Newsroom
December 2020
December 8, 2020 VIRTUAL EVENT
PACE and FTO
PACE and FTO Presented 'Scaling in Times of Crisis' Webinar
Fair Trade Outsourcing, in partnership with PACE (Professional Association for Customer Engagement), presented a webinar that is quite pertinent to our times. The webinar, 'Scaling in Times of Crisis,' was presented by Fair Trade Outsourcing's CEO and founder, Mike Dershowitz, on December 8th, Tuesday. This virtual event was open to PACE members and the public.
December 31, 2020 VIRTUAL EVENT
Humans of Fair Trade Outsourcing
FTO Holds First Virtual Year-End Event
Every December, employees and the company’s top executives come together to celebrate the season of gift-giving and thanksgiving. Because of the ongoing quarantine rules and the threat of the novel coronavirus still looms ahead, Fair Trade Outsourcing has organized its first virtual year-end event, which was streamed live through Facebook.
Rather than splurge on food and drinks, the company organized a countrywide raffle for its employees in Iloilo, Bacolod, and Davao. Afterwards, groups from each Philippines center as well as from our center in Mexico sent everyone their holiday greetings through pre-recorded videos.
October 2020
October 15, 2020 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
CH Consulting Group Blog
CH Consulting Group Features CEO Mike Dershowitz in its Promising Partners Series
CH Consulting Group, a leading consultancy firm, has featured Fair Trade Outsourcing's CEO, Mike Dershowitz, in its Promising Partners interview series. The interview was done virtually, recorded for the viewing audience, and posted at the CHCG blog and on YouTube. During the interview, Mike was asked about the ways Fair Trade Outsourcing have made an impact on its employees. The company has seen its growth stem from its impact sourcing initiatives. One of its goals is to support middle-class wage earners in order to grow a new generation of capital owners whose businesses indirectly benefit their community. FTO does this in many creative ways, but some of the larger efforts include providing zero-interest micro-loans for business as well as private transportation.
October 28, 2020 CORPORATE NEWS
Fair Trade Outsourcing
FTO Opens 2nd Center in Iloilo City, 4th Site in the Philippines
After four years, Fair Trade Outsourcing has opened a second center in Molo, one of the largest business districts in Iloilo City, Philippines. At our new center, Fair Trade Outsourcing continues to provide quality customer service, data entry and acquisition, desktop and IT support, and back-office support.
October 29, 2020 VIRTUAL EVENT
SOCAP International
WEBINAR: Building the Ultimate WFM Model presented by Fair Trade Outsourcing
Fair Trade Outsourcing, together with SOCAP International, presented a virtual webinar on October 29th, Thursday. The webinar helped participants focus on building a workforce management model that ensured they hired the right people with the right skills and have them working on the job at the right time. When you have the tools and the leadership to push for innovation, you don't have to worry about losing value.
October 29, 2020 VIRTUAL EVENT
The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadephia
Fair Trade Outsourcing Proudly Supports the PHL Chamber of Commerce's Annual Meeting 2020
Hear from regional and national leaders who are blazing paths for Black and brown businesses and employees, understand how you can support inclusive recovery in Greater Philadelphia, and be inspired to lead change in your own organization. Watch a replay of this virtual event here.
September 2020
September 9, 2020 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia
Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce Features CEO Mike Dershowitz on its Member Perspective Series
Fair Trade Outsourcing™ CEO, Mike Dershowitz, shares his thoughts on the question, "How can businesses improve their virtual recruitment and workforce management capabilities during a crisis such as COVID-19?," through this insightful article provided by the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia. Sharing his experience with a major client, Mike shows us that for a company whose product is its people, it turns out that capturing that business opportunity was easy in principle – as long as you were willing to work hard and accelerate several things you were already doing.
September 10, 2020 PRESS RELEASE
Fair Trade Outsourcing Blog
Fair Trade Outsourcing Selected for Inclusion in IAOP's Impact Sourcing Champions Index
Fair Trade Outsourcing has been recognized by IAOP as an Impact Sourcing Champion in its inaugural list of companies that have distinguished themselves as trailblazers in Impact Sourcing. To be included in the index, companies submitted an online application, which was then reviewed by IAOP's Social Impact Committee.
