they have been quick to explore and to implement AI in their marketing campaigns for clients.

“We're very interested in the introduction of artificial intelligence. While many are afraid AI will take jobs, we're exploring ways we can use it to complement and to optimize our employees,” says Emily Crieghton, a multimedia specialist at Digital Resource. “We're going to see a big uptick in the use of AI. On the flip side, though, we're also going to see companies striving to create more personal connections between businesses, influencers, and online users. So, we'll be working to find a balance between the two.”

Whatever the eventual specifics of AI’s incorporation into business marketing strategies, one thing is clear. Artificial intelligence has arrived, and marketers need to adapt quickly and to harness its potential in order to meet customer expectations and to drive business growth.

This year, Berman won the Silver Stevie® Award in the Entrepreneur of the Year - Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations category at The seventeenth annual American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering the next American Business Awards?

Workplace cultures and behaviors play a big part in determining employee motivation and performance. Media Partners is a production company committed to helping clients build strong, productive work environments through their engaging training films on challenging topics.

No one likes working with uncivil or downright toxic people, but even the best and happiest organizations have their share of them. Toxic workplace behavior lowers overall productivity and performance, affects loyalty and motivation, and opens up the organization to lawsuits and public defamation. To actually change employee behavior for the better, companies should consider investing in training people skills.

A recent Harvard Business School study of more than 60,000 employees clearly demonstrated this need for workplace behavior training. It revealed that uncivil behavior in work environments can cost companies millions. Nearly half the employees subjected to incivility “decreased their work effort” and deliberately spent less time at work. Another 38 percent “intentionally decreased” the quality of their work, a quarter admitted to taking their frustrations out on customers, and over 10 percent resigned from jobs due to uncivil treatment.

Unfortunately, most corporate behavior training programs are too dry and fail to address or to engage employees in a meaningful way.

“Most corporate training is truly bad,” says Karen Edwards, vice-president of marketing for Stevie-winner Media Partners, a learning and development organization based in Bellevue, Washington, United States.

Media Partners produces story-based, cinematic-quality, engaging training films to address challenging topics, such as sexual harassment, bullying, and workplace violence.

“Most people are surprised to know there really is good, engaging training on some of the toughest topics. With our programs, employees don’t yawn, roll their eyes, or fall asleep,” says Edwards.

Media Partners is one of a handful of learning organizations that are leveraging the power of storytelling to create more high-performing, respectful workplaces.

Why Use Storytelling?

Neuroscientist Paul Zak and his team work extensively on the physiological and behavioral effects of storytelling. Through a recent experiment, they concluded that the more a story resonates with a person, the more likely it is to modify behavior.

While the power of storytelling is only being scientifically proven now, it has been used traditionally and culturally as a behavioral modification tool for centuries. Most people grow up on a healthy diet of stories, which consciously or subconsciously shapes the way they interact with others.

“Nature shaped us to be ultra-social, and hence to be sharply attentive to character and plot. We are adapted to physiologically interact with stories,” writes Jay Bhalla in a Scientific American article titled “It Is in Our Nature to Need Stories.”

It makes perfect sense, therefore, that organizations should utilize storytelling to create positive behavioral changes in employees.

Show, Don’t Tell

Learning and development organizations typically deliver training programs either textually or orally. This means employees either have to read through tomes of textual material or to sit through presentations and lectures, many of which they’d rather not attend.

It’s not too difficult, therefore, to see why companies like Media Partners are veering toward video as the training medium of choice. Videos are one of the most compelling ways to engage people, and they are being consumed on a massive scale. Mobile video consumption is rising 100 percent every year, over 50 percent of people watch videos online every day, and almost 60 percent of senior executives say that, if there are both text and video options about a topic on one page, they prefer to watch the video (Forbes).

Media Partners has leveraged video-based storytelling to deliver over 150 original, high-quality training videos that creatively address workplace behavioral issues.

Their unique approach to workplace training led to a Silver Stevie win in the Training Video category at the 17th Annual American Business Awards®, 2019, for their training video titled “Once & for All: Stopping Sexual Harassment at Work.”

Interested in entering The American Business Awards this year? The entry deadline is February 12, 2020. 

Customer experience (CX) has undergone a huge transformation over the last few years, and that’s largely because technology has led to rapid advances in the way consumers are engaged and served. CXOne, a platform created by NICE inContact, enables brands to adopt new innovations and improve overall operations.

Virtual chatbots, artificial intelligence, cloud-based contact centers, and data-driven personalizations are no longer novelties. Businesses are working overtime to make their processes agile enough to serve customers’ demands for multichannel, real-time service. Does this mean the beginning of the end of legacy customer service systems?

“It’s no secret that customer satisfaction leads to customer advocacy and loyalty,” says Heather Hughes, senior corporate communications manager of Stevie-winner NICE inContact, a customer experience company based in Sandy, Utah, United States. “As companies strive to provide excellent CX, we’re seeing advanced technology play a big role in the experience.”

