High staff turnover in call centre industry

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Call centres are growing in New Zealand, a survey has found - but 70 per cent of them are still struggling to recruit and retain staff.

The second annual TMP (formerly Lampen) call centre survey focused on 117 employers - TMP clients including the Dairy Board and Nestle - in 21 industry groups and represented 3257 "seats" nationwide.

Jane Kennelly, the general manager of Lampenalectus Recruitment TMP Worldwide, said 36 per cent of the call centres surveyed had more than 21 seats, compared to 27 per cent for the same period last year.

Of that 36 per cent, a quarter had more than 100 seats.

She said one improvement over last year's figures, was that 48 per cent of the call centres surveyed were holding present attrition rates - called "churn" in the industry - below 15 per cent.

Of the rest, 22 per cent had turnover rates of 16 to 24 per cent, and 15 per cent between 25 and 32 per cent turnover.

The other 15 per cent were battling turnover above 33 per cent.

Ms Kennelly said 70 per cent of companies "experienced difficulty in recruiting staff".

She blamed the difficulty on the high level of attrition, "misconception of the industry itself and a general lack of recognition of the industry".

TMP spokeswoman Liz Bridgeman suggested that the intensity of call centre work and its often rigid and regimented structure fuelled staff turnover.

Hiring and retention might also be exacerbated by the view that call centre work was a short-term job rather than a career.

"But there are so many roles you can make a career out of in this industry - such as becoming a trainer," said Ms Bridgeman.

The industry employed many younger people, and the atmosphere in call centres could be "really fun and quite off-the-wall", she said. "Some quite high-energy people work there."

Ms Kennelly said call centres needed to positively promote themselves.

"It appears that the industry as a whole needs to promote itself as a career industry of choice, and sell the benefit of working in the industry as that of a one-stop career," she said.

University of Auckland academic Wendy Larner agreed, but said a shortage of call centre staff coupled with the low pay made workers mobile.

"These are very low-wage workplaces, 60 to 70 per cent of the workers are women, and it tends to be a young industry that is not unionised," she said.

But the survey also found that call centre salaries had risen over the past year.

The biggest increases went to customer service outbound (cold-calling) roles, up by 6.36 per cent, and manager roles, up by 6.8 per cent.

Salaries for those dealing with incoming calls rose by 5.56 per cent.

The survey also found that New Zealand-based call centres are becoming increasingly focused on Asia and the Pacific, with 41 per cent of bosses able to claim speakers of other languages besides English among their staff.

Cantonese was most prevalent followed by Mandarin and Samoan.