Labor Pool

One of the challenges of a call center, especially an outbound call center is having an adequate supply of agents. Turnover is a reality for call centers and that means that you have to be able to bring in new agents to replace those that have left.

There are areas within the US were call centers have seemed congregate - Omaha, Salt Lake, Florida, etc. These areas sometimes run into this problem of not enough labor pool for qualified and quality agents. Call centers who have big turnovers and are in rural areas or small towns really face these problems.

I found this article interesting that the Philippines is encountering some of these same problems.

Shortage Hits Philippines Call Centers
Industry association takes the lead in developing manpower

Lawrence Casiraya

As the market matures, Philippines call center industry is now shifting its efforts from promoting the country to ensuring it produces enough highly-skilled agents. “The issue now is labor supply,” says Raffy David, director of Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP).

According to David, the contact center industry currently employs around 75,000 workers--up from 20,000 last year. He said the industry would need 75,000 more workers this year alone.

Aside from a lack of skilled workers, call centers also deal with a high attrition rate among agents. David noted that call centers are not losing agents to other industries; rather, agents seek new opportunities in other call centers. An agreement is being worked amongst CCAP members not to deliberately “poach” agents from each other. “From a corporate standpoint, this means a member company cannot pirate agents from other companies,” David said.

CCAP is also embarking on a nationwide skills assessment program designed to provide its members with workers that are not only English-proficient, but whose skills are appropriate for the type of accounts they can handle.“An applicant can be fluent in English but his or her skills and even personality may not be adequate for an outbound sales position,” David explains.