Moving CX to the Cloud: Need and Adoption

Not so long ago, customers needing to resolve issues could only call up business call centers and wait to be assigned to representatives. Today, customers reach out to businesses via a variety of channels, including, but not limited to, social media, voice calls, e-mails, chat, SMS, and video. They’re not happy waiting around either. According to a 2018 Hubspot study, 90 percent of consumers rated an “immediate” response as important or very important when they have customer service queries.

Supporting this multichannel, real-time customer experience demand calls for the quick implementation and seamless integration of new technologies, strategies, and processes into organizations’ existing customer service systems. This entails significant ongoing expenditure and is hardly sustainable, which is why businesses find the alternative of migrating contact centers and their entire CX management to the cloud way more palatable.

According to the State of Customer Experience study, by West Corporation, 39 percent of call centers they surveyed had already migrated to the cloud (as of 2017), and another 53 percent were planning to do so within the next three years (by 2020).

“The speed at which organizations need to perform and to transform continues to accelerate. The ability to adjust course in real time to best serve internal and external audiences is paramount, and it’s best enabled with open cloud platforms,” says Hughes.

CX platforms like CXOne from NICE inContact enable brands to adopt new innovations (e.g., AI and embedded analytics), to deploy service changes quickly, and to consolidate routing and reporting across global operations.

Marrying Technological Innovations and the Human Touch

When businesses think of moving CX to the cloud, investing in virtual chatbots, or personalizing customer interactions, the assumption is the need for human interaction then decreases drastically. That, however, is not true. Technology is simply a suite of tools, and it can’t replace the value and impact of the human touch.

For instance, a January 2019 Forrester study revealed 63 percent of customers are OK with getting service from a chatbot, provided they have the choice to move the conversation to a human if required.

“We believe one-on-one customer interactions have a real and lasting impact on people’s lives,” says Hughes. “It’s a belief that inspires us to relentlessly innovate in the cloud and to find smarter ways to transform one-on-one experiences in order to help contact centers achieve their goals.”

This approach toward customer experience makes CXone from NICE inContact a global leader in cloud contact center software, and it led to a Silver Stevie® win in Product Management & New Products Awards in the Cloud Platform category at the 17th Annual American Business Awards® in 2019.

Interested in entering The American Business Awards this year? The entry deadline is February 12, 2020. 

The Stevie Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, has announced that HR Revolution Middle East Magazine will serve as a media partner for the 2020 Middle East Stevie Awards and the Stevie Awards for Great Employers.

HR Revolution Middle East Magazine is described as an honest reflection of the Middle Eastern business environment through its use of clear case studies, articles, and interviews professionally served to readers around the world. The organization’s mission is to improve and have a powerful impact on human resources processes in the Middle East by providing the proper resources. HR Revolution will be covering all aspects of both Stevie Awards ceremonies in 2020.

The first annual Middle East Stevie Awards gala event will be held on Saturday, March 21^st at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. The Stevie Awards for Great Employers will be presented on September 17^th at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Both award ceremonies will recognize workplace achievements since July 1, 2018.

The Middle East Stevie Awards, sponsored by the Ras Al Khaimah Chamber of Commerce & Industry, are an international business awards competition open to all organizations in 17 nations in the Middle East and North Africa. The focus of the awards is on recognizing innovation in all its forms.  

The Stevie Awards for Great Employers are an international business awards competition open to all organizations worldwide. The awards recognize the world's best companies to work for, and the HR teams, professionals, achievements, new products, and suppliers that help to create and drive great places to work.

About HR Revolution Middle East Magazine:
Among the global ethical awakenings in our recent century, and among the glorious creative and business erections, the magnitude of the Human Resources aspect has proven to be greatly valuable. As the recent Middle East being a parlor of inspirations to the open-minded observers and thinkers of our planet, we – a group of Egyptian enthusiasts – decided to have the honor to start the HR Revolution Middle East Magazine. The magazine is an honest reflection of the Middle Eastern business environment empowered by clear case studies, articles and interviews professionally served to worldwide readers of researchers and learners.

Request an entry kit for the
2021 Middle East Stevie Awards.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Winners to Be Announced in Las Vegas on February 28

Finalists in the 14th Annual Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, an international competition recognizing excellence in disciplines that are crucial to business success, were announced today.

A diverse group of organizations and individuals around the world are among those recognized in the customer service awards, contact center awards, business development awards, and sales awards categories.

