Ed Lane: In 2010, Xerox acquired Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), a Dallas, Texas-headquartered company with significant business operations in Kentucky. ACS, a business process management company, was achieving sales of $6.2 billion in 2009 and had 74,000 employees prior to its acquisition by Xerox. You have been employed with Xerox since 2001, and in 2014 you were selected as the chief operating officer of the Commercial Healthcare Business Group for Xerox Services. In 2012 you were made a vice president of Xerox Corp. How large is Xerox’s Commercial Business Process Outsourcing today in terms of annual sales and number of employees?
Connie Harvey: Almost two years ago, Xerox reorganized its business process outsourcing into vertical segments. Commercial BPO has been broken down into specific industries. I now manage the commercial healthcare segment and serve as chief operating officer and industry business leader for commercial healthcare. The commercial healthcare segment generates about $1 billion in revenue and employs approximately 25,000 employees.
EL: What are the other major customer categories that are included in Xerox’s vertical segments?
CH: Our other services business
segments include financial services; government; high-tech and communications; retail and consumer services; and transportation.
EL: In the area of transportation, what back office services would Xerox provide?
CH: Most of Xerox’s transportation segment serves the public sector. For example, Xerox operates the back offices for New Jersey E-ZPass (toll collection). Other services include parking services, toll roads and toll bridges.
EL: How would you describe the scope of services provided by Xerox to the public and private sector?
CH: Services are always changing to meet our clients’ needs. Xerox really talks about itself in two areas. One is Xerox technology, which is the legacy equipment business, and the other is Xerox services. Xerox services is a combination of what used to be ACS as well as the managed print service business and some other services that Xerox brought to the table as well. That combined business is roughly $13 billion in services. And more than 60 percent of Xerox’s annual revenue ($19.54 billion in 2014) is now generated by services.
EL: Approximately how many workers does Xerox employ in Kentucky, and how many total employees do you manage corporation-wide?
CH: In the state of Kentucky, Xerox has roughly 4,500 employees; 3,000 of those are in Lexington. And those employees support commercial healthcare. A big part of Lexington-based employees do work inside of my division. We also have employees who support government business, including KYNECT, as well as telecommunications and technology clients. This segment includes telecom customers, electronics, technology and the financial services industry. Xerox services also provides services to several large non-healthcare insurance companies. Probably the majority of our Kentucky employees are within those four groups.
EL: How would you demographically profile the typical employees who deliver the outsourcing services Xerox provides and interface with your clients’ customers?
CH: Most of our employees are full-time. In terms of age, eight or nine years ago the average age of employees in our call centers was probably 23 to 27 or so. That changed a lot in 2008 when a lot of people found themselves unemployed later in life, and Xerox was able to hire some really fantastic employees who had more business experience and were a little more mature. Our average employee’s age now is more like 30 to 35. All our call center employees are high school graduates. Most have some college. When you get into the management ranks, most have college degrees.
EL: Lexington is ranked nationally has having one of the best-educated workforces in America. Is that a major plus factor for having Xerox operations in Central Kentucky?
CH: Yes. Xerox needs people who are well-educated, who are articulate, and who are friendly. And Lexington, and Kentucky in general, has provided a great workforce for Xerox.
The quality of employees Xerox has recruited in Lexington is good – we’ve always been happy with them, but more importantly, our clients have always been happy with them. Again, a lot of our employees are being pulled from surrounding communities, too, so it’s a combination of Fayette and the surrounding counties. In addition to those educated at UK, Transylvania, EKU, Georgetown and other local area universities, the quality of the employees that Xerox has gotten from BCTC also has been phenomenal. BCTC provides an affordable education for those who aren’t attending one of the local universities, so there’s still an opportunity for a person to continue past
high school.
EL: Lexington’s current unemployment rate is 4.0 percent. Has a low unemployment rate been a factor in recruiting new employees at Xerox?
CH: For the most part, Xerox is able to fill the jobs it needs. Because a lot of what Xerox does in Lexington includes supporting healthcare open enrollments, which have big peaks of activity in the fall, staffing needs can sometimes be a challenge. But overall, Xerox has been very happy with the quality of employees it’s been able to recruit in Lexington.
EL: Louisville’s Metro Council has passed an ordinance, currently being contested in appeals court, increasing the minimum wage in the Louisville Metro to $9. Lexington’s Urban County Council has a pending ordinance in committee that raises the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour plus an annual CPI adjustment. How will these types of ordinances – enacted by local government – affect Xerox’s future operations in Kentucky if they are ultimately upheld as legal by the court?
CH: Most of our employees, when they get out of training, are above any minimum wage increase that’s currently being discussed. I think a city, a state or local entity needs to be competitive, and if unemployment rates are so low that you can start to get very choosy about the jobs that come into your community, maybe setting the higher minimum wage doesn’t hurt a community. I don’t know that there’s any place in the state of Kentucky where that is really true.
When expanding, Xerox can select from the different cities and states in which it operates today. We’ll make business decisions based on where Xerox can cost-effectively operate, and we’ll hire good-quality employees who can deliver services to our customers at a price that we can bill our customers that will keep Xerox competitive. If you look at our employees in Lexington, I would estimate that 50 percent of them don’t live in Lexington. Xerox is strategically located at the four corners of Fayette County; one facility is on Fortune Road, and we pull a lot of employees from Clark County. New Circle Road, we pull from Franklin County and Georgetown. In this building (on Yorkshire Boulevard in East Lexington), we pull from Berea, Richmond, Madison County. So setting a higher minimum wage in Lexington doesn’t just affect Lexington; it could potentially affect wages in communities around Lexington.
