Retained Talent Adds Value

Repurpose Talent. Don’t Displace It.

Repurpose. That’s a word you don’t hear a lot, if hardly ever, in American business today.

More often, it’s displace, as in no longer needed.

But once in a while—and this is one of them—existing talent is given new purpose. Offered meaningful opportunities after a job ends.

Work Is Fluid

Such is the case for a large group of agents, contracted to work on one of our hospitality programs. After many years with us, the client decided to shift customer care work off shore while increasing its American focus on sales.

The move required different skills. Though right for the client, the change proved rough for agents. Average tenure on the program was more than two years, with several agents providing service for seven.

Still, they understood why, as we explained the decision being based on business needs—and not their performance.

“At Working Solutions, the work is fluid,” said April Wiita, senior director of program success. “So we invest in agents for the long term, across many different accounts.”

Options Given

“On this program, we had a lot of customer care talent already in place. With the change, we could go a couple of ways: One, contract with new sales agents or ensure those already there were suited for sales work. Or two, recontract with them, if possible, to other clients that needed elite customer care agents.”