Fair Trade Outsourcing’s inclusion into this prestigious list marks a major milestone in its organizational history. Its unique labor management system, which makes extensive use of the fair trade outsourcing methodology, has led the company to produce exemplary results that outpace the performance of other BPOs and even the industry itself.
September 23, 2020 PRESS RELEASE
Fair Trade Outsourcing Blog
Fair Trade Outsourcing Expands Its Operations Globally to Guadalajara, Mexico
"Mexico is a strategic nearshore location for the US, has a large, educated population, and a deep reserve of folks who speak English well. In the future, we will consider other, smaller cities, to help bring our fair trade message there, but GDL is a good start," says Fair Trade Outsourcing's CEO and Founder, Mike Dershowitz.
The new service delivery center in Mexico has a capacity of up to 420 jobs to serve nearshore accounts while also accommodating current client growth and providing new opportunities for servicing emerging markets.
September 30, 2020 VIRTUAL EVENT
Arts+Business Council for Greater Philadelphia
Recap: Defining Innovation Presents Whole Foods Market Co-Founder John Mackey
To kick off an insightful conversation on conscious leadership, Mackey was joined by Mike Dershowitz, Founder and CEO of Fair Trade Outsourcing, a Philadelphia-based outsourcing center with a mission to reduce global poverty and economic insecurity.
In the midst of an economic and global crisis, Mackey and Dershowitz discussed how businesses can continue to be conscious of their stakeholders while, at the same time, they are focused on their survival. Mackey shared three key pieces of advice.
August 2020
August 18, 2020 PRESS RELEASE
FTO Gives Away Quarantine Care Kits to Employees in the Philippines
Fair Trade Outsourcing distributed care kits to employees in all its Philippine sites. Distribution was done on the same day in Iloilo City, Bacolod City, and Davao City. Each health care kit consists of a box of face masks, a face shield, and a bottle of alcohol. Along with these essentials, a personal message from the CEO was included."Let's look after each other and continue to care for everyone's health and safety - for our fellow humans at work and at home," signed Mike Dershowitz, Founder and CEO of Fair Trade Outsourcing.
June 2020
June 12, 2020 MEDIA
The Philadelphia Citizen
CEO Mike Dershowitz Raised an Excellent Point at the Satell Institute CEO Conference
On that morning, the CEOs in attendance had just been shown a beer company's TV ad that outlined all the good it was doing in its community work, as an object lesson on how social impact can also inure to the bottom line. "At the end of the day," Dershowitz asked, "aren't they still just making beer?"
His point was that there's a thin line between real social impact and cynical marketing. That's a conundrum addressed, for example, by the impact assessment rigor undergone by B Corps, which are denied a social impact imprimatur if, say, they give generously to deserving charities but are simultaneously dumping toxic waste into a river. But even Dershowitz concedes that what the Satell Institute has done is an important first step.
May 2020
May 21, 2020 SYNDICATION
The Good Men Project
The Good Men Project Syndicates Mike Dershowitz's Medium Blog
The Good Men Project was created "to start an international conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century." After pitching one of Mike's articles, the collective group of writers and editors from TGMP has chosen to syndicate the Medium blog of Fair Trade Outsourcing's CEO and founder. See all of Mike's body of work syndicated here.
April 2020
April 1, 2020 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Magazine
Don't Reduce People to Numbers… or Should You?
Right from that start, you can plan the journey your employees will take throughout their employment with you and that begins with pre-employment benchmarking. Seeking the right person for the job through is simply the first step toward workforce development.
April 1, 2020 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Magazine
Upskilling the Contact Center Workforce
The “push” of information will also require agents to become better human filters of information for clients. That’s a lot of what agents in contact centers do today—interpret for callers. This will only accelerate, now that AI tools will be another “pusher” of information to the agent.
