CANADIAN METRO TIERS
HOW, WHERE TO SERVE CANADIANS
BOX
Canada has a strong, culturally / linguistically diverse domestic market that has long required advanced contact centers with highly skilled agents to meet the needs. We reached out to Dennis J. Donovan, principal at Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting( WDGC), to find out how and where best to locate contact center operations there.
STRATEGY
A hybrid workplace model would generally be the best for recruiting / retaining workers in Canada, Dennis points out. It is often more favorable than full-time on-premise due to flexibility for the customer service agents.
“ Flexibility allows for greater work / family balance,” says Dennis.“ In turn, this enhances agent recruitment and retention.”
In a hybrid workplace model, customer service agents would be in the office three to four days a week and work at home one to two days a week. Ideally the agents should reside within 30 minutes of the physical office( for ease of commuting).
A more national remote workplace model would not be among Dennis’ recommended staffing strategies in Canada. Here’ s why:
• Declining employee engagement.
• Erosion of company culture.
• Reduced collaboration / spontaneous support.
• Challenges for successful team building.
• Performance monitoring / management.
• Security / compliance.
A fully remote strategy could work if these agents are in the same metro areas as their companies’ offices with mandatory on-site meetings at least once a quarter, i. e.,“ local remote.”
“ If a company believes that the benefits of at least partial in-office are not critical then a local remote workplace model might be acceptable,” says Dennis.
DENNIS DONOVAN
COMMUNITY TYPES
The location strategies pertaining to U. S. contact center locations also generally apply in Canada( see April Feature). In the Tier 1 metros, Dennis advises choosing suburban submarkets that are proximate to where targeted skill sets reside. These submarkets should be characterized by:
• Extensive labor pools( direct customer service experience in a specific industry, pools of workers with previous customer interfacing experience, and presence of underemployed).
• Available office space that confers an HR advantage for recruiting / retaining agents( e. g., access, internal work environment, amenities).
• Favorable labor / demographic profiles within the primary commute shed( e. g., 30 minutes) from candidate office sites.
In Canada, there are no formal metro tiers as there are in the U. S. and, reflecting the country’ s smaller population, WDGC’ s definition is as follows, with examples( see FIGURE 1):
“ Of course, in Canada, multilingual( English and French) is important,” says Dennis.“ Occasionally trilingual( English, French, and Spanish) can become a criterion.”
GOING SMALL-MIDSIZED?
Contact centers should give serious consideration to locating in small-to-midsize( Tiers 5, 6) metros in Canada.
“ In these metros there is less intensive competitive labor demand, ample supply of qualified skills, moderate turnover levels, lower operating costs especially labor, and minimal risk of future cost escalation( especially labor),” says Dennis.
CANADIAN METRO TIERS
FIGURE 1
12 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE