Executive Summary

Based on the findings of the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) research study on Top Talent for Service and Support, training (both initial and ongoing) is necessary to retain the most talented members of a technical support staff. Beyond training, however, it is necessary to continually engage these valuable staff members by challenging them with a flow of interesting and new assignments. To ensure that they are adequately challenged, a collaborative SSPA industry committee has developed this white paper to outline a rationale for and the chief components of a Top Technical Talent Program (TTTP) that will retain, motivate, acknowledge the accomplishments of, and maximize the impact of your top-performing support staff to address the ultimate goal of customer satisfaction.

A TTTP is designed to involve the top 2-5% of your total organization. Furthermore, it provides a structured process to nurture, train, utilize, reward, and provide executive-level visibility for your top performers. The first step is to develop a vision statement for your program that is suitable for your organization (and there are a number of directions that this can take). Once the vision statement is in place, it is necessary to define the high-level goals that you wish to accomplish—all of which must feed into your vision statement. Then it is necessary to develop the more specific subsidiary objectives that will be used to attain your goals. These subsidiary objectives will, in turn, be measurable, and they will enable you to monitor the success of your TTTP and the performance of the individuals who participate in it. Consequently, the white paper addresses the question of business metrics—including both “hard” and “soft” costs—and the return on investment (ROI) that you can hope to obtain by implementing a TTTP.

Once the business metrics of the TTTP have been addressed, the white paper provides guidelines for naming the program, applying the program “brand” to employee titles, and for developing a detailed employee profile so that you can define precisely what you are looking for in terms of personal characteristics, technical and communication skills, leadership abilities, teamwork capacity, working style, ability to mentor, innovative qualities, and a host of other candidate behaviors. With this accomplished, a two-part process is outlined to assist you in (1) nominating and (2) making a final selection of TTTP participants—including a review of the type of face-to-face questions you may wish to include in your selection process.

To provide additional pointers regarding how the program would operate on a daily basis, the white paper addresses the nuts-and-bolts aspects of the initial TTTP rollout, reporting structures that you may wish to consider, how to balance program activities with the day-to-day work load of program participants, and various key components that should be part of your TTTP program. In particular, these would include a training and development program, a rewards and recognition program, career-path growth and opportunities, and a standard process to review the performance of TTTP participants.

The white paper concludes by outlining a series of program exit strategies. These exit strategies are designed to consolidate and preserve the value of the program by (1) harnessing the valuable talents and institutional knowledge of program graduates (through an alumni program and mentoring activities) and (2) managing the departure from the program of non-graduates. To succeed in implementing and reaping the benefits of a TTTP, however, it is necessary to apply adequate funding to the program throughout and to have an enthusiastic commitment on the part of executive management and human resources to actively participate in and promote the program for the benefit of your organization.