There is a wee stirring amidst the snow-speckled hills of the Scottish Borders. Manpower have arrived and bought with it its new 270 seater outsource facility.

It is a brand new site that opened in October 2001 and the 21,000 sqft premises, is promoted as ‘exemplifying the very latest thinking in terms of training, technology and facilities’.

It was the innovative thinking behind the training and recruitment policies that I wanted to find out more about and therefore braced myself for the harsh reality of a ‘borders’ winter, (only, being a southern lass was quite unequipped for the transistion of temperature that occurs between Gatwick and Edinburgh airports – flippin’ freezing!!!!)

The first, quite striking thing about the Contact Centre is its location. As you can see from the above picture….remote to say the least. Questions relating to staffing issues were readily forming in my mind. Where were their people coming from?

I was soon to learn that the majority of the staff come from the nearest town of approx 10 miles away. Contrary to my instincts, attracting staff has not been a problem. The closure of the traditional industries in the area such as milling, has created a pool of potential workers. Also, the nature of these workers previous jobs have got them used to the undulating pattern of shift work and as the Centre offers a 24-hour service, this has helped in recruiting staff to work night shifts or other unsociable hours.

The demise of the traditional industries coupled with the increasing amounts of new businesses locating in the borders has also caused local graduates to return to their home towns in the area instead of moving further a-field to seek alternative employment. Manpower are taking advantage of this have set up strong community links to actively target the right people.

They are campaigning hard to become the ‘employer of choice’ in the area. They have close links with the Scottish Borders Enterprise and hold workshops to entice potential employees to come and learn what the Contact Centre is about. These workshops also offer communication training & CV writing classes for the local people affected by redundancy. In effect; – creating a potential workforce.

In an area where finding people with previous call center experience is difficult, the management team, headed by Callum Houston – Contact Centre Director, make it a priority to create good lines of communication with the community and educate people as to what Manpower they are doing and what they are contributing.

So, what happens when the right people are found?

The recruitment processes has been thoroughly designed to ‘eek’ out the suitable candidate and match them to the right job.

At the moment there has been only a need to advertise locally for Customer

Contact Representatives. One recent local advert attracted approx 250 responses.

After the application form has been received, the candidate is then informed that they will be called at home for an initial telephone interview. This relaxed, unstructured conversation will test basic communication, verbal and interaction skills. Candidates are also asked to relay the task of, making a cup of tea, which may sound a bit mad, (my first failed test of the day), but on a basic level, highlights a persons logical thought process. They are also asked questions about a passage that has just been read to them in order to test their listening skills.

If a candidate is successful, they will then be invited in for an interview. They will have a tour of the centre and be told about what the company exactly does. The main part of the interview consists of role-play exercises on the telephone. I actually did these tests myself and they were extremely effective; certainly designed cleverly to evaluate all the requirements of being a successful CCR. (Don’t think I was up for any job offers!) The candidate will then be asked how they thought they did and the results are then discussed.

If the candidate is successful at this stage, a final interview will be held with a different person. When I asked Sue Wilson, Hr Co-coordinator to sum up what they looked for in an ideal candidate, she prioritised the characteristics as; being a team player, being honest, having a good level of integrity and sense of humor, and also having the ability to be developed.

The organisation makes it a priority to make a person feel valued as a contributor to the ‘whole picture’. Where possible, all members of staff are involved in major decision making in a bid to obscure a traditional hierarchy structure. The managers actively encourage voices from the ‘shop floor’. The layout of the centre is relative to this and encourages interaction though the use of communal meeting rooms and quality break out/refreshment areas. It is also reflective in the design of the operational areas. Nobody has a desk that faces a wall and the plasma screens are placed in the middle of the room.

This policy extends right through the employee experience to even include the exit interview stage, where people are actively encouraged to talk about why they started looking for another job in the first place in an attempt to discover what might be making the staff dissatisfied.

Manpower’s approach in developing this interactive culture are impressive, however, I felt that the main benefits of the job roles were conveyed in the quality of the training, learning and career opportunities, to a level I had rarely come across.

The training policy motto was underlined to me by Sue as based on, “offering people the facilities for personal choice and the support for development”, and this can certainly be seen on practice.

As well as thorough induction training and having a detailed personal evaluation develop plan in relation to the ‘job’, an employees training plan is designed to include time for extra ‘open learning’. Candidates can choice from online courses and they can work on this during un-busy hours in the centre and in their own time in the state of the art training suite, which is available to all staff after hours.

Progress in all areas is monitored and all staff have weekly assessments with the HR staff after the induction phase. An evaluation can be made as to what kind of training is further needed. Is the person underachieving? – if so, what areas of extra training are needed and if they are over achieving, what extra goals can be put in place? Are they interested in doing the relevant training necessary for promotion, would they like to coach others? Perhaps they would like to work for some extra qualifications thought the online coaching available to them.

The personal progression and evaluation plan left me impressed in terms of detail and the opportunities that are presented to employees. To witness it in action and evaluate individuals progression was extremely satisfying. It is actually happening and the benefits are there for all to see.

It is so great to see a centre getting it right! From matching the right person to the right role to tailoring an individuals development plan in accordance to give them what they need for the everyday job and more importantly, what they want to achieve beyond that.

I can only speculate that Manpower Contact Centre Solutions will have inspirational staff retention levels and, at the end of the day, the company’s commitment to develop their people will ensure that their clients are well served – everybody a winner!