Epicor Software Corporation
Austin, TX
Grade: A+
| Summary: Huge company stability, 9.7 year employee tenure, a focus on employee satisfaction, incredible training opportunities as well as great room for advancement. |
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Intro: At Epicor, new hires don't get lost in the shuffle, and despite taking great strides to offer a relaxed start-up atmosphere, Epicor is a full-fledged, $950 million global enterprise – a true industry force with all the big-world challenges and opportunities that go with it. New hires say they were sold on our friendly and innovative work environment, competitive pay, flexible schedules, and the significance we place on career advancement during the hiring process. |
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Impact statements:
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Compensation:
Epicor’s human resources team uses a variety of factors to determine compensation for new hires and current employees, including market data research relative to other technology companies as well as economic factors like the cost of living and current socioeconomic conditions when hiring outside the United States.
Of course, past performance plays a big part in compensation – which is why many employees are also entitled to profit sharing. When Epicor succeeds, we are thrilled to pass that success onto our employees.
Advancement Opportunities:
In 2013, Epicor launched an internal careers site that makes it easy for current employees to search for open positions before they’re advertised externally. Current employees can also set up automatic email alerts on positions they’re interested in, as they become available.
Likewise, Epicor recruiters are encouraged to reach out to internal candidates proactively. The Epicor human resources department aims to fulfill 40% of open positions with internal hires in 2016, up from about 25% last year.
Check out this YouTube video on advancing from Epicor’s sales team to positions throughout the organization.
As a global company, Epicor has offices across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific regions. We encourage employees to try something new without leaving the company, whether that means switching job roles or movement between offices. We also offer frequent, informal “lunch and learn” opportunities, where employees are introduced to “a day in the life” of a given role.
From our internal career site: “If you're an accountant in Sweden and want to go into sales in the U.K. or if you're in tech support in Southern California and want to do consulting in Minneapolis, we encourage our employees to make their wishes known to our recruiting department. Chances are, we have those opportunities available and we will strive to help you achieve your goal.”
Training opportunities:
Epicor is passionate about offering personal development opportunities to our team members and inspiring all employees to continue expanding their skillsets throughout their careers. In addition to a generous tuition reimbursement program, Epicor offers the following informal training opportunities:
• Sum Total: an automated tool that guides employees through professional goal setting and self-assessments, helps managers draft constructive and actionable performance reviews, and allows all users build individual career development plans.
• Epicor University: a global initiative to address the technical education needs of our customers, partners, and employees all over the world. Epicor University currently offers role-specific video courses for our Prophet 21, Eclipse, and Epicor ERP software solutions. It also offers a professional certification program for Epicor ERP, which involves a combination of live training, self-paced video training, and a final exam. Check out a YouTube video on Epicor University.
• Learning on Demand: three free, self-paced personal development courses available exclusively through EPICnet, Epicor’s employee intranet. Current courses include Lead Yourself, which is designed to promote individual development; Lead Your Team, which focuses on project and people management skills; and Lead Your Function, which helps users take the first steps toward leading a department or organization. This program is open to all Epicor employees.
• CFO Learning Sessions: quarterly get-togethers (both in person and virtual) where Epicor’s CFO team discuss topics of interest with employees. These one-hour sessions are optional and cover a variety of topics, like learning more about a team or product or discussing a new initiative.
Medical benefits:
In addition to a comprehensive healthcare package, Epicor offers Virgin Pulse, an employee well-being solution that allows users to track their movements and other health-related activities using a website, fitness tracker, and/or mobile app. Users are rewarded HealthMiles based on their daily activity, which can be converted into $125 per quarter or $500 per year. Employees are sent a free pedometer upon enrollment.
Special accommodations:
In some cases, Epicor has offered relocation assistance as well as sign on bonuses to entice ideal candidates to join the team. We also allow many of our employees to work remotely full or part time, which makes it easier for us to hire based on qualifications, as opposed to physical proximity to an Epicor office.
Community service/charitable causes:
Epicor matches employee contributions during our GlobalGiving campaigns, which occur periodically throughout the year. During our last campaign, Epicor employees raised more than $20,000 for nearly a dozen charitable causes geared toward improving the lives of children in countries where our employees work. Through donations, our employees helped educate blind children in Malaysia, care for orphans in Russia and China, and teach children to read in the United States.
In addition to our GlobalGiving program, Epicor gives its employees one paid day off per year to support a qualifying organization of their choice. Recent benefiting organizations include the West Island Palliative Care Residence, which helps terminally ill patients spend their final months in comfort; Besom, an organization that helps to bridge the gap between people who have things to give and people who are in need; and The Friends of Skeleton Creek, a group dedicated to preserving and restoring a creek that suffers from pollution harming local wildlife.
Measuring satisfaction:
Epicor measures employee satisfaction with departmental and regional surveys as well as small focus groups throughout the year. In July 2013, Epicor conducted its most recent large-scale employee engagement survey across the entire organization. This study resulted in a 98% companywide participation rate and more than 7,600 comments from our employees.