April 13, 2020 FEATURE
ContactME
Upskilling the Contact Center Workforce
Contact Center Pipeline's Susan Hash writes about workforce development in the midst of a pandemic. She gathers input from several business leaders in the BPO industry, including Fair Trade Outsourcing's CEO Mike Dershowitz. For Mike, agents will have to become better human filters for customers, providing clarity and assurance as they interpret data for the consumers.
April 22, 2020 FEATURE
CH Consulting Group Blog
The Future of the Contact Center: A BPO With a Social & Economic Impact
The CH Consulting Group has featured Fair Trade Outsourcing and its eponymous business model in its latest blog. The article delves into FTO's stellar performance as a fair trade BPO, providing data-driven insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of this one-of-a-kind methodology.
March 2020
March 2, 2020 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Magazine
Giving Tenure Vs Merit Increases Erodes Productivity in Your Agents
At Fair Trade Outsourcing, we have abolished tenure raises, giving merit raises only. This means that the only way for an agent to make more money on a monthly basis is to perform in a way that increases the value of their labor hour to themselves, our clients and the company.
March 4, 2020 FEATURE
Mike Dershowitz on Linkedin
Moving the Breaking Point of Your Employees
I define "breaking point" as where, in the agent's mind, they will sacrifice goodwill at their work in order to remedy the immediate personal struggle they are facing. Essentially, it's when they subordinate their job (our company) to their most urgent problems.
March 11, 2020 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Blog
Are Microskills the Key to Surviving the Bots?
With automation coming to replace low-skilled workers, microskilling creates more opportunities for humans to do the work that bots can't or work that aren't repeatable enough to warrant an investment to create a bot that can do it.
March 27, 2020 FEATURE
Mike Dershowitz on Linkedin
The Living Wage vs Market Wage and Why You Shouldn't Compromise
At the end of the day, a living wage is about people's lives because it's consumption-based. It's about how people live their lives and what is reasonable and what is not. What is moral, ethical, and what is not.
February 2020
February 12, 2020 REPUBLISHED
Contact Center Pipeline Blog
The Consolidation Trend Will Further Hurt Quality in the Contact Center
The rule of 150 can improve quality and employee engagement in the large contact center environment. How do we know? Let’s look at ants.
February 24, 2020 FEATURE
Mike Dershowitz on Linkedin
Removing Poverty from Our Supply Chain is a Feature, Not a Bug
We charge the same price as competitors, but have organized our supply chain to fight poverty while doing business.We've just decided that in the people-intensive business of outsourcing, we don't want to be in a contract with a client unless it's fair trade.
February 26, 2020 PODCAST
Mike Dershowitz on Benchmark Portal
Living Wage vs. Market Wage: Pros, Cons, Whys and Hows for Contact Center Managers
BenchmarkPortal CEO, Bruce Belfiore, discusses with Mike Dershowitz, Fair Trade Outsourcing CEO, the the market and corporate forces that push us to offer compensation based on market conditions, and about the human and political elements that push toward offering 'living wage' compensation.
February 28, 2020 FEATURE
Mike Dershowitz on Medium
What is a Non-Poverty BPO Company?
A Non-poverty BPO takes a lot more work than a regular BPO. There’s no doubt about it — you will have to worry about a lot more things in your operations and your Agent’s lives than you thought possible.
January 2020
January 9, 2020 FEATURE
Mike Dershowitz on Linkedin
The $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage is a Shiny Object
Why have we all coalesced around $15/hour - and where did it come from? Economic conditions are varied around the country - at $15/hour you're below the single-person poverty line in San Francisco, but in Philadelphia, at that rate you can almost touch the middle class.
January 20, 2020 FEATURE
Mike Dershowitz on Linkedin
Minimum Hours Are Just As Important As Minimum Wage
Rather than choose the lazy way out, why don't we think about two key components of compensation that employers have control over? One is full-time employment, which is around 40 hours/week, and another is the longevity of employment.
