Customer Service Specialist

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Branch is one of the state's largest employers with over 46,000 employees that span 11 secretariats and 70 plus agencies. From Accountants to X-ray technicians with hundreds of titles in between, we are one employer with many career opportunities. The Commonwealth is looking for leaders, thinkers, creators, and innovators. We are a diverse workforce that reflects the diverse population that we serve.

The Human Resources Division (HRD) is an agency within the Executive Office for Administration and Finance. HRD provides support to state agencies in all matters relating to the Commonwealth's classification, compensation, benefits, recruitment, training & employee development, civil rights, collective bargaining and workers compensation administration.

The MassHR Employee Service Center (ESC) is a customer service driven organization which provides a single point of contact for HR services within the Commonwealth. Current service offerings include Employee Self-Service support, employee pay and profile inquiry management and transaction processing, MassCareers support, Performance and Career Enhancement system MassAchieve, MassPerform and Employee Performance Review System (EPRS) support, Tuition Remission and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) processing and Extended Illness Leave Bank (EILB) open enrollment processing.

Customer Service Specialists aid employees, supervisors/approvers, and agency HR/Payroll representatives in completing Time and Attendance entry, and answer time reporting related inquiries.

GENERAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Maintains a high standard of HR professionalism in representing the Commonwealth in all interactions with customers, colleagues, and supervisors.

• Assures quality and accuracy of information communicated and recorded.

• Communicates with colleagues to proactively identify potential issues and collaborates to share successful practices and lessons learned.

• Uses communication to maintain good working relationships with customers and solicit, evaluate, and act on customer feedback.

• Contributes to knowledge management repositories (FAQs, desktop procedures, call scripts).

• Prioritizes required tasks according to business needs to ensure effective and timely completion.

• Utilizes appropriate technology, processes, and people to deliver services to customers efficiently and effectively.

• Identifies continuous improvement opportunities and assists in implementing.

• Works independently with other cross-functional work teams to identify, develop solutions, and/or improve the functional area/system processes and procedures.

• Maintains compliance with Commonwealth policies and procedures in each customer interaction.

• Protects confidentiality of employee information by maintaining an understanding of state and federal regulations on the treatment of confidential information and Shared Services policies on confidentiality and assures protection of confidential information in daily handling of communications, documents, and archives.

SUPERVISION RECEIVED:
Direct supervision from Customer Service Supervisor (HR Specialist III) and the Director of the MassHR Employee Service Center.

DETAILED STATEMENT OF DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
Customer Service

• Communicates with internal and external customers with a goal of achieving first call resolution for HR inquiries. Work may be performed in a call center environment working from an assigned queue of contacts (e.g., phone calls, e-mails, and Team’s calls).

• Handles inquiries received via phone, e-mail, mail, and/or fax as well as those assigned to Shared Services via case management tools.

• Operates and accesses various systems to research responses to inquiries.

• Logs cases to document each interaction with customers.

• Escalates and assigns inquiries to the appropriate individual and/or group for resolution if unable to resolve directly.<