Managing Human Resources For Recruitment In The Call Centre Industry

Discuss about the Managing Human Resources for Recruitment.

Human resource management is an approach that allows business organisations in managing their workforce in the best possible manner (Hendry, 2012). The management of human resources has evolved since the industrial revolution and has become one of the most important functions of a business organisation. Business organisations use human resource management to carry out recruitment and selection, training and development, career development, performance management as it allows them to establish a positive workplace environment and to foster better employer-employee relations (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). 

Recruitment and selection is a process that allows business organisations to identify human resource demands of their workplace, advertising the identified jobs, inviting job applications and selection the right candidate for the right job (Spurgeon, Davies, & Chapman, 2015). Recruitment and selection is one of the most important core functions of a human resource managerial department as it allows a business organisation to align their human resources with the organisational goals and objectives. 

Call centre is a physical setup which is run by business organisations to attend the calls of their customers and solve their queries related to products and services (Rouse, n.d.). Call centres industry consists of two types of call centres. The first ones are known as inbound call centres that are operated by companies to take employee calls regarding queries related with some product or services. The second type of call centres are outbound call centres that are operated by telemarketing, solicitation, debt collection or market research. The employees working in the call centres have to attend customer calls or call them to interact with them so that they can solve their queries or can inform them about their products or services. 

Management of human resources in the call centre industry is a tough job for the managers. Employees working in the call centre industry usually face longer working hours and monotonous jobs, which makes their jobs boring and also makes it difficult for the employees to maintain a healthy work life balance. Further, the educational qualifications required for working in call centres is also not high and the competition in the market is very high (Karlikar, 2016). Therefore, there is a tough competition amongst the rival firms to attract and retain talented employees that can work in the call centres. This report discusses some of the major issues that the call centre industry experienced in recruiting and selecting employees. 

Working in the call centre is a really tough job because the job duties and responsibilities are generally monotonous and the employees are more likely to lose a balance between their work life and personal life. The working conditions in the call centre can also increase the stress levels amongst the employees. Some of the recruitment and selection issues in the call centre industry are discussed below: 

First of all, attracting a talented pool of employees is one of the biggest issues for human resource managers in the call centre industry. Attracting the right people with the right potential involves much more than placing advertisements in a newspaper. It is really tough for the human resource managers to look for people who are ready to work in such a complex environment and adapt to the workplace environment (Omar, 2012). In the modern day world, millennials are looking for jobs that are interesting and can keep them engaged. They are also preferring those jobs that can offer them flexible working options so that they can maintain a healthier balance between their work lives and personal lives. Therefore, human resource managers working in the call centre industry find it really difficult to attract talented employees as the fresh talent is less interested to work in such complex working environment. 

Recruitment and Selection

Secondly, fluctuating human resource demands is another key issue in the call centre industry that haunts the human resource managers. Recruitment and selection relies highly upon the ability of an organisation to forecast the human resource demands of its workplace in the coming future and identifying the right methods to fulfil the demand identified. Because of complexity of the job, employees working in the call centres are not able to stay engaged in their jobs because their job becomes boring and monotonous after a while. Further, the lack of a healthy work life balance results in increased stress levels amongst the employees, which results in the employees becoming dissatisfied with their jobs. As a result, their tendency to quit the call centres increases exponentially, because of which, the industry experiences very high employee turnover rates (Flatworldsolutions, n.d.). To compensate for the human resources that leave a call centre, human resource managers have to continuously search for potential candidates that can fill up the vacancies and this continuous hunt for candidates increases the expenditure of the human resource managerial department, which ultimately increases the operational costs of the companies. 

Thirdly, one of the biggest issues that the call centre industry faces is the limitation of budgets that their companies put on them. Most of the companies believe that call centres are an added burden on their resources as they do not provide adequate return on the investments. Therefore, the companies have a greater tendency to save their resources for something that can be much more useful than a call centre. The tight budget allocated to the call centres makes it very difficult for the human resource managers to carry out recruitment and selection procedures efficiently. The managers are less likely to invest in powerful sources of media that can help them in targeting the right audience, which makes it difficult for them to attract quality talent and increase the return on the resources invested in recruitment and selection process (Lindner, 2015). 

