Unveiling the Hidden Potential of Contact Centres: Attracting and Developing Tomorrow's Talent with Julia Morgan

Discover the unexpected allure of contact centres as Julia Morgan from Manpower joins our conversation, bringing a fresh perspective in a field ripe with potential but often cloaked in myth. 

With her in-depth knowledge of technology recruitment, Julia peels back the layers of misunderstanding surrounding the industry. We confront the issue of high attrition rates head-on, while also examining how emotional intelligence and sales abilities are becoming the cornerstones of success in this space. 

As we dissect the challenges and opportunities, you'll see the contact centre world in a new light, recognising the vital role these professionals play in shaping customer experiences.

Venture into the heart of the modern workforce with us as we tackle the complexities of attracting and retaining the bright minds of Generation Z. These digital natives are upending traditional workplace values, prioritising meaningful company ethics and clear career progression over pay checks. 

Julia and I share insights into the nuances of hiring for today's contact centres, where the battle for talent is fierce, and industries like hospitality loom as tempting alternatives. By the end of our dialogue, you'll grasp the importance of communicating the true benefits and possibilities of contact centre roles, which can be the launchpad for a remarkable career journey.

Finally, step into our exploration of cultivating a skilled and diverse contact centre workforce. We address the digital skills gap, stressing the significance of aligning candidates with company culture for long-term employment harmony. 

With Julia's expertise, we illuminate how Manpower is pioneering strategies to improve employee retention, ensuring that the contact centre industry remains a vibrant and adaptive part of the business landscape.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:33

Welcome to CX Diaries. Cx Diaries from the Customer Experience Foundation is our podcast where we talk to the people at the sharp end of CX and contact centers, the movers and the shakers, the innovators, the disruptors and the people delivering on the front line who share their personal stories of their journey through our industry. This week, I'm delighted to be joined by Julia Morgan, Sales Director at Manpower. Julia, welcome pleasure to have you with us today.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Okay, so Julia, tell us a bit about your journey into the recruitment part of contact centres. How did all that come?

Speaker 2: 1:07

about. Well, it's quite an interesting one, keith, because I actually come from a technology recruitment background. So I worked for part of the Manpower Group which is called Xperis for 13 years. So I've moved quite far away from that in some respects. But also in the way that the contact centre market is going, it's quite a natural and organic move to accompany some of that technology that's starting to move into that industry. So yeah, like I say, 13 years in a tech background, moved over to this part of the Manpower Group just at the start of the year and have immersed myself into the contact centre world and really embracing some of the clients that we work with and also some of the great work that we're doing to advise clients within this sector.

Speaker 1: 1:49

OK, so what's inspired you so much so far, three months into the world of contact?

Speaker 2: 1:56

I think changing the perception. There is a real almost a bit of a myth and a bit of a stigma around contact centre and having spoken to clients and candidates who work in that industry, I can understand why it's maybe there, but it's actually quite misplaced in terms of the opportunities and the potential that this industry has. Understand why it's maybe there, but it's actually quite misplaced in terms of the opportunities and the potential that this industry has. And and also to combat that myth around those dreaded two letters AI and what they're going to apparently do to the industry. So I'm really motivated just to give contact center a fair goal really and to give it the right type of publicity and the right type of conversation rather than maybe some of the myths that surround it.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Okay, and from your perspective, what are the key trends shaping the landscape of contact centres just now?

Speaker 2: 2:45

I think one of the biggest things is you know, we can't hide from technology. It's coming into the industry more and more every day. But one thing that I would say is that technology is not necessarily driving people out of the industry. It's just driving a different behavior within the industry. And while that technology is great from a from an information perspective, it doesn't have the emotional intelligence and it doesn't have the sales ability.

Speaker 2: 3:08

So one of the biggest things that we're seeing from a trending perspective is that sales is becoming more and more part of a contact center. When I say sales, I don't necessarily mean cold selling. It can be retention, can be upselling within the industry. So one of the bigger trends we're seeing at the moment is because AI and the chatbot and things like that is there to address the fairly simple, to fix customer issues, we're really able to free people up, to start to train them and to explore the other areas of contact center. Now, obviously, attrition we are still seeing that trending fairly highly in the industry. There are a number of reasons for that which I'm sure we'll get on to, but actually sourcing and hiring candidates remains a challenge within this industry and keeping them and keeping them motivated is also a huge, huge challenge that we're seeing coming out.

Speaker 1: 3:57

So unpacking that attrition question, why do you think the industry experiences such an elevated attrition rates and how does it compare to national averages?

