Associate Specialist, HR Service Center at Abbott Laboratories

Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life-changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 114,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries.

Working at Abbott

At Abbott, you can do work that matters, grow, and learn, care for yourself and family, be your true self and live a full life. You’ll also have access to:

• Career development with an international company where you can grow the career you dream of.
• Free medical coverage for employees* via the Health Investment Plan (HIP) PPO
• An excellent retirement savings plan with high employer contribution
• Tuition reimbursement, the Freedom 2 Save student debt program and FreeU education benefit - an affordable and convenient path to getting a bachelor’s degree.
• A company recognized as a great place to work in dozens of countries around the world and named one of the most admired companies in the world by Fortune.
• A company that is recognized as one of the best big companies to work for as well as a best place to work for diversity, working mothers, female executives, and scientists.

The Opportunity

This position works out of our Abbott Park, IL location in our CHR Corporate Human Resources division.

This role is empowered to surpass expectations by collaborating, anticipating, driving to resolution, and serving with care, compassion, and confidence. Mastered concierge service for oneself and others and coaching for excellence while providing superb management of complex and specialized requests.

This role is tailored to broad scope of service with in-depth knowledge for areas of specialization (job architecture, job evaluations, payroll, acquisitions, etc.), along with project work, training, and coaching colleagues for excellence. The incumbent shall identify best practices to transfer to peers and be able to de-escalate and resolve issues with customers independently. The role will also include ensuring the highest level of services and partnering with Service Center leadership on day-to-day operations. Must be able to take ownership of the customer experience and maintain composure in difficult situations while using innovation to solve problems.

What You’ll Work On

• Incumbent must demonstrate an ability to see a bigger picture and exceptional customer service to lead by example and foster support for employees, managers, and BHRs via available tools, resources, and processes and by effectively navigating the global HR organization.
• Incumbent is empowered to solve requests and challenges via exceptional customer service that is consistent, knowledgeable, and trusted.
• Incumbent must be able to anticipate customer needs, communicate professionally and compassionately with employees, managers and BHRs around the world, and articulate solutions to customers in a way that enhances the customer experience.  Incumbent must be able to handle a high volume of requests with speed and accuracy.
• Must possess the ability to learn quickly and follow multi-step instructions with accuracy and attention to detail.
• The incumbent must be able to analyze received information and demonstrate excellent problem-solving skills by using a variety of resources. Utilize judgment to make the best recommendation to drive a positive customer experience.
• The role requires strong organizational skills and multiple channels of workload.  This role requires creating and maintaining strong relationships with peers and other HR groups.  Must be able to navigate numerous stakeholders and complex organizations with a constant focus on collaborating, anticipating, and driving to resolution for the customer and continuous improvement.
• Receive and optimally respond to service inquiries and requests with timely, accurate, and professional replies while managing multiple contact channels and continually prioritizing among static (email, correspondence, outbound calls) and dynamic (inbound calls) work.
• Real-time monitoring of live chat, answers group chat questions; utilizes Supervisor Service Center tools (dashboards and staff planning); independently reallocates Service Center resources based on customer demand.
• Coaches Service Center team members for excellence, anticipates and makes recommendations for necessary interventions by management.
• Receive complex service inquiries that cannot be resolved through standard and defined HRSC policies and resources while reassigning lower complexity work. Optimally respond to requests with timely, accurate, and professional replies while managing multiple contact channels and continually prioritizing among them.
• Drives others to meet or exceed department standards for both schedule adherence and reliability including tracking attendance and identifying those at risk.
• Identify and capture customer feedback and leverage opportunities to encourage and drive improvements in team behaviors. Identify "Roadblocks" to quality customer service, and either recommend improvements or approve exceptions based on their judgement.
• Handle HR Service Center member on-boarding and off-boarding activities (i.e. access request, equipment, space planning, etc.)
• Participates in recruiting process by reviewing candidate resumes, conducting phone screens, and interviewing top candidates.
• Identify appropriate resources to partner on troubleshooting resolution with sense of urgency.
• Identify at-risk customer relationships and initiate corrective action utilizing superior concierge service skills, through attentiveness to human need, utilizing available resources, and timely escalation.
• Handle escalations from other team members and senior leaders with ability to de-escalate and resolve issues with customers independently and without additional hand-off.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree with 4 years of relevant experience, or 6 years of relevant work experience without a college degree. Desirable specialization in Human Resources, Customer Service or Project Management.
• Job Background: HR Experience (Generalist or Specialist), Customer Experience, or managing multi-channel customer service platforms (phone, email, chat, webform).
• Expert knowledge in HR service technology tools for Customer Relationship Management and Telephony a plus. Languages: Proficiency in English (spoken and written). Excellent telephone, written and verbal communications skills necessary.
• Working environment: Experience working matrix global models with diverse teams and multiple cultures.
• Competencies, Skills & Behaviors: Drive to resolution, critical thinking, sense of urgency, consultative, emotional Intelligence, problem solving, time management, strong communication, multi-tasking, agile learner, resourceful. prioritization, attention to detail, self-directed, relationship builder, accountable. Influencing skills with groups or small teams, ability to replicate trainings and leading small projects.

Preferred Qualifications

• Excellent written and verbal communication, facilitation, and presentation skills
• Capable of running multiple projects concurrently and meet deadlines and provide timely updates to management to be able resolve issues
• Willingness to grow skills and knowledge and become an expert with Workday security and control

* Participants who complete a short wellness assessment qualify for FREE coverage in our HIP PPO medical plan. Free coverage applies in the next calendar year.

Learn more about our health and wellness benefits, which provide the security to help you and your family live full lives:  www.abbottbenefits.com

Follow your career aspirations to Abbott for diverse opportunities with a company that can help you build your future and live your best life. Abbott is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to employee diversity.

Connect with us at www.abbott.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Abbott and on Twitter @AbbottNews and @AbbottGlobal.

The base pay for this position is $48,000.00 – $96,000.00. In specific locations, the pay range may vary from the range posted.