Contact centre staff woes continue despite credit crunch

The credit crunch is adding to the contact centre industry's staffing woes.  Research carried out by industry analysts, ContactBabel, shows that the contact centre industry is under growing pressure, with a freeze on salaries, high attrition and absence rates.

According to a survey carried out of over 200 UK contact centres by the UK Contact Centre Operational Review 200 attrition rates remain around 30%, with finance and telecoms experiencing the highest levels.  The most widely given reasons for high attrition rates are a lack of upward opportunities and low pay.  It is interesting to note that only 13% of contact centre staff leave to work in another contact centre.

Recruitment and growth is seen as the no.1 issue for respondents – higher even than reducing staff attrition or decreasing costs.  81% of respondents state that they are looking to increase headcount in the next year.

The report's author, Steve Morrell, commented:

"There are contradictory pressures on the UK contact centre industry where HR is concerned. As ever, attrition is a problem for most operations, and worse, most departing agents do not move between contact centres, and their skills and experience are completely lost to the industry. In addition to this, the majority of contact centres are planning recruitment drives in 2009.

"Yet agent salaries are not increasing – in fact there has been a very slight decline in average starting salaries since 2007 – and this is shrinking the labour pool further. There is a danger that contact centres will have to lower their recruitment standards to meet their headcount targets, which would have the double negative effect of lowering quality and increasing attrition".

Recrion, a Talent and Retention Management Specialist, has been finding that there seems to be a temporary reduction in attrition as employees in general become more risk-averse due to the uncertain economic climate.  However most of the managers in high turnover sectors are realistic that the problem hasn't gone away all together.  Recrion is working with HR and operations managers to take advantage of the temporary lull in recruiting to replace leavers as an opportunity to address the root causes of attrition and employee dis-engagement. 

For more information visit www.recrion.co.uk or call us on +44 1780 484910