Survey of call centre rewards 2005

What you will find in this report

The research by IRS and the Call Centres Association covers the reward packages of 191 organisations which operate in excess of 400 centres and employ an estimated 150,000 staff.

The report examines salaries, pay awards and bonuses, as well as data on HR policy and practice, labour turnover, flexible working arrangements and expectations about the year ahead.

Respondents were asked to provide information on their current salary levels, indicating whether staff were paid on a salary scale or a single spot salary, for six key call centre positions:

• trainee

• customer service representative on lower or standard rates

• CSR on higher rates

• team leader

• call centre manager

• support specialist.

Key findings include:

• 43% of call centres provided an across-the-board pay increase in the past year, worth 3% at the median. Others operate individual or team-based merit pay systems.

• Almost a third of organisations (32%) reported making changes to their salaries outside their usual annual pay review.

• Lower level CSRs (customer service representative) formed the largest staff group to see changes to their pay rates; almost one in five (19%) organisations uprated pay levels for these staff. However, the median mid-scale salaries of all occupations have increased ahead of this figure, with CSR and team leader positions experiencing the largest salary increases of between 7% and 10%.

• Median mid-scale annual salaries by occupation range from £12,500 for a trainee, to £34,618 for a call centre manager.

• Almost two-thirds (63%) of survey respondents increased their staffing levels during 2004.

• The public and not-for-profit sector pays higher starting salaries than the private sector for all positions. Public sector starting salaries are between 4.2% and 9.6% higher than their private sector counterparts.

• The biggest regional differences in pay were recorded for higher-level CSRs, where the gap between the lowest paid region (West Midlands) and highest paid region (London) was £3,663 a year.

• London has the highest median starting salary for CSRs, team leaders and managers.