Call centres forced to develop attractive recruitment packages

Call centres are continually raising salaries and tailoring employment packages to ensure they recruit the right staff, according to a report published today.

Performance-related bonuses can also add to employees' salaries, as the call centre industry struggles to shake-off its "sweatshop" image.

The report published by Industrial Relations Services found employers carefully position their pay schemes within local labour markets to get and retain the right employees.

The average call centre frontline wage is now £11,300, which has risen by as much as £1,000 in the last year alone. Philip Pearson, author of the report, commented that given present forecasts he saw "no reason why the call centre market won't continue to get more competitive in the foreseeable future."

Gerald Theresin, Datamonitor consultant, agreed with the report's findings, saying that the change was part of a growing trend towards better trained and more versatile staff. "We are seeing the evolution of the call centre towards the contact centre, involving voice, fax, email and even digital TV information has to be handled, requiring a greater level of expertise from staff," he said.

The report surveyed 40 employers across the country managing 169 call centres.