Last quarter, customer and call centre was predominantly focused around candidates. At Tribe we saw a nominal increase of eight percent in jobs across both temporary and permanent positions. But the telling part for us was the significant decrease of applications across both temporary and permanent roles dropping by 30 percent.
To add to this challenge, sought after candidates in the permanent space had multiple offers on the table.
Points to note around the permanent customer and call centre market include:
- Clients that are flexible on salaries are benefitting as they can compete for talent. More traditional call centre roles that have a structured salary banding are losing talent.
- High-quality candidates are confident in the fact they will be shoulder tapped and as a result are often not active in their job search. Once approached they are open to hearing about new roles. However, there is still caution and they will only move for the “right role”.
- The “right role” inevitably includes stability.
- The number one question our candidates are asking in interviews is about company and role stability. “Why are they recruiting? Was this a role that was made redundant in 2020?”
- Company benefits remain a key selling point for our candidates and from what we can see, very few companies seem to have reviewed this since pre-2020.
On the temporary side of things:
- Auckland’s further lockdowns saw new temps able to start their roles remotely. This is a significant shift from the first 2020 lockdown, where temps working from home, let alone starting from home, was not seen as achievable.
- We saw interesting movement in the senior customer and call centre space in shorter time frames than we would usually expect to see. This could be attributed to more market confidence last quarter than in previous quarters.
- Contact centre managers who took roles in the previous quarter when the market was less buoyant are now seeing other attractive options and making moves. Great news for the recruitment cycle at this level.
Our prediction for next quarter:
- We anticipate the talent shortage will continue to challenge us.
- We know the importance of the customer and the customer journey remains at the forefront of our clients minds and technology continues to be invested in and implemented.
Watch this space!
