Trends project.

One of the industries experimenting growth in some countries in development is the contact center industry. Dominican Republic is benefiting from this nowadays; according to experts, it is expected that for the year 2017 the number of bilingual (English-Spanish) agents will double in this country (Bujarski, 2012). Based on my experience working in this type of industry most of the people who work in the contact center industry are usually young people who are willing to hold a part time/full time job while they go to college.   

 

  Furthermore, to work in a contact center, the basic requirements are to be 18 years old which is the minimum legal age to work in Dominican Republic and to speak English and have computer skills. If you have these, then there are probabilities of being hired because the demand for bilingual customer service representatives is high in some countries in development like Dominican Republic, India, Philippines, and some others.

  One of the trends that affects the industry in Dominican Republic is demographics; to be more specific, the age of the people applying for the position at the call centers which is usually among 18-23 years old, ‘‘there are increasing retirements in the developed countries and greater number of young workers in developing nations’’ (Froelich, 2005). However, the fact that it is among 18-23 does not mean that we are not going to find people who are older than that. There are ages from most of the groups, still, the predominant is the one above mentioned. Most of the people apply for this job when they are starting or in the middle of college in order to have a job and have some money to pay for what might come up or pay for school depending on their economic situation.

   Most of the times, when people are in college and have any or little work experience, you do not know what to expect from them until you have them working for you. This is the case in many applicants for this kind of job. Their performance and desires to move up in the organization are different from older workers, ‘’Young workers may be less interested in progressing into leadership positions and more concerned about achieving a healthy balance between work and non-work activities’’ ((Maccoby, 1995; Zemke et al., 2000) as cited in Loughlin & Barling, 2001), they will be living their college life and will be worried about their social life instead of being excellent in their job. The employees usually do not perform to their fullest in this stage of life, this is why the company should develop ways to engage them ‘’employees feel more engaged when they have opportunities to provide input and can contribute actively in the workplace’’ (O'neal & Gebauer, 2006) and in this way make good use of the fact that most of the employees are energetic young people who are starting their working stage of life.

  Moreover, the way to attract young people to the organization (who are energetic, customer service oriented, patient and show commitment in what they do) is different than if we were targeting an older audience; their interests are different and so is the strategy we must use as an organization in order to attract them and retain them.

   From what I have seen, if there is not a consistent hiring process and a human capital strategy defining how the company will work with these young people who are entering the workforce, this will appear directly on the company’s result performance. If these kind of organizations do not have the right people to perform the job, the goals, technology and plans for the future are useless, ‘’ for companies that are truly competing on the performance of their people-their human capital- it is not enough. They need to adopt an HC-centric approach to organizing’’ (Lawler, 2008).

    For example, the company I worked for did not have a human resource department and therefore, they did not have a strategy to retain employees which resulted in them not having the necessary personnel to work at the company and not being able to open more projects. If this is not addressed by having a human resource planning strategy then the business will not be able to perform to its full potential because every time, it will be limited to working with the people they have and not with the amount they need. The human resource department is key in an organization. In this case, human resource should consider including demographic in their planning as this is necessary in attracting and retaining the necessary amount of people in the contact center industry.

  If organizations invest money in developing training specifically targeted to young people and not effective ways to retain them and show them the way to excel in the tasks performed, then it is useless. A well-developed training system and engaging program that allows employees to develop their skills to the fullest while they are in the organization should come with good ways to retain and attract the people for which the learning methods are designed. As Swedish Leif Edvinsson expressed ‘’the only vital value an enterprise has is the experience, skills, innovativeness and insights of its people’’. The contact center industry will continue to expand, hopefully, employees will not only find a job but also a way to grow and develop their strengths.

References

Bujarski, L. (2012, 03 12). BPO Outcomes. Retrieved from http://bpooutcomes.com/dr-call-center-double

Froelich, K. (2005). Talent management in the 21st century: Attracting, retaining and engaging employees of choice. Journal of Small Business Strategy (Bradley University), 15(2), 1-17. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.rit.edu/docview/216372208/1377CCE43004118C6E4/31?accountid=108

Lawler, E. (2008). Talent: Making people your competitive advantage. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Loughlin, C., & Barling, J. (2001). Young workers' values, attitudes and behaviours. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology,74(1), 543-558. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.rit.edu/docview/199343846/abstract/1377CB8749C1B980E03/2?accountid=108

O'neal, S., & Gebauer, J. (2006). Talent management in the 21st century: Attracting, retaining and engaging employees of choice. WorldatWork Journal, 15(1), 6-17. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.rit.edu/docview/216372208/1377CCE43004118C6E4/31?accountid=108