Expert says companies should look beyond fresh graduates

Faced with the problems of shrinking talent pool, high attrition rate, and low recruitment yield, call center companies should tap other types of possible employees to meet industry demands, an expert said.

Eric Concepcion, regional vice president for human resources of Teleperformance, said that among potential call center agents are the near-hires in the industry, retirees, stay-at-home mothers, and returning overseas Filipino workers.

“The pool of talent is not growing for the past several years and this is very alarming,” Concepcion said during the recent 2009 Call Center Conference and Expo in Pasay City. He said that the number of firms competing for the talents increased while the supply of qualified labor did not.

Concepcion said companies must try to reach the alternative job market rather than rely only on the supply of fresh college graduates every year. He said that call center employees are mostly fresh graduates, coming from other call center firms, or professionals from other industries, and belonging to the 20-30-year-old age bracket.

“We need to go beyond these segments,” he said.

Motivated

The alternative job market, Concepcion said, may provide the supply of workers needed by the industry but companies must try to reach out to them and inform them of the opportunities in the industry.

“They are out there. They are motivated. Let us reach out to them because it is not easy for them to jump from [that] fence to this fence,” he said.

Call center companies have been complaining of low recruitment yield due to a shortage of qualified applicants proficient in English. Benedict Hernandez, president of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines, said that recruitment rate among firms only reaches 8%.

The industry is also facing high attrition rate. In an interview with Newsbreak last April, Jamea Garcia, executive director for talent development of the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP), said that most of the agents who left their jobs stayed for only three to six months.

Multi-lingual

Concepcion said that there a huge potential supply of workers from the near-hires or those applicants who failed but only needed additional training to meet the standard English communication skills required by the industry. He estimated that near-hires comprise 10-15% of all the applicants for call center jobs.

Some of the near-hires, Concepcion added, failed the interview because the room is “too cold causing them to stammer” or because they find the interviewer “too intimidating.”

Companies can also tap retirees and those workers who opted for early retirement.

“Parents of agents who are now in their 20s or 30s and those who are recently relieved of the burden of providing for their children found out that early retirement is not for them,” Concepcion said. He added that they can still qualify for call center jobs since companies accept applicants even if they are in their 50s.

“I think there is no industry aside from our industry that allows them to go back to the workforce,” he said. The retirees have the potential to become multi-lingual agents since most of them studied Spanish when they were still in school, he said.

Companies, Concepcion said, must tap them for day shifts and must provide more computer trainings to them since they are not techno-savvy.

Second Chance

Stay-at-home moms who have kids in school, single parents, and those who settled down and want to go back to the labor force can also be recruited as agents. “There are not too many industries out there who would give them a second chance,” Concepcion said.

Concepcion added that OFWs affected by the global financial crisis and who lost their jobs abroad can also be tapped since some of them, particularly those from multi-national companies, have specialized skills that may fit with the knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) companies.

“If they are coming from European countries, they are a good source for multi-lingual [agents],” he added.

Call centers comprise the huge chunk of revenues and employment of the business process outsourcing industry.  The industry is still expecting a growth of 15-20% despite the crisis, but experts have been saying that the future growth of the industry will depend on the availability of talent. (Newsbreak)

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