Speaker 2: 4:08

So this is a really interesting question for me, because it is higher than a lot of other not all other industries, but it is higher than a lot of other not all other industries, but it is higher than a lot of other industries and I think there are a number of reasons for that. I think, since we moved from COVID, one of the things that we've seen a lot of is a lot more remote working within contact centre. Now, contact centre is a type of industry where you potentially might need support, and this is where we move into the more the companies that are excelling. The type of support that people need within contact center is is training on how to do their job, but it's actually emotional and behavioral training on how to respond to certain situations that you're met with in the contact center environment. We're very good at training people on. You know this is how you log an entry on a database, this is how you make sure we capture the customer's requirement, but how to deal with that customer that maybe was less than friendly or sometimes potentially even quite hurtful those it's the psychological and the emotional training that I think a lot of companies are still not necessarily giving people, and so they're not really equipped to deal with that and when becomes too much for them to tolerate, they leave the industry.

Speaker 2: 5:18

So I think there's quite a large element of that. There are also still quite a lot of instances where the career progression isn't necessarily overly clear within the industry. Now, there there is career progression and a lot of companies actually, contact center is a gateway to the rest of the business. However, not necessarily that well communicated and not necessarily a very defined career path that makes people feel like we're going somewhere. As we know, with this generation, it is a very fast moving generation. They are used to having you know information very quickly and having achievements very quickly. So ideally our what we're advising customers on is try and create a kind of pathway that replicates the reward and recognition system that they get outside of work to make sure that they can really align with that really interesting.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Um, we did a report at the foundation uh in the autumn of 2023. One thing that came out of that is that 83% of people leave the industry altogether within three years.

Speaker 2: 6:21

That's quite a scary number.

Speaker 1: 6:22

What's your take on ways of shrinking contact centre workforce is affecting both the employees and the companies. What are the pain points? What should we do about it?

Speaker 2: 6:33

I think that's a very true stat and it's one I've heard quite a few times before, and the concern for me around the impact that's having on the industry is when you look at people that should potentially be moving up into team lead roles, into supervisor, into training roles, the people who are best placed to support and nurture new employees in this industry if they're leaving, there isn't that middle layer of people who can train but can also are also still close enough that they can empathize with the employee, they can carry the company message and they can really just act as a bit of an intermediary between you know, your top level management and your and your on the phone, if you like employees.

Speaker 2: 7:17

So that, for me, is is having a huge impact and, interestingly enough, almost 70% of the client base that we speak to in contact center, it's that level that they're really looking for. It's the people who can deal with the slightly escalated situations, who maybe have a higher level of resolution when, when they leave the industry. And when people leave the industry at the point that they do, that is a real knowledge drain and it's having a huge, huge impact and because of that we don't then have the right people there to train and nurture the more junior people. There's not the right level of empathy. So at the small, at the at the lower end of the scale, people are joining and leaving more quickly because they don't have that support network around them yeah, and obviously that places a strain on both the businesses and the current employees as well and recruits hugely, and actually one of the biggest things that customers, as you know sorry, clients, as you know measure themselves on is customer satisfaction and it's their customer service index.

Speaker 2: 8:18

So things like how long does it take for you to get a reply, how quickly does somebody answer the phone all of these things are hugely impacted, and so clients may not realize it, but if you are struggling to to hire that employee, this may be the only connection that the public has with your business. It might be the only time they speak to you. It's absolutely critical that they speak to someone who is available, who's available quickly enough, who's engaged and who's able to get a resolution. So while it maybe seems like that might not have a huge impact on your business, what we're hearing from clients is not having the right person at the first point of contact can actually have a massive impact on that customer's experience with them and whether or not they stay with them.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Yeah, how can the industry broadly and there might be some specific sectors that are doing better than others address the issues, common issues such as low pay, high stress level, limited career progression? How can we tackle those to effectively reduce these attrition rates?

Speaker 2: 9:20

So one of the things that we're doing with some clients is a bit of a hearts and minds campaign around it. So the pay is something that we can't we can't necessarily advise clients to change and they might not be able to change it but communicating more around what the role involves and the opportunity so things like a day in the life of videos that you can post onto your social media or onto your website to try and break down some of the stigmas around the industry. If, if you think about pay as well, a lot of our clients are becoming more savvy now in considering pay as pay and reward and not just pay. So if you can run some sort of incentive, it doesn't necessarily have to be financial. Recognition for a lot of people is just as valuable. So if you're able to communicate with the market, how you reward strong performance, how you incentivize strong performance, then you can offset some of the fact that it is at the lower end of the pay scale from a career progression as well.