Organizations with five or more Finalist nominations include Achievers, Toronto, ON Canada; Allianz Global Assistance, Richmond, VA USA; Bounteous, Chicago, IL USA; Carbonite, Inc., Boston, MA USA; Cinch Home Services, Inc., Boca Raton, FL USA; Clarabridge, Reston, VA USA; Concentrix, Fremont, CA USA; CoverMyMeds, Columbus, OH USA; Cvent Inc, McLean, VA USA; Dell Technologies, worldwide; Delta Vacations, Minot, ND USA; DenizBank Financial Service Group, Istanbul, Turkey; DHL Express Vietnam, Hanoi; DHL Express, Johannesburg, South Africa; Druva, Sunnyvale, CA USA; GoDaddy, Scottsdale, AZ USA; HomeServe USA, Norwalk, CT USA; IBM, worldwide; John Hancock Financial Services, Boston, MA USA; Mailchimp, Atlanta, GA USA; NCR Corporation, Atlanta, GA USA; RAIN Group, Boston, MA USA; Sales Partnerships, Inc., Broomfield, CO USA; Spinnaker Support, Greenwood Village, CO USA; Sun Basket, San Jose, CA USA; TTEC, Englewood, CO USA; UPMC Health Plan, Pittsburgh, PA USA; VXI Global Solutions, Los Angeles, CA USA; Wells Fargo Treasury Management Client Delivery, San Francisco, CA USA; and WNS (Holdings) Limited, Mumbai, India.

Visit http://www.StevieAwards.com/Sales for a full list of Finalists by category.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists will be revealed during a gala banquet on Friday, February 28 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tickets are now on sale.

The awards are presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes eight of the world’s leading business awards shows, including the prestigious International Business Awards® and American Business Awards®, and the Women|Future Conference.

More than 2,600 nominations from organizations of all sizes, in virtually every industry, in 48 nations were evaluated in this year’s competition. Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 180 professionals worldwide in seven specialized judging committees. Entries were considered in more than 90 categories for customer service and contact center achievements, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year; more than 60 categories for sales and business development achievements, ranging from Senior Sales Executive of the Year to Sales Training or Business Development Executive of the Year to Sales Department of the Year; and categories to recognize new products and services and solution providers.

Beginning today through February 14, the general public may vote for their favorite providers of customer service in the People’s Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service. Voting is open at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com. Winners of the People’s Choice Stevie Awards in multiple industries will be determined in mid-February and honored at the awards gala in Las Vegas on February 28.

Request an entry kit for the
2021 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Companies that consistently rank high on the lists of best places to work often have great work cultures, deep-rooted values, and fantastic employee benefits. They go above and beyond state and federally-mandated benefits and offer their employees generous retirement plans, flexible work hours, tuition reimbursements, ample parental leave, and many other tangible and intangible perks. These companies attract and retain the best talent because they truly care for their employees’ well-being.

What Do Employees Really Want?

While the long list of benefits top companies provide are great, they might not be feasible for most smaller businesses. In these scenarios, companies should identify the “good-to-have” benefits and then investigate what their employees really need and what issues weigh heaviest on their minds.

According to the PwC Employee Financial Wellness Survey, 2019, financial matters cause employees the most stress—more than all other life stressors (health concerns, relationships, job issues, and more) combined. A staggering 30 percent lie awake at night worrying about money, and 23 percent are less productive at work because of financial worries, according to a US employee benefit trends study.

Also, even though the numbers have improved slightly since last year, almost 40 percent of US households still don’t have enough savings to cover an unexpected $400 expense (Report on the Economic Well-Being of US Households).

Investing in employees’ financial health, therefore, is one of the best ways companies can show they care.

Offer Innovative and Affordable Financial Benefits

With the amount of financial stress they are under, one would think employees would opt for pay raises over perks. Surprisingly, though, almost 80 percent of employees chose perks over pay raises in an employee confidence survey by Glassdoor.

Employer-matching 401K, health insurance, financial planning, and student loan repayment are all excellent financial benefits, but corporations (or even small businesses) can also implement several innovative and unique financial benefits alongside these more traditional options.

One good example is Gusto, a human resources management platform based in San Francisco, California, United States, which allows employees to access the money they’ve already earned for emergencies, without having to wait until payday.

Another example of an innovative yet affordable financial benefit is Stevie-winner Cookie Jar by SafetyNet, a financial services company based in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Cookie Jar combines the simplicity of kitchen-table finances with the sophistication of an employer-matched benefits program by rounding employees’ checking account transactions and credit card purchases to the nearest dollar and then saving the spare change in special accounts. These savings can be automatically matched by the employer, and they can be accessed by the employee whenever an emergency arises.

“Cookie Jar is designed for average workers who need to save but don’t feel they have the financial flexibility to do so,” says Vreni Pigorsch, senior media strategist at Cookie Jar. “A salary and a retirement plan are no longer enough to sustain employees, and employers are taking note. Instead, pet insurances; liquid savings programs, such as Cookie Jar; and other accessible financial tools are being incorporated into employee benefit plans. Employees become happier and more focused at work, and employers are able to attract and to retain great talent by setting their benefit structure apart from their competition.”

Cookie Jar won a Silver Stevie® Award in Product Management & New Product Awards in the Financial Services category at the 2019 American Business Awards.

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