Contact centres are reducing staff working hours and working flexibly rather than cutting jobs
David Woods, 22 April 2009
Be the first to comment on this article
Half of UK contact centres (53%) have reduced staff working hours but less than a quarter (23%) have cut jobs.
More than three quarters (78%) have begun to use more temporary and contract workers but more than two thirds have managed to maintain the same number of staff as they had in 2008, while nearly half claimed their operations remain completely unaffected by the economic downturn.
Faraz Kahn, managing director of ProtoCall One, which carried out the survey, said: "A significant proportion of the contact-centre market is under intense pressure to control costs but there is little sign of despair despite the national headlines.
"The majority of firms are looking for greater flexibility through increasing use of contract and temporary workers or simply reducing overtime of permanent staff rather than offloading valuable people they know will be hard to come by as the market recovers."
Poll
Latest Issue
March 2010
Line managers are less critical of HR than they were a year ago - will this continue?
B&Q's HR director explains the company's focus on 18-24 year-olds
Can the science of analytics create super workforce planning?
CSR must be seen as an investment, not a business cost
