QUALIFICATIONS | Skills and Competencies

It would appear that a high level of education is an important factor for employers when choosing a location for contact centres. Likewise, promotional materials for many regions in Britain emphasize the fact that they have a highly educated workforce in order to attract employers. This is also to be found at national levels; for example, the Welsh Development Agency noted, ‘the availability of a large pool of well-educated, skilled people’; and Czechinvest stated, ‘The Czech economy is attractive for its skilled and well-educated labour force. . . the extent of university education is high.’

This view corresponds with the experiences of a New Zealand agency that was asked by a US company how many of the staff would have degrees. In India a high proportion of call centre agents have a degree and this was a measure used by the US company. The response from the agency was that nearly all New Zealanders are educated up to the age of 18/19 and therefore were more than suitable for the job.

The evidence of graduate employment in contact centres also appears on the surface to support the case for qualifications. In research conducted in Scotland, 22 per cent of telephone sales staff had a degree, which was significantly higher than 7 per cent for clerical workers and 3 per cent of sales staff. Also, 40 per cent of employees including management grades possessed a degree. Furthermore, in an advice line for small businesses provided by an Australian bank, all employees possessed a university-level qualification. In research conducted in the United States, almost 60 per cent had a four-year college degree.

However, young well-educated people, particularly university graduates, tend not to stay for long in call centres. They consider their job as a temporary sojourn before moving to something else. So although qualifications may indicate potential abilities for working in call centres they do not always correlate with long periods of loyal service.

Qualifications are also required in specific occupational areas, for example in the insurance sector agents may be required to possess industry qualifications in order to provide advice or sell financial products. In Quebec, nurses working for Health-Info CLSC were required to be qualified and have a minimum of three years’ experience.

As the contact centre industry matures, specific qualifications have been made available. In the UK there are Scottish/National Vocational Qualifications, Foundation Degrees, degrees, and master’s degrees available. The benefits of these are that people are able to demonstrate their skills more easily to employers, making the labour market more flexible.

Employers are also encouraging staff to study for qualifications. In one survey, 79 per cent of respondents offered their employees the opportunity to gain a qualification and 80 per cent of the outsourcing industry allowed staff to gain qualifications.

Yet the use of general qualifications is only a proxy or indicator of ability; they are not always accurate in predicting successful work in contact centres. The value of some qualifications, including degrees, has been challenged by a number of sources and the following summarize the concern about the value of qualifications in contact centres:

Social skills were valued far more highly than the possession of formal qualifications, or any other relevant factors such as computing skills and technical or industry knowledge and experience.

The aims are to select staff with the required a itudinal and behavioural characteristics, induct them into a quality culture and, equally important, but o en neglected, retain their services. . . selection o en focuses on attitudes to flexibility and customer service rather than skill or qualification levels. 

Education and skills should not be confused. A university degree is not a prerequisite for most contact centre work and may not even be desirable

Consequently, the ‘right attitude’ can take precedence over formal qualifications and skills when recruiting call centre workers. 

Possessing an educational qualification does not guarantee that a person has the specific skills required for working as a call centre representative. Someone with a degree may not possess the necessary skills of communication, personality, stamina, etc which are required. Many employers tend to recruit on the basis of skills and attitudes rather than qualifications. This perspective is illustrated by the DTI, which explained:

It is vital that education and skills do not get mixed up. The Indian contact centre industry proudly points out that graduates are available for a fraction of the salary that a UK school-leaver would be paid, but the reality is that a degree makes no difference to how well most contact centre jobs are performed.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND CONTACT LEEDS

Background

A number of factors have encouraged the growth and development of call centres within local government. First, the recognition of the success of private sector call centres; secondly, the increasing expectations of customers for improved levels of service and interaction; and thirdly, central government pressure to encourage efficiency gains and financial savings. Contact centres have often been the catalyst for the reorganization of local government provision, sometimes resulting in the full-scale re-engineering of all back-office processes. Through the use of customer relationship management systems and the integration of operations there has been better access and dissemination with joined-up-thinking leading to ‘joined-up-government’.

