Ethnic diversity the key for contact centre growth

The sector, ahead perhaps of all others, interacts at the most personal level with customers from a wide spectrum of social and ethnic backgrounds but this is not adequately reflected in the people employed.

Industry leaders maintain the status quo cannot be allowed to persist and must change but why and how?

Well, to truly reflect the multi cultural society it serves the £400m-a-year Welsh contact centre industry, which employs some 24,000 people, needs to actively recruit a similarly diverse mix of people.

This will benefit Welsh contact centres, as they can expand their recruitment drive to a greater cross section of society and also to individuals, from ethnic minority backgrounds, who can be encouraged to put valuable language and cultural skills to their best use.

There is also the not insignificant matter of a 'tight' existing labour pool.

John Lenney, founder and managing director of Cardiff Based Immtech, which specialises in training people in music, multimedia and diversity, says attracting recruits from ethnic backgrounds into Wales' flourishing contact centres makes both economic and social sense.

John, who is to deliver a series of diversity workshops on behalf of the Welsh Contact Centre Forum Ltd. said: "People like to deal with people like themselves. It is simple human nature. With our society becoming increasingly ethnically diverse it stands to reason that this situation should be reflected in the workplace none more so than in public facing sectors such contact centres".

He said: "In the UK ethnic minorities will account for half the growth of the working population by 2010 so employers are severely limiting their range if they are looking to recruit from a single ethnic pool. "Employers who are not alive to this situation are effectively missing out on a vast amount of untapped talent waiting to be given the chance to show what they can offer."