January 24, 2020 FEATURE
Mike Dershowitz on Linkedin
Employee Engagement Begins When You Meet Your Agents' Basic Needs
While you can probably dispense with focusing on the self-actualization bit for now, you cannot 100% ignore the "physiological needs" that form the base of Maslow's pyramid. Meeting these needs means your agents must have a living wage that can cover their most basic economic needs.
January 29, 2020 FEATURE
Mike Dershowitz on Linkedin
How Living Wage Fuels Employee Engagement
Make the economics work for your employees. If you take care of them, trust me, they will take care of you. That's what you call "engagement."
December 2019
December 2, 2019 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Magazine
The Consolidation Trend Will Further Hurt Quality in the Contact Center
The rule of 150 may not be a cure-all, but if nothing else, you’ll know that you’re managing your teams in line with human biology and neurology, instead of forcing it into your perceived organizational abstractions.
December 5, 2019 FEATURE
Mike Dershowitz on Medium
What the Banerjee-Duflo-Kremer Nobel in Economics Means for the Poor
As an entrepreneur who is dedicated to developing a market-based solution to get families out of poverty at scale, I can tell you that multi-year and multi-pronged is what is needed. This year’s Nobel in Economics will be remembered for putting a very definite stake in the ground refuting all the skeptics out there — that market-based, searched-for solutions can’t work at scale.
December 12, 2019 ANNOUNCEMENT
Global Impact Sourcing Coalition
Fair Trade Outsourcing Pledges 150 New Hires for Impact Sourcing Challenge
The Global Impact Sourcing Coalition or GISC has accepted the pledge of Fair Trade Outsourcing to hire 150 new impact workers for the 2020 Impact Sourcing Challenge. Read all about Fair Trade Outsourcing's pledge here.
November 2019
November 1, 2019 MEMBERSHIP
The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia
Member Directory: Fair Trade Outsourcing
The Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia has officially published Fair Trade Outsourcing on its online directory for its members. FTO's address in the US, its website, and contact information are included.
November 4, 2019 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Magazine
America's Top 200 CEOs Want You to Fight for Your Agents
Companies that prioritize their employees do better than those that don’t. When companies treat their employees better, they’ll do better work, and customer service and work quality will improve. Learn three business practices that are proven to bring in the best results.
November 11, 2019 EVENT
The Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia
Business for Social Good: Why CSR Matters to Your Talent, Investors, and Clients
Fair Trade Outsourcing joins the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia at the Business for Social Good forum to spread the good word on why corporate social responsibility matters to any organization's talent, investors, and clients.
November 19, 2019 REPORT
Fair Trade Outsourcing
The Next Generation Impact Report
As we go into the last quarter of 2019, we're releasing our Next Generation Impact Report, which presents a more comprehensive view of our Agents' economic lives as seen through their household's spending habits.
November 29, 2019 EVENT
Mike Dershowitz on Medium
Workforce Development Through Microskilling & Fair Trade Outsourcing
Jobs are no longer monolithic; they’re as dynamic as we’ve ever seen them in the history of human work, and they will continue to become more dynamic. Pardon the cliche, but we all must become life-long learners.
October 2019
October 8, 2019 PRESS RELEASE
Fair Trade Outsourcing
Fair Trade Outsourcing Announces Expansion in Iloilo City Facility
Fair Trade Outsourcing, which was formerly known as Rethink Staffing, held a blessing ceremony on October 2, 2019 for its second production area on the third floor of One Lorton Building on Ledesma Street, Iloilo City.
October 10, 2019 PRESS RELEASE
Mike Dershowitz on Medium
Introducing Fair Trade Outsourcing (formerly Rethink Staffing)
We’re certain that Fair Trade Outsourcing — both the company and the methodology — gives the industry its best opportunity in years to solve the chronic problems it now faces. We hope you will join us in this journey for change that affects almost 100 million people globally.
October 21, 2019 REPORT
Fair Trade Outsourcing
Fair Trade Outsourcing Joins Iloilo Innovation Expo 2019
Fair Trade Outsourcing has set up a booth at the Iloilo Innovation Expo and joined the 11th NICP ICT Summit at the same time at the Iloilo Convention Center from October 21 to 25.