Speaker 2: 10:16

And this is this for me and is something I'm very passionate about because I've worked in sales for a very long time the skills of working in a contact center and having phone contact with clients on a daily basis are massive gateway skills into the rest of the sales industry. So, while we're not saying everybody you know, join, get the skills and leave. This is a place to upskill yourself to a very high level within sales, within customer retention, within customer service and actually whatever job you do. Those are really, really important skills to have, especially if you're sitting, if or if you want to sit, within the sales part of the business. So for me, it's what one of the things we're advising our clients to just communicate a bit more around what working in a contact center could get you longer term, and also just around about some of the incentives that you could offer.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Yeah, and what are your frontline people, what are the frontline staff that you're engaged with? What are they saying about working conditions in 2024?

Speaker 2: 11:16

I think, to be honest, there are still a lot of elements of the industry which are very high stress and that's a factor that you know, we, we can advise on. Obviously it's up to our individual clients, but a lot of these industries are still very, very a lot of these companies are still very target based, which can create a very stressful environment. Some of the main points of feedback that we get from our candidates is that there still isn't necessarily the right level of support to deal with that stress and there is a bit of a perception within some parts of the industry that once you have attended a three, four or five day induction, you are at that point trained, as you and I know you'd have to be a genius to retain that much information. So that a lot of the feedback that we're getting is that the expectation doesn't really meet the reality of what's involved in learning how to do that job, and that can add a lot of pressure yeah, I wanted to talk about gen zed, a much related gen zed.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Um what's? The contact centers have always employed the younger workforce. That's just the way it's been. What do you see as the specific challenges that the sector faces in recruiting, retaining younger workforce?

Speaker 2: 12:32

Oh, that's a good question. I think I think this workforce have a different expectation on how they can be or how they should be treated and a different tolerance to how they are treated. As we know, unfortunately, within contact centre, you are sometimes in the most negative part of the customer experience. So that is a real challenge to bring people who are motivated to navigate their way through dealing with challenging situations like that. Generationally, like I say, there's just a different level of tolerance for and I don't think it's a bad thing for how people are spoken to and how people behave towards each other. So I think there is a challenge that feeds into the stigma and the myth around the industry that you know. I don't know if you remember, but when I was younger, everybody it was like a bunch of hens and they all had headsets and they're just clicking away and that was what people made you think a call centre was like. In reality, there's hopefully now there's very few that's like that, but a lot of people in this generation will not, will not sign in, sign up for that at all.

Speaker 2: 13:29

Another area where they, where we are seeing slightly more challenges is when we start to talk about targets. This isn't, this is not necessarily a generation that is so motivated by targets that someone else sets for them. Now, that's not something that you can't overcome. You can have motivational conversations, coaching conversations with your teams, get them tuned into their own targets. But that is that's quite a big thing for us is, how do you get them engaged with the targets? And also, you know, we can't hide from the fact that this generation especially are very motivated by working for ethical employers with the right standards and the right values. And actually, for the first generation in a while, we're seeing some feedback from candidates that that's even more important than salary to them. Yeah, so if you as a company haven't got you know, you haven't got your ESG policy right, you haven't really been clear in communicating how you want to operate as a business, that alone is enough to switch some of this generation off.

Speaker 1: 14:28

Yeah, I wanted to get your view on the impact of the demographic shifts and the intensifying competition for younger talent. Seen and heard a lot in the industry that younger talent can go and work in hospitality, travel and leisure or, if not, comparable rates of of pay, higher rates of pay, and not get shouted at all day. So what does the industry feel about?

Speaker 2: 14:53

Well, again, it's a very good question, I think I think a lot of it is down to perception, it isn't. You know, we have a couple of very large contact centre clients and the bulk of candidates that we speak to not every call is that type of call. So I think some of it's about communicating around that. But I think the bigger thing for me is a lot of our clients and we advise this a lot need to be clearer on where this opportunity will get you and also starting to explain to people. You know, I come from a career background where you had you had to kind of do the bottom job to get to do the top job, and that experience is is what puts you in a position to be able to help and nurture people coming up after you.

Speaker 2: 15:38

I think a lot of it is just around the narrative that these companies are giving to the market about. This isn't a job where you sit and get shouted at forever. You know, these are the skills that you learn. This is how you're incentivized. These are the lifestyle skills that it's going to teach you. These are the behaviors that it's going to teach you because actually and I come from a retail background where I worked in the returns department there.