Among our findings:
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86% of Epicor employees agree that their manager(s) trust them to do a good job. |
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78% of Epicor employees agree that they feel a sense of pride from our accomplishments. |
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68% of Epicor employees agree that their work has special meaning. |
Epicor’s next company-wide employee satisfaction survey will deploy in March 2016. These surveys give Epicor employees an opportunity to improve their work experience while helping shape the future of the company.
Creative meeting places:
As a global company, Epicor has held meetings and events all over the world. Recently, we’ve held Ignite, our annual employee conference, in Boca Raton as well as Orlando, Florida. Ignite offers Epicor’s senior leadership the opportunity to engage and inspire our employees and communicate Epicor’s corporate strategy for the following year.
We have also planned President's Club meetings in Hawaii and a ski trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Epicor’s annual President’s Club awards celebrate our organization’s top sales leaders and consultants for outstanding performance.
Finally, we have held annual customer conferences – called Insights – in Nashville, Tennessee and Las Vegas, Nevada. Epicor Insights is the official global customer conference for Epicor customers. It brings together Epicor employees, including senior leadership, and customers, partners, and industry experts for a three-day learning and networking experience focused on Epicor products, solutions, and future plans.
Perks:
In addition to our Virgin Pulse wellness program and various employee discounts (described above) and perks available at our offices around the world (described below), Epicor offers lifestyle subsidies to help employees pay for gym memberships, tuition reimbursement, clinical, optical, and dentist treatment, annual medical checkups, annual holiday short trips, and more.
Fun:
Each Epicor office offers unique opportunities for fun. For example, in California, Epicor employees have access to a ping pong table to use on breaks during the workday. In Texas, Epicor caters a lunch or snack break about once a month as well as lunches and contests to celebrate major holidays and daily free coffee, tea, and hot chocolate at six coffee bars located throughout our building. In our offices in Kuala Lumpur, the HR team periodically organizes games with prizes awarded to the winners; one recent example was inspired by Scrabble.
Collaboration tools:
Epicor employees currently use many technologies to foster team member collaboration across departments and offices, including:
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WebEx |
To assist with presentations and demonstrations of new applications or concepts. |
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SharePoint |
To support collaboration and document/calendar sharing for specialized teams. |
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Lync |
To facilitate instant messaging that allows team members to interact in real time. |
Though it’s been a few years since Lync was implemented, we saw an immediate boost in employee productivity and satisfaction.
Beginning in April, Epicor employees will transition to Unified Communications (UC), a state-of-the-art technology that enables instant messaging, presence, voice and video communications, conferencing, desktop sharing, and web collaboration, all from a single software client installed on each user’s desktop or mobile device.
How corporate vision is communicated:
Epicor’s corporate vision is shared with our employees in a variety of ways – including regular emails from our corporate communications team to Cup of Joe, an internal blog from Epicor CEO Joe Cowan, and quarterly “town hall” meetings. Epicor’s intranet is also updated regularly with news and information to help employees learn what’s happening inside our company.
However, the single most important way that employees stay connected to Epicor’s corporate vision is through an annual employees-only conference called Ignite. Ignite brings together Epicor employees from around the world and offers Epicor’s leadership an opportunity to engage and inspire our entire team. Each year, Epicor’s CEO offers a keynote address that defines Epicor’s corporate vision for the following year. This keynote address is also accessible on Epicor’s employee intranet after the conference has come to an end.
Recognition:
Epicor rewards outstanding employee performance through programs like our President's Club and Anniversary, Excellence, Innovation, and Service Awards:
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Excellence Awards: recognize employees who are making a big difference by bringing one of our company’s essential values to life. |
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Innovation Awards: recognize employees who question the status quo and have helped deliver unique, extraordinary, and practical solutions. |
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Service Awards: recognize employees who provide a remarkable experience for our customers. |
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Anniversary Awards: recognize employees for their first anniversary at the company and every 5-year milestone after that. |
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President’s Club: recognizes top sales leaders and consultants for outstanding performance; in addition to recognition throughout the company, winners are rewarded with team-building trips to places like Hawaii and Jackson Hole, WY. |
Epicor’s public relations team also issues press releases when a member of our team receives industry honors. Recently Craig McCollum, Epicor’s executive vice president for the Americas region, was named to the list of “2016 Pros to Know” by Supply & Demand Chain Executive, and Epicor CEO Joe Cowan was named “Executive of the Year” in the 2015 International Business Awards.
Longevity:
The average length of service, company-wide, is 9.7 years, and approximately 15% of Epicor employees have been with the company for 20 years or more. Currently, the longest length of service by an Epicor employee is 41 years.
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Closing company statements: Epicor employees will tell you that working here feels like being part of a small entrepreneurial company where people know and genuinely like each other. At the same time, we offer competitive pay and benefits, a flexible working environment, and the opportunity to represent innovative, award-winning, and well-known software solutions. Take a look at this YouTube video that describes working at Epicor. Above all, we like to think we offer the best of both worlds in terms of a tech workplace, and we take great pride in offering an exciting and agile start-up atmosphere at a company that’s more than 40 years old. |
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