October 24, 2019 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Blog
When People Are Your Business, Behavior Is Your Product
In the contact center, our business is people. On the surface, it may appear that our business is service, infrastructure or technology. But, its true power is people serving customers. If you want to grow your business, your top priority is the happiness of your workforce.
July 2019
July 31, 2019 REPORT
The Fourth Impact Report
We Continue to See Progress in Our Work
In our latest Impact Report, the fourth we have published since we began this initiative, our efforts continue to effect change, not only in our Agents’ lives but also in the way we measure and interpret the data. We have matured a lot in both how we’re making an impact as well as in our understanding of how to make that impact stronger and sustainable.
May 2019
May 3, 2019 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Magazine
High Absenteeism? Consider Your Agents’ “Breaking Point”.
I define “breaking point” as where, in the agent’s mind, they will sacrifice goodwill at their work in order to remedy the immediate personal struggle they are facing. So, how do we (and you) move your agents’ breaking point?
May 3, 2019 REPORT
The Third Rethink Impact Report
Expanding Our Social and Economic Impact
This Third Impact Report makes us feel we’re starting to hit our stride in how we impact people’s lives in our Philippine delivery center. We’re making progress in the way we measure our social impact as well the quality of impact work we’ve been doing.
March 2019
March 19, 2019 EVENT
Professional Association for Customer Engagement, PACE
PACE Convention and Expo ACX’19
Join Rethink CEO, Mike Dershowitz, at the 2019 PACE Convention and Expo #ACX19 from March 31st to April 2nd at the Hyatt Hill Country Resort and Spa in San Antonio, Texas. Listen to the most informative, content-rich presentations and join high-level networking events available for today’s contact center executive leaders. You will hear directly from industry experts, from global brands like, Google, Amazon, Uber, Hulu, Ring and many more. To register, or learn more about the event, visit www.paceacx.com
May 20, 2019 NEWS
Bureau of Internal Revenue Philippines
Bureau of Internal Revenue Philippines names Fair Trade Outsourcing among top withholding agents.
It’s an honor and point of pride to be included in this list. It means Rethink Staffing is considered as one of the large taxpayers in the country or one of the top 20,000 private corporations in the Philippines.
May 20, 2019 FEATURE
Avcomm Solutions, Inc.
The upside to video consumer service is that when it’s good, your agents feel much better about helping their consumers and the thanks they receive make a much larger impact on them.
February 2019
February 6, 2019 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Magazine
It All Begins with Good Health
When you make health care a human right and prioritize your company’s role in providing it to agents, it gives your agents a sense of security that allows them to perform well in their jobs. That, in turn, lowers company costs (like retraining and absenteeism) and increases your profits.
January 2019
January 24, 2019 PODCAST
Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School, SiriusXM Channel 132
Dollars and Change with Rethink CEO Mike Dershowitz
Rethink CEO Mike Dershowitz talked about fair trade outsourcing, creating social and economic impact and bringing back middle-class potential in America’s inner cities and developing countries.
December 2018
December 31, 2018 REPORT
The Second Rethink Impact Report
See What Our Second Impact Sourcing Report Reveals About Us
Rethink was established not just for the sole purpose of making a profit and helping you make a profit. We also want to make a strong impact on the lives of our employees. This special report shows some expected outcomes, and also some surprises.
November 2018
November 8, 2018 FEATURE
Avcomm Solutions, Inc.
A Few Words of Inspiration for My Sales Team
Progress is made in the aggregate. No great labor or achievement was accomplished in one isolated action of such instantaneous, conjured power. Just ask any accomplished athlete, musician or scientist.
November 14, 2018 FEATURE
The Philadelphia Citizen
A Bryn Mawr entrepreneur plans to offer a living wage, with benefits, for workers at his new call-in center in Kensington. He says it doesn’t make him a do-gooder though. Like any businessman, he wants to make a healthy profit.