EL: In which Kentucky cities does Xerox have corporate business operations?
CH: Our largest operation is in Lexington; probably the second-largest is in London. We also have operations in Frankfort, Louisville, Erlanger and Richmond.
EL: When Xerox hires a new employee to deliver outsourced services for a client, what type of special training does a new hire receive?
CH: Xerox typically does on-site training for new employees. Obviously it’s very different depending on what the employee is being hired to do. If we’re hiring somebody in a professional role, for example, finance or software development, that’s a different training process. But most of the production employees that Xerox would hire, whether it be in a customer care space or a document processing space, would receive on-site training. Usually that training is a collaboration – using materials from our end client being delivered by our training. We do partner with BCTC to provide ongoing training for our employees where Xerox actually pays for college credit classes for our employees at BCTC. We started that program last year.
EL: Now that the need for highly trained employees is becoming greater, “work-and-learn” or “earn-and-learn” type programs are becoming more popular. Many companies like Toyota, GE and Ford have these programs. Is Xerox utilizing more of this kind of training?
CH: Xerox provides on-the-job training to its employees so they can do their day job. I would consider the BCTC classes that Xerox offers for continuous education to be an employee benefit, because it’s a skill that they can take with them. If our employees stay with Xerox, they can use it to get promotional opportunities. If they choose to go back to college full-time or whatever, they’ve gained college credits along the way. As a corporation, Xerox is looking at a whole career path of opportunities for its employees, and from an HR perspective there are currently several alternatives being explored. So it may look differently than what Xerox has done in Lexington with BCTC or it may look the same – that’s being explored as we talk – but from a corporate perspective, employee development is very important.
EL: Sometimes it’s difficult for an employee to work full-time, take care of a family and continue postsecondary education. In a recent interview with Jay Box, president of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, he indicated the community colleges are offering more online classes and training.
CH: Yes, we’ve used that at Xerox. I’m on the board of BCTC’s foundation and have had a lot of conversations about online learning. I would love to figure out a way Xerox can partner more with BCTC, because the community colleges have their hearts in the right place. Xerox has a large base of employees who would benefit from continuing education. Call centers, which we do a lot of in Lexington, are not a lifetime career for most people. If our employees move up to management that is great, but that’s a few select employees. Xerox looks at career development as an opportunity to move into the management ranks. That’s great; and if not, continuing education prepares our employees for the next step.
EL: How helpful have the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development and local economic development entities been in helping Xerox expand its Kentucky operations?
CH: I’ll give you an example. When Xerox opened its New Circle Road facility (in Lexington), we had a division of one of our largest customers, also a Kentucky-based company, that wanted Xerox to open a call center for them. We had about 90 days to have approximately 600 people employed. Xerox worked with Commerce Lexington (the chamber of commerce), which has a been great partner whenever Xerox needs to expand operations. The mayor’s office was also very helpful in getting the word out and helping recruit employees. We tended to work with the state agency for economic development more when we opened our Erlanger facility, starting a brand-new facility. We had good support there from both private and government entities.
EL: How can Kentucky’s local and state economic development agencies better assist Xerox?
CH: I can’t think of anything that I would ask them to do above and beyond what they’re doing today.
EL: KYNECT is the poster child for one of the best-implemented Obamacare websites in the country and was successful in signing up uninsured Kentuckians for healthcare insurance. What was Xerox’s involvement with KYNECT?
CH: Xerox launched the call center to help Kentuckians either enroll or answer questions if they were enrolling online. We have about 200 people in that program today and have been supporting that program since it was launched in 2013. Another firm developed the website, and Xerox is providing the support services.
EL: How does Xerox support local communities?
CH: Through both our employees and the Xerox Foundation. With help over the past few years from Chris Gilligan (manager of executive communications for the commercial healthcare segment), we’ve been able to really tap into some Xerox Foundation opportunities and get funding into Lexington. The foundation really focuses on education, particularly in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. So for instance, two years ago Xerox was able to sponsor robotics kits for all the elementary schools in Fayette County so they could start to build a robotics program at the grass roots. Another program was started a couple of years ago in conjunction with United Way of the Bluegrass: the STEAM program, meaning science, technology, engineering, arts and math, at Leestown Middle School and Bryan Station High School. That STEAM program is specifically for Hispanic students, because the statistics in Lexington indicate the number of Hispanic students who enter those fields was low. This month, Xerox will also be announcing a big grant of $100,000 for principal training in Fayette County from the National Institute for School Leadership. That’s one of the things that a company the size of Xerox is able to bring to the community.
EL: Do you have a closing comment?
CH: From a Xerox standpoint, Lexington has the largest employee population in services in the United States, the second-largest in all of Xerox, only behind the company’s original headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. When ACS was acquired by Xerox, it could have gone different ways. Xerox could have started to migrate more jobs to the areas where they had heavy employee populations, or it could have continued to grow its services in Kentucky. I am delighted that Xerox is now one of Kentucky’s largest employers.
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