Case Study 4 - Turnover Reduction Increased Class Fill

Turnover reduction increased class fill

Manpower was partner to a leading global corporation that offered a wide array of business services—ranging from human resources and benefits to productivity, payment, or payroll solutions—each designed to help its customers optimize their own human, financial, or technology resources. As a provider of workforce solutions and talent for several of the company's key operating functions, Manpower customized a program for recruiting and retention in its call center that delivered high-quality results.

The Challenge  

For years, the company had leveraged Manpower to augment staff for an array of positions within its critical business functions, including professionals with expertise in Accounting and Finance, IT, Engineering, Administrative, and Customer Service/Call Center disciplines. Locally—at a wholly owned subsidiary dedicated to financial transaction processing services—the customer was struggling with turnover as high as 26 percent in its call center, compounded by an inability to fill training classes with qualified customer service candidates, which averaged roughly 80 percent of targeted capacity.

As a leading business-to-business provider of electronic payment solutions, the company both issued and processed a mixture of fleet cards, credit cards, pay cards, and virtual cards that enabled nearly $25 billion in annual transactions. With millions of new cards issued each year, and approximately 1.5 million cards active at any given time, effective call center operations were vital to the company’s ongoing customer satisfaction, and in turn its bottom-line success. 

The Solution

 

The comprehensive ManpowerConnect solution was deployed to ensure the customer would consistently retain the high caliber of well-trained and engaged call center talent that it needed to remain competitive across its various markets. ManpowerConnect implementation experts collaborated on-site with the local Manpower account service team, consulting with their appropriate client contacts at each step to adapt all of its related program elements to fit their defined business needs. 

After meeting with the customer to identify the most important behaviors and skills for success in its call center, Manpower put the full ManpowerConnect process into action—which features innovative components targeted for contact center recruiting, screening, hiring, on-boarding, as well as retention. The team realized it could easily increase the customer’s recruiting geography by using lawn signs and fliers at strategic points along the same major route that its current top employees commuted to work from a nearby metro area—proactively reaching out to 100 percent of candidates who made that same trip. 

The Manpower Applicant Prequalification System (KAPS)—a technology that uses interactive Web- and phone-based applications to automate the pre-screening of candidates for projects with high volume—enabled local team members to quickly screen for essential skill sets. KAPS also allowed the client’s recruiting team to focus time on interviewing only those candidates who met its defined minimal qualifications.

The applicant pool was further narrowed through a second set of behavioral-based phone pre-screening questions. Next, by using the Agents of Excellence™ Evaluation Suite, a virtual testing suite designed to find and keep top agents—Manpower was able to identify just those candidates who best met the behavioral attributes suited to the client’s specific call center environment. Candidates were also tested to assess their aptitude for multitasking in a fast-paced contact center environment. 

The Result

 

Those candidates who were ultimately offered assignments were then guided through a realistic job preview, where they physically toured the client’s site to see their working environment. Successful candidates were also given a customer-specific orientation brochure while on-boarding. 

The Agents of Excellence Evaluation Suite provided the customer with a means to implement a more standard, measurable, and repeatable hiring process. Candidates were assessed using realistic job simulations to determine their appropriate position and environmental fit. Designed with the proven power to predict job performance through modules that focused on identifying concrete work habits, attitudes, and abilities—each simulation walked candidates through a variety of scenarios before they were hired, allowing them to first audition for the part they may play. As a final step to help manage ongoing attrition and drive better employee engagement, a highly effective retention and recognition program was implemented in the call center. 

The collective, extremely targeted and refined ManpowerConnect process resulted in 100 percent class fill, with additional candidates identified and assigned to a future class. Turnover was subsequently reduced to half its original rate in a span of five months, from 26 percent to as low as 10 percent. 

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