Detroit Regional Partnership along with Southfield and Romulus, and Michigan Works assisted project Investment

DETROIT – (March 4, 2021) – Oregon-based business solutions firm FCR recently expanded its new work from home model to Romulus and Southfield as its first locations in Michigan, creating more than 300 jobs. The company’s initial plan was to pilot a work from home office model, with 10-15 customer service and tech representatives working remotely to test the talent market, but quickly accelerated plans.

“Within a couple of weeks of posting initial job openings for the pilot, FCR experienced such tremendous response from candidates, they quickly realized the pilot was not necessary and they could achieve their growth plans much quicker than expected,” said Maureen Donohue Krauss, president and CEO of the Detroit Regional Partnership. “As more companies maintain work from home strategies beyond the pandemic, this region’s diverse talent base is going to appeal to many of them that no longer find themselves requiring employees to work onsite or even in the same state.”

Headquartered in Eugene, Oregon, FCR is a premier provider of live agent call center and business process solutions. They provide a wide range of contact center, business process and social networking solutions to industries that include e-commerce services, telecom, healthcare, finance, travel, transportation, insurance and various other economic sectors.

Working with the Detroit Regional Partnership, FCR targeting Southeast Michigan also helped the firm meet its recently developed workforce diversity goals.

“What we are seeing happen across the country with systemic racism and racial injustice presents every business leader in our industry with an opportunity,” said Matthew Achak, President at FCR. “We can choose to sit on the sidelines and watch it all unfold, or we can do things within our own companies to make real change happen.”

Previously, the company had primarily focused on small communities in the Pacific Northwest for filling its employment needs but sought out a market with more diversity.

“FCR’s initial plans quickly grew because they learned what I’ve long known: Wayne County workers are world-class,” said Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans. “I especially applaud FCR’s efforts to recruit people of color and women because these workers have been hardest hit by pandemic’s economic downturn. I want to thank Greg Pitoniak and his team at SEMCA for assisting FCR build a workforce in Wayne County that can be a model for other employers to follow.”

FCR’s positive experience and rapid expansion was supported by the region’s economic development community. The Detroit Regional Partnership together with the cities of Southfield and Romulus, Wayne County and Michigan Works, engaged with FCR to help them meet their hiring milestones, from launching the pilot to the decision to scale to 300+ employees.

“FCR’s success in Michigan shows why working together with the Detroit Regional Partnership to identify the region’s pool of skilled and talented workers will open up many more job opportunities, including right here in Oakland County,” said Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter said. “And I’m especially grateful to FCR for focusing their recruitment efforts on increasing the diversity of the region’s workforce.”

Early on the DRP team provided wage and workforce data that helped FCR leadership understand the best locations to target their hiring, as well as connections to relevant partners. Romulus, Wayne County and Southeast Michigan Community Alliance helped the company launch their hiring for the pilot program. That effort went so well, they quickly began working with the city of Southfield to scale additional hiring.

“The city of Southfield was excited to provide new job opportunities to our residents, especially during such a tumultuous time brought on by the Coronavirus. The entire city rallied to support FCR in sharing their positions with area residents,” said Rochelle Freeman, Business and Economic Development Director for the city of Southfield.

About DRP

The Detroit Regional Partnership is a public-private economic development organization focused on marketing and business attraction for the 11-county Southeast Michigan region.

Media Contact:
Tamekia (Ashford) Nixon
Detroit Regional Partnership
Email: 
Phone: 313-510-3781

About FCR

Headquartered in Eugene, Oregon, with domestic customer experience centers across the U.S. and international locations in Mexico, the Philippines, and Poland, FCR has built a new class of high-quality customer experience and business process outsourcing solutions. The company provides a wide range of omnichannel customer experience and business process solutions to industries that include high tech, startups, e-commerce, gaming, healthcare, retail, travel and hospitality, and various economic sectors. Founded in 2005, FCR (First Call Resolution, LLC) currently supports more than 80 clients and employs over 2,400 colleagues across nine customer experience centers. FCR is changing the face of the CX industry, one call, email, instant message, text, and video conference at a time. To learn more about the company, visit www.gofcr.com for further information.

Media Contact:
FCR
Christopher Martin