The Department Of Health
12/11/2006
Details Of The Clients:
The Department Of Health deals with all correspondence on behalf of Government Ministers, with up to 5000 requests per day. They have 80 Contact Centre Staff, 60 of which work on a temporary basis. The Contact Center was created to improve the service of the department.
Tate’s Brief On The Positions To Be Filled:
The DOH Contact Centre is split into two, Drafters and Call Centre Staff.
Drafters are assigned to Ministers Of Health and are responsible for replying to any written correspondence. They are targeted on ensuring well written responses are sent as soon as possible.
Call Centre Staff deal with around 5000 telephone calls and emails a day, staff need to have strong grammar and communication skills.
All candidates must successfully pass a 2.5 hour assessment before being offered a position. This includes; spelling, grammar, drafting of a letter and critical thinking; they need to gain at least an 85% pass mark to be successful.
Tate’s Strategy For Attracting Suitable Candidates:
Tate won a place on the DOH SLA, but faced many challenges when filling the positions. Tate were the only agency with no previous history working with the DOH. The job specifications were very detailed and complicated. Attracting the right staff in the London was a real challenge, traditional communication methods such as press did not appeal in such a fast moving market. The DOH currently had a turn around time of 10 days for each response; the new management team wanted this reduced to 48 hours.
An Account Handler, Sam Hart (Senior Recruitment Consultant), was selected to deal with the challenges. Sam analysed the job specification to understand what key office staff could be targeted for these specialised office roles. She also researched where we could find these candidates. In addition she bespoke the Tate testing process to include four spelling tests – basic, intermediate, two advanced level and written exercises covering grammar and letter layout.
Sam targeted candidates who had worked in a teaching role – ideally with an English language or to those who had proof reading or copywriting experience. An online approach was taken into recruiting staff and the job vacancies were loaded were online onto Reed, Total Jobs and London specific sites such as Secs-in-The-City, Secess and TNT.
The Outcome:
Within a short amount of time Tate had placed 10 candidates in the Drafting Department.
To date, Tate now have 35 temps out working in the DOH, out of 5 agencies, Tate has the second highest amount of staff in place. Some of our temps have been in place for over 2 years, whilst others have been promoted or secured permanent positions.
The Department is now on a 48 hour turn around with responses and the quality has improved. Tate has just signed to work with them for another 2 years and been selected to work with the other DOH office’s.