Speaker 2: 15:59

As you can imagine, I did not have many pleasant conversations there. Actually being able to conduct myself professionally in that type of environment and I was only 19, 20 has has served me really well as I moved up through different jobs in different industries. So again, for me it's just about populating the narrative and and trying to get a much more positive message out there. We can't hide from the fact that it's all a positive job, but actually, you know, hospitality there's a lot of things about that that actually are are not as good as contact center as much as you know. Vice versa, it's just about communicating that in the right way, I think yeah and uh.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Thank you and well done for beating the drum and helping the industry on that. Um, considering the industry's reliance on technology, um, we still seem to have a bit of a digital skills gap. So how do we install a digitally fluent workforce and how can that ultimately help attrition?

Speaker 2: 16:57

I think the technology question for me, I think, is one that's quite interesting because we are working with potentially the most tech-sav savvy generation that I think we've ever seen. My goodness, my goddaughter can work technology in a way that I don't think I'll ever be able to. But the biggest thing for me again is it's that perception of there's a difference between on a training journey and trained A lot of our clients and we are advising quite heavily on this understanding the learning behaviors and the learning requirements of the people who you're hiring. A lot of these people remember their last stages of learning were at home on a laptop during covid. They are not necessarily built to train and learn in the same way that previous people have been, because they've had things thrown at them that previous people haven't had thrown at them. So it's just about understanding how do they learn best, what are their learning styles, making sure that you have a robust program that isn't just you know two videos and that's it. You're good to go.

Speaker 2: 17:59

But also there are some things that you can do when you are hiring. So there's certain type of industries or certain type of skill sets that are better to look at when you're hiring. If you're looking at people that are currently in work. Look at people who you know are maybe working with technology already, even if it's a fairly basic type of technology. If you're hiring from schools or universities, look at people that have chosen to take an interest in technology through a course or through a subject at school.

Speaker 2: 18:27

It's a lot of it is about aligning with the right people. At the moment, I think there is just an expectation that everybody should know how to do technology and everybody should be interested in it. Our advice to clients is let's see if we can find the people that are more interested, so that they're more motivated to use the technology and thereby they're less likely to leave. I do think a lot of the suffering that's happening is because we're kind of square pegging at the moment just because they're available, rather than taking the time to find the people that would actually be motivated to stay.

Speaker 1: 18:59

And thinking more broadly about Manpower and your role. How does an organisation like Manpower ensure a good match between candidates and companies with such a dynamic and fast-paced industry?

Speaker 2: 19:14

It's a very good question and it's one that we try and answer ourselves every day. I think the big thing for me is we don't just look for contact centre people when our clients are looking for them. We are looking for them all the time. So we will have a body of people who have maybe come to us and said I'm interested in, you know, contact center, I'm interested in business administration, whatever it is that they've said they're interested in, and we will. We'll test their motivations around that. So we have quite an in-depth candidate qualification process that basically we just ask you know, what is it that really motivates you? If you're sitting in front of somebody that is highly active, that's very, very, you know, financially motivated, they're not. Contact center is potentially not the right role for them. If you're sitting beside somebody who really likes problem resolution and who really likes interaction, that's the type of person that's going to be right for a contact centre job. So we take a lot of time to understand the motivations. Most of the things in contact centre can be taught, but if you don't have the right motivations and the right behaviours at the back of it, they're not going to be learned in the right way because there's not going to be enough interest. So we do that. But on the flip side, we're also doing the same with our clients. So we'll understand who would actually like working for you, who would fit in culturally, who would feel supported and nurtured, because it is.

Speaker 2: 20:38

I always refer to recruitment. It's a bit like dating, to be honest. If you don't take the time to know each other at the start, my goodness, that thing's going to explode. It's just. It's just a matter of time. So it's really important that we're we're matching both of the skills correctly, and sometimes that's why we will have to say to clients you can't find anybody because you know you're, you're just not realistic about what's out there. Or we might say to candidates you're not going to get a job because you're not realistic about what's out there. So we're almost like the party in the middle. That's just, you know, hopefully bringing people together or educating them on why they're not going to find what they're looking for.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Yeah, and taking that a bit further how does, how does your organisation address diversity and inclusion in the recruitment process and also advise clients on that?

