In the world of contact centre recruitment, one ongoing debate amongst my network is whether it’s more challenging to attract top talent or to keep them once they’re on board.

From my experience as a customer contact recruiter of 13 years, it often feels like attracting staff is the real struggle for many organisations, but does the real test begin once they’ve hired them?

Attracting Talent: The First Hurdle
Attracting candidates is undeniably a challenge and in the competitive contact centre recruitment market, it takes effort and something special and compelling from a company to stand out from the crowd and appeal to top talent. 

To many jobseekers, a contact centre is just a place where they go to work and will spend most of the day on the telephone. They enter the contact centre arena without really knowing the intricacies of the operation, how it works, how a contact centre can drive the success or failure of a business and how a brand can, and will be perceived. For these individuals it can be a true culture shock and it’s here that the challenge of staff retention begins for many employers.

Employers must showcase their culture, offer attractive salaries, and highlight career growth opportunities. They need to ensure that all prospective hires have ‘eyes wide open’ to the unique world of customer contact, the nuances and what are seen as industry quirks, but once they’ve successfully brought someone on board, you might think the hard part is over.

Retention: The Real Test Begins
However, the bigger challenge often emerges after hiring, and retaining staff can be more complex than attracting them in the first place. 

External factors like competitors offering higher salaries or more exciting opportunities can easily turn an employee’s head, not addressing previous attrition and the reasons behind high staff turnover manifests itself in an unhealthy way. The unravelling of a workforce can start here and quickly get out of control in the blink of an eye. 

Why Retention Matters More Than Ever
In today’s job market, retaining talent is about creating an environment where employees want to stay. That means fostering a supportive culture, offering continuous development, and ensuring that staff feel valued and appreciated. 

While attracting talent gets them through the door, retention is what keeps them from walking out. Understanding the root cause of attrition is key and putting fail safes in place as part of your attraction, sourcing, hiring, training and onboarding strategies will see you mitigate staff churn and keep your contact centre operation steady, productive, efficient and as a great ambassadorial function for the company and its brand. Not only will staff be attracted TO you, but they’ll be retained BY you.

Conclusion:
Ultimately, both attracting and retaining staff are crucial. But in a market full of opportunities, the real long-term win is creating a workplace where people choose to grow their careers.

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