THE E-SKILLS CONTACT CENTRE CAREER AND SKILLS FRAMEWORK

The contact centre industry is becoming increasingly mature and established and this has led to the establishment of e-skills in the UK. This is the employer-led body recognized by the government with responsibility for articulating and addressing the skill needs of contact centre employees.

Drawing upon a range of employers, government agencies, industry experts and professional bodies e-skills has produced the Contact Centre Career and Skills Framework. The objective of the framework is to support the industry in making a ‘step change in the management and development of skills’ and:

• provide employers, stakeholders and government with a simple mechanism for understanding the complex competencies required within contact centres;
• provide a frame of reference for employers and individuals to identify the competencies needed at each career level and thus drive the selection of relevant training programmes;
• help educators develop a training curriculum in line with employer need;
• help government and stakeholders direct strategic investment and funding in the development of competencies to meet the real needs of the sector.

The framework can be used by employers:

• to measure the competencies employees have against those required, and thus identify competency gaps;
• to develop training programmes mapped to national and government sponsored learning and development pathways;
• to identify a range of career development pathways within their contact centres;
• to provide a set of competency-based job profiles to support effective recruitment and selection;
• to support competency-based performance management and appraisal processes.

The business activities supported by the framework are numerous and a structured overview can be seen in Figure 1.

 

Figure 1: Contact centre activities supported by the e-skills framework

Using functional analysis, a form of job analysis, the various competency requirements for people working in contact centres have been identified, reviewed, tested and validated with more than 50 employers and stakeholders. A total of 63 competencies were identified and these were grouped into clusters: customer acquisition, customer service provision, operations management, technology skills and personal aptitudes. This comprehensive list of competencies combining knowledge, skills and behaviours provides the framework for achieving the objectives described above.