November 27, 2018 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Magazine
Create Safety or You’ll Never Get Performance
You can do a lot to improve your contact center if you start thinking about safety way more than you do already. Your agents must feel personally safe, must feel safe to change things when the situation warrants it, and must also feel safe to fail every once in a while.
October 2018
October 1, 2018 CAREERS
Campus Philly
Fair Trade Outsourcing's Philly Outsourcing Center
A fair trade outsourcing center offers middle-class employment to the people of Philadelphia. The company aims to pay higher than minimum wages to create social and economic impact on agents’ lives.
October 10, 2018 VIDEO
Jim DeLorenzo’s YouTube Channel
Jim DeLorenzo P.R.- RVNTV’s “Press Conference” with guest Mike Dershowitz
In this episode of RVNTV’s “Press Conference”, our guest Mike Dershowitz, CEO of Rethink talks about bringing the lessons and successes of Rethink Staffing in the Philippines to Philadelphia.
October 17, 2018 FEATURE
Contact Center Pipeline Magazine
Don’t Ignore the Economics of Your Contact Center
Better paid employees leave less often, show up for work more often and are easier to manage. Show them how all of the money spent on managing attrition and absenteeism can be put back into wages.
October 17, 2018 VIDEO
RadioVision Network, RVN TV
Mike Dershowitz Talks about Creating Social and Economic Impact in Business
In this episode of RVNTV’s “Press Conference”, our guest Mike Dershowitz, CEO of Rethink talks about creating social and economic impact by bringing back middle-class employment to Philadelphia.
October 21, 2018 EVENT
Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business, SOCAP International
We are thrilled to be sponsored by such a caring and revolutionary company. Rethink was one of our sponsors at Re-Imagine Customer Care held in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 21 to 24, 2018.
September 2018
September 10, 2018 FEATURE
Professional Association for Customer Engagement, PACE
Managers always must be looking at the economics of their individual situations to determine where in the world the work can best be done, considering cost, quality, production and Agent Happiness.
September 18, 2018 PRESS RELEASE
Iloilo Today
Rethink Inaugurates New Site in Iloilo City
Rethink’s inauguration of its new site on the second floor of One Lorton Building in Iloilo City was attended by Iloilo Today blogger, Mr. Nonoy Taclino.
September 24, 2018 PRESS RELEASE
Newswire
Rethink opens its 3,000-square-foot Philadelphia Fair Trade Call Center in MaKen Studios South at 3401 I Street in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.
September 24, 2018 PRESS RELEASE
Digital Journal
Rethink opens its 3,000-square-foot Philadelphia Fair Trade Call Center in MaKen Studios South at 3401 I Street in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.
September 30, 2018 REPORT
Mike Dershowitz on Medium
The First Rethink Impact Report
Rethink Staffing’s first social impact report is the data, the results to support the ideas about which I feel so passionate - the BPO industry’s ability to lift people out of poverty.
August 2018
August 3, 2018 FEATURE
Professional Association for Customer Engagement, PACE
Ultimately, your clients hire you to get performance out of people at scale. How should you do it? You do it by treating them like humans, not like “resources” that are there to fill the all-mighty seat.
August 20, 2018 FEATURE
Professional Association for Customer Engagement, PACE
Don’t Ignore Reality: Employee Engagement Begins In Agents' Pockets
Show them how better paid employees leave less often, show up for more more often, and are easier to manage. Prove how all of that money your call center is spending on managing attrition and absenteeism can be put back into wages.
July 2018
July 18, 2018 PODCAST
Benchmark Portal
Fair Trade Outsourcing: Sustainable, Ethical and Profitable
Ultimately, your clients hire you to get performance out of people at scale. How should you do it? You do it by treating them like humans, not like “resources” that are there to fill the all-mighty seat.
June 2018
June 5, 2018 EVENT
Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition, IRCE
Rethink exhibits as Fair Trade Call Center and Labor Outsourcing Company in IRCE
Rethink was one of the exhibitors at the 14th Annual Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition (IRCE) that was held on June 5 to 8, 2018 at the McCormick Place West in Chicago, Illinois.