Speaker 2: 21:26

So we are um, it's one of the things that we really pride ourselves on actually is we're very focused on just making sure that it's a the right word would be just a free space for everybody. So we work with our clients a lot on advising them on the demographic of their area, of potentially some challenges that they might find. What we'll also do a lot of is understand if there is a perfect, if there is a, an area of society or an area of their demographic that isn't interested, we can try and advise them on why that might be. So we'll share a lot of data with them around. You know, this is your hiring demographic. What we also do as well, then I think this is really important is we'll also advise our clients if they are fighting against their demographic. So some clients have a you know, certain targets around diversity and inclusion, all of those types of things. We will also advise them based on the demographic they're operating and if those targets are actually achievable and realistic.

Speaker 2: 22:29

One of the other things, and something that's really important for me, is we'll also work with our clients around how to bring people into the business that are maybe coming from a neurodiverse background or from different backgrounds that might need a different style of interview.

Speaker 2: 22:39

It might need a different style of environment. For me, it's really really important that we are advising as much as possible on who is out there, but also what you need to do to make sure that you can you know you can welcome them into your business. One of the other things we do as well and it's something that I'm really really proud of is we're one of the first agencies out there to have mental health first aiders within our clients and also within every one of our branches, who actually they're internal but they also manage our temp community. So if somebody is having an issue that might otherwise put them out of work, our hope is that we are able to offer support to that. So if you're having some sort of challenge that's affecting your mental health, that means that you know you can't be included in something or you don't want to be included in something. We're hopeful that the support that we offer there will help to make sure these people can remain part of the workforce and that they get the support that they need to continue working.

Speaker 1: 23:36

Yeah, we've spoken about the challenges of the contact centre market Recruitment agencies as well. Generally don't have the greatest representation amongst a lot of people, so how do you ensure an ethical approach in the recruitment process?

Speaker 2: 23:53

Well, it's interesting because I've obviously worked for Manpower Group for almost 14 years now and I think that I've seen them come on a real journey to be fair around about how we the expectations that we place on people, and I think in the past the recruitment industry has been very guilty of a little bit of a hire and fire you know, meet your targets or you're out type of mentality. For me, one of the biggest things that we're looking at doing is understanding the person behind the target and understanding what actually motivates them to succeed. Recruitment actually, quite similarly to contact centre, it's a very target driven industry and it can be at times, a very tough industry to work in, especially if you're not hitting your targets and, believe me, I have been there and it is. It is painful. I think the biggest thing for me is every time I was there, I had a manager who actually took the time to understand why I wasn't hitting them. You don't need to shout at me, I'm already shouting at myself internally. That's not going to do me any favours. So the big thing for me is give people a little bit of breathing space to maybe explain the challenges that they're facing.

Speaker 2: 25:04

Sometimes it may not even be work related things.

Speaker 2: 25:07

It might be something that's completely different, but it's having an impact.

Speaker 2: 25:11

It's just about no higher environment, culture, understanding your staff and trying to be as inclusive as possible from a social perspective as well as otherwise, as inclusive as possible from a from a social perspective as well as otherwise. Because recruitment also has, or has historically had, quite a heavy drinking culture behind it and quite a heavy socializing culture behind it. We are now working with and call centers as well, but we're now working with people from backgrounds and belief systems who don't drink or who can't socialize in the places that other people would socialize in. So we actually have to be very in tune if we want to be an approachable, inclusive industry. We have to stop doing things like that, because you're just alienating a whole potential workforce. So I think there's a whole bunch of learns that the recruitment industry, to be fair, is still going through to try and get ourselves to the point where we aren't that historic, you know, wolf of wall street type of stigmatized in a way, just as much as contact center is uh, I think that's been absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 1: 26:14

Um, thanks so much for that. And finally, what would your advice be to someone thinking of starting a career in a contact center? What would your advice be.

Speaker 2: 26:24

My advice would be oh goodness, I want I need to say something like impactful to make sure that people do it. My advice would be never underestimate what you can learn from a challenge and never overestimate what you will miss in an easy life. So what I mean by that is, if you think that you might learn something in contact centre, do it, because it's a great opportunity to upskill yourself, potentially to meet some great people and also potentially to speak to some nice customers which a lot of people don't think, but they are definitely out there.

Speaker 1: 27:06

Julia, it's been amazing having you with us today. Thank you so much for taking us through the challenges of the contact centre industry attrition and how Manpower are addressing those. I hope our audience has found this as fascinating as I have. You can find out lots more about the Customer Experience Foundation at cxvoteorg and also do please check out Manpower, and we hope you can join us next time on CX Diaries.