Human Resources at Banco Call Centre

Human Resources at Banco call centre

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Executive Summary

This report identifies and analyses the main Human Resource issues at Banco in addition to providing recommendations for improvements. It indicates key benefits based on appropriate theory and literature. It evaluates each department of human resources and provides solutions to help resolve existing problems and eradicate aspects of business activity that are hindering the overall performance of the business.

Context and Problem

Banco currently operates throughout the country with nearly 300 branches nationwide. The report focuses on human resource issues concerned with the call centre Banco has recently established in order to provide a more competent service for its customers. This industry has rapidly grown throughout the UK within the past few years and an increasing number of businesses have integrated these methods into their services as a means to improve customer service, evaluate staff members more proficiently and ultimately improve the efficiency of the business as a whole. Call centres are at present the fastest growing part of the service sector in Europe, within the UK alone there has been an increase of 24% in the number of call centres from 2001-2005 (Mintel, 2006)

The centre is located in an area of low employment; the majority of staff are full time workers, although predominantly, staff in the call centre operate on a part time basis. Although there is a distinct lack of routes of communication for staff, there is a recognised trade union integrated within the company. However, the problem with this being that there is only around 50% of staff who are currently involved. Currently there is an ineffective hierarchy that has struggled to achieve the high standards expected from the managers. It is vital for Banco to reconsider the structure of their hierarchy in order to help push for a more competitive advantage in the market. This has seen Banco attempt to centralise its activities by providing 24 hour banking to improve the service they offer and establish loyalty and trust with it’s customers. This needs to be a main focus for Banco in an industry which relies heavily on the trust between service and customer.

HRM Roles and Activities

Human resource management has developed from personnel management during the 20th century. HRM is a distinctive approach to employment management which seeks to achieve competitive advantage through the strategic development of a highly committed and capable workforce, using an integrated array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques (Glew M, 2000).

HRM focuses on the most important asset a business has, its employment. Roles and activities that HRM are responsible for include:

• recruitment and selection

• training and development

• human resource planning

• provision of contracts

• provision of fair treatment

• provision of equal opportunities

• assessing performance of employees

• health and safety

• disciplining individuals

• dealing with grievances

• dismissal

• redundancy

• encouraging involvement

The report will take into account these areas within the four sections shown below and will analyse how well the business is carrying out HRM as a whole.

Employee Resourcing

Resourcing is the key role of people as contributors to the realisation of corporate purposes, strategies and goals (Lauden, 2004).

Banco’s main Employee Resourcing problems are recruitment and selection and work place flexibility. This is because increasing competition is forcing a 24/7 environment in order to retain a competitive customer satisfaction rate at the company. These drastic increases in employee targets have caused various problems within the call centre in terms of finding employment with sufficient skills and work flexibility levels.

Banco’s