‘Contact Leeds’ was developed as a brand to incorporate the contact centre, the one-stop centres, and electronic/self-service. In 2006 all the various contact centres across the city were physically brought together in a new contact centre in Leeds city centre that is designed to eventually handle 90 per cent of all interaction with the council by telephone or electronic channels (eg, SMS texting, e-mails). There are approximately 300 staff in the corporate contact centre of whom around 200 are customer service officers (CSOs). They are supported by 30 team leaders, three/four trainers and a senior training officer. Seventy per cent of the workforce is female and there are a range of ages and ethnicities. The staff consist of part-time and full-time permanent staff, and temporary staff are only used to fill short-term gaps.

Managing a public sector contact centre is significantly different to that provided by the private sector. The main reason for this is that the range of services is much larger (anti-social behaviour calls, refuse, highways, pest control, noise pollution, corporate complaints, Council Tax, Social Services referrals, Housing and Housing Repairs, etc) and therefore there is a considerable need to multi-skill people.

Training and development

There are no formal educational qualifications required. Instead, all new candidates undertake Saville and Holdsworth literacy and numeracy tests and are expected to have a positive attitude about wanting to work in the contact centre.

The length of induction depends upon the particular area in which a CSO is working. Generally, this includes an overview of the Council; customer services; HR policies and procedures; and especially how the customer relationship management system works. In some cases, specific training, eg for those handling social service calls, may include legislation and qualifications.

The induction training in council tax and benefits involves two to three weeks in a classroom environment and incorporates both theory and practice. Since there is a lot of legislation to learn this is interspersed with interactive work on computers. The inductees receive a training manual as a reference guide and refresher sessions to ensure that there is full understanding.

Once the trainees have completed the two-week intensive training they are assigned, and sit, with a mentor. Initially the new starter listens in and the mentor explains what they have done and how they update the system after each call. When the trainee is more confident they reverse roles and the mentor listens to the calls and provides guidance. There is a gradual hand-over which usually takes four to six weeks depending on how quickly the trainee learns and their level of confidence.

There is an annual training plan and staff also have access to some training provided through the Council corporate training team eg, managing attendance, health and safety and diversity. Some of the training is required ie, people on a recruitment and selection panel must have attended recruitment and selection training. In addition to an appraisal scheme and personal development plans, training needs are also identified on an ongoing basis. At higher levels there is management training within the Council as well as 360-degree feedback.

Bringing people all together during the working day is difficult because of operational demands. However, each Wednesday between 8.30 and 9.30 am there is a communication hour in which there are group discussions, feedback and training.

There is also much informal learning, for example, council tax and benefits sections work adjacent to one another, which means that some queries can be transferred easily. Later staff will go across and discuss the outcome of the call and learn new information for future occasions.

One aspect that makes Contact Leeds different is the introduction of an Academy. In the plans for the contact centre the attrition rate was estimated at 10 per cent of 350 staff. This would mean approximately 35 people leaving each year. To replace them there is general recruitment but an Academy has also been developed that is designed to have three cohorts of 12 participants per year. In this way, as people are lost they can be backfilled by people graduating from the Academy.

The Contact Leeds Academy also serves another purpose, which is to combat exclusion by providing opportunities for people who would normally find social and economic barriers preventing them from getting a job in a contact centre. The Academy is run in conjunction with one of the family learning centres in the city and offers up to 36 people per year, who are currently long-term unemployed, the opportunity to learn the skills to enable them to become highly effective contact centre officers. The programme is intended to have three cohorts per year with an expected duration per cohort of six to nine months, which is structured to the learning pace of the individual trainee. Basic skills and Contact Centre Operations NVQ at Level 2 will be offered as part of the training, along with certification in Health and Safety in the Workplace, Manual Handling, and Customer Service Skills.