Should prospective migrants to New Zealand be considered favourably if they intend to seek employment in contact centres that operate in the ICT sector? TUANZ believes they should. CEO Ernie Newman has sent the following letter to the Immigration Department after a representative wrote to him asking for information about the need for migrant workers in helpdesk support roles:
“I circulated your inquiry widely among employers in this specialist field. There has been a range of opinions expressed. By far the majority conclude that yes, contact centre help desk staff are very difficult to find, will remain so, and we need immigration to help fill the gap.
Help desk people can be required at quite a wide range of skill levels depending on the character of a specific workplace so there is no universal job specification or level. In general, the more advanced and demanding the specific help desk role, the more difficult it becomes to find people with appropriate skill levels. Here are some elements you might consider:
1 Diagnostic work: Helpdesk roles have a high level of skill required, as they carry out diagnostic work to fix faults that users have failed to resolve themselves. A helpdesk for Broadband support requires several areas of skill as faults can fall anywhere between the user's PC, the building network, the configuration of the exchange or the line between the exchange and the building. Helpdesk agents are definitely applying and imparting their computer knowledge as they will almost always be explaining the fault to the caller, and hoping that a fix might be possible during the call, rather than having to involve any further level of assistance.
2 Delivering assistance blind: Almost all Helpdesk advice is delivered over the phone, and that is challenging. Only where a remote connection is agreed in advance can the Helpdesk staff take over the PC and fix a fault by remote actions. Most helpdesks provide assistance verbally with no remote connection e.g. the broadband helpdesk at Telecom. This is very skilled as there are interpersonal communication and rapport building skills required as well as all the technical skills for diagnosis. They also have to piece together what the fault actually is, and the user may be unskilled and giving inadequate information. It is a frustrating and highly challenging role with both technical and interpersonal skills required.
3 There are several levels of Helpdesks, they are typically called Tier 1, 2, 3 etc. and each tier is more complicated. The most complex tiers are staffed with highly paid people $75000+ pa would be a starting level. The Tier 2 and 3 staff are very experienced and highly trained.
4 Training: It is not that it is difficult to train the people, the issue is that the content is complex, and there is a lot to learn so it takes a long time. The role has depth and breadth and the content is very varied. There are technical and social/service skills to learn as well.
5 Constant new information – there is a constant need to learn new information, so the loss of staff from the industry through attrition continually reduces the staff pool and this needs to be topped up with experienced staff, hence they are rare.
6 Expected speed of communication and learning globally – in the highly technical industry e.g. vendors of personal information equipment such as iPods and playstations there is an expectation that Helpdesk and Customer Service staff are updated with new product features as they are released globally. One vendor gives the bureaus managing their Helpdesk 30 minutes to update the staff. This communication challenge relies on experienced staff who learn new features quickly.
7 Growing sector – the profession is growing rapidly, and support desk staff make great recruits for other roles in the organization so are regularly poached. Finding new staff when they are in such demand is causing a rapid increase in costs, and luckily new migrants often have a slightly lower expectation of salary rates as they are so keen to get a job.
These roles are rare, difficult to recruit for all the reasons given, and we really need any skilled migrants available. Any applications should be considered very favourably in TUANZ's opinion.”