Fourthly, defining a clear cut recruitment and selection procedure is another issue when it comes to carrying out recruitment and selection processes in the call centre industry. In the call centre industry, companies allocate very less budget and resources for the management of the human resources. The lack of job applicants and the need to fulfil vacancies as quickly as possible makes it difficult for the call centre companies to find the right fit for the right job (Coxon, 2010). Most of the times, call centres are in urgent need of employees and are more likely to recruit a candidate without assessing him or her using psychometric or psychological tests. Failure of the call centre companies to assess the personality traits, attitude, aptitude, job commitment and other important factors reduces their chances of finding the right fit for the right job, which ultimately causes settlement issues for the recruited candidates, who then leave their jobs and add up to the employee turnover rates. 

The issues that the call centre industry faces in relation to recruitment and selection of employees are some of the most critical issues that can have a long lasting impact on the market position of a company. Therefore, it is important that the human resource managers working in the call centre industry to come up with certain strategies that will enable them in mitigating these issues and ensuring organisational success for their companies. Some recommendations that can help business organisations in dealing with the above mentioned issues are discussed below: 

Call Centre Industry

First of all, human resource managers operating in the call centre industries will have to start taking workforce planning more seriously. Workforce planning is a concept that can allow business organisations in forecasting the human resource demands of their business units in the upcoming future and preparing themselves to fulfil the demand by selecting appropriate recruitment and selection techniques. Human resource managers should take different factors into account, such as employee turnover rates, promotions, job rotations, etc. and should be able to forecast the human resource demands of their call centres with a greater accuracy. Having a better knowledge about the human resource demands of the call centres will allow the human resource managers to strengthen their recruitment and selection process and being ready with adequate number of candidates even before a job gets vacant in the company. 

Secondly, companies should open up their minds and should understand the important of having an efficient call canter business. Companies that have competent call centres that can provide assistance and help to their customers at all point of time will definitely have a competitive edge over their rivals because the modern day customers attach a high value to after sales customer care services before buying a product or a service. Business organisations should start allocating greater resources for the management of call centres and the human resource departments operating in the call centre industry should use these resources to attract a larger pool of talented employees. Further, the increase in budget for the management of call centres will also enable the managers to offer more incentives and perks to the employees, which will ultimately help in engaging the existing workforce and attracting new candidates. 

Thirdly, the companies working in the call centre industries should also use human resource management systems to optimise their workforce. Call centre companies can implement human resource management systems in the workplace that can store information and data related to employees and their performance levels (The Univeristy of British Columbia, n.d.). Storing and analysing this information on a regular basis will help the call centre companies in strengthening their workplace planning strategies and identifying fluctuations in human resource demand and supply patterns.  Using human resource management systems, call centre companies can also identify peak work hours and arranging for sufficient human resource during those hours to avoid fluctuations (Cyriac, 2015). Furthermore, using human resource management systems in the call centre industry can help the companies in becoming more productive and efficient as it will enable them to manage their human resources in a much better way. 

Fourthly, companies operating in the call centre industries urgently need to strengthen their recruitment and selection procedures by preparing accurate job descriptions and specifications and also by designing a hierarchical step for testing the candidates. Human resource managers working in the call centre industries should be able to design testing procedures that can assist them in analysing the candidates on the basis of psychological and psychometric tests. Assessing the candidates on such terms will allow them to predict the behaviour of the candidates while working in a specific work set up. As a result, human resource managers will be able to identify whether a candidate will be able to adjust in a call centre environment and will be able to perform even if the job is less interesting or gets monotonous after a short while. Ultimately, the managers will be able to find the right fit for the right jobs at the right point of time and ensure that they stay with the organisation for a longer period of time, which will also help the companies in dealing with high employee turnover rates. 

Conclusion

The call centre industry is one of the toughest industries as only a competent human resource managerial department can ensure long term survival and success for a company. Because of complex and difficult job conditions and work environment, the call centre industry faces a number of issues in relation with employee recruitment and selection. Employee recruitment and selection is of a great strategic importance to the human resource managers and can be used to bridge the gap between failure and success. As a result, it is important for all those companies, which are working in the call centre industry, to analyse their recruitment issues and look into the above recommendations to strengthen their recruitment and selection procedures.  

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