The Big Fix

Hiring issues in Contact Centre and Customer Service industry are resolvable. Although hiring challenges for CC&CS businesses remain high, they are not insurmountable. Adopting a multi-strategy recruitment approach and working with external recruitment partners to access a wide range of resources can resolve staffing problems.

A Variable Playbook

CC&CS businesses must deploy a range of hiring strategies to attract the talent they need

The UK economy will face a unique set of pressures as 2022 blends into 2023. Rising interest rates, high energy prices, record inflation, ongoing trade issues, and lowered investment, will have enormous impact on businesses across the union. Stuck between rising costs and recessionary markets, tight margins and high attrition rates, CC&CS organisations must exercise great agility if they are to survive and grow. Adopting a range of hiring methods to secure new talent, retrain existing workers, and assist employees who move on or up is a priority.

Manpower’s 4B’s approach – Build, Buy, Borrow, and Bridge - is a flexible matrix of recruitment strategies. Each path may be used individually, or concurrently with other actions in the groups.

For CC&CS, where employee churn rates are up to three times the UK average, it may be necessary to operate all strategies simultaneously.

BUILD the required talent by investing in the learning and development of existing personnel to ensure they have the skills they will need in the future.
BUY talent by going out to the market and identifying those with the job-ready skills to help the organisation meet its business goals immediately.
BORROW talent by cultivating communities outside the organisation and hiring on a short-term, ad-hoc basis.
BRIDGE the talent that might not fit in their role anymore; helping people to move into new roles and nurture their transferable skills.

Build, Buy or Borrow

Grow talent from within, hire who you need, draft in workers from other organisations

Manpower’s Build, Buy and Borrow strategies can enhance the skills of the current workforce, procure new talent to fight attrition and bring in fresh ideas, or supplement current personnel with short-term workers to obtain the specialist skills the business needs on an ad-hoc basis. Individually, these strategies can solve some of the organisation’s recruitment problems. Together, they may solve all of them.

Build

Often, an organisation’s existing workforce holds the answer to staffing problems, particularly if the need is for management and head of department roles. In many cases, training and learning and development programmes are all that’s needed to take select personnel to the next step on their growth ladder. ‘Build’ aims to strengthen the organisation by strengthening the individuals within the business.

Buy

When current workers cannot provide the hiring solutions the company needs, it may be necessary to search for new talent to plug the gaps. A successful ‘Buy’ plan will be based on an appraisal of current staff, observation of the organisation’s perceived needs, and deep knowledge of the local or national employment market.

Borrow

When training and hiring cannot solve the staffing needs of the business, it is time to consider drafting in the freelance or short-term cavalry. Specialist skills, unique knowledge, deep experience – these are the attributes that specialists most often bring to table. They are ideal for solving a short-term staffing gap, handling a fixed project, driving internal goals, such as change, or external goals, like a new product launch.

Because these strategies require deep resources to operate successfully, many CC&CS businesses may be unable to deploy them without external support.

This is where working with a suitable recruitment provider can be advantageous, as it gives access to ‘ready to go’ training and upskilling programmes, targeted candidate lists, and a wide range of contract services to supply ad-hoc support as needed.

What resources are needed to operate a successful Build, Buy, Borrow approach?

Build

A range of training and learning & development programmes.

Buy

Deep knowledge of recruitment markets and roster of ready to go candidates.

Borrow

Access to menu of ad-hoc specialists and skilled contract workers.

Bridge to Somewhere

The importance of ‘Bridge’ to secure a wider talent mix

Bridge is the fourth strategy in the 4Bs approach, and arguably, it is the most important, as it can help to secure a wider talent mix by assisting employees to move on or move up to take on new roles and acquire new technical and soft skills inside or outside the company.

How does this work?

Bridge empowers business leaders to optimise the skills they have, or to find alternative career pathways so those whose skills no longer fit can bridge to changing or emerging roles.
Where it is not possible to place people in new roles inside the organisation, Bridge encourages employers to treat employees with respect and dignity and to help workers transition smoothly, applying their skills to new roles beyond the company.
Bridge provides CC&CS organisations with a clear roadmap when it comes to their reskilling strategy, supplying affected individuals with strong guidance and support.
Bridge places focus on retaining the existing workforce through reskilling and upskilling – utilising worker development programmes such as Manpower’s MyPath.

What resources are needed to operate a successful Bridge strategy?

Workforce analysis and optimisation skills.
Training and development programmes.
Mentoring programmes.
Access to career pathway opportunities for employees who are moving on.

The Fast Track

Retraining with MyPath to achieve a more sustainable workforce

The Manpower MyPath development programme builds the talent pool of the future by providing clients with a swift and sustainable solution to access predictable, in-demand talent.

For workers, MyPath enables high-potential candidates to access jobs and grow in in-demand careers, providing them with upskilling opportunities, personalised guidance, and the necessary support to achieve their career goals.