Sitel's Newcastle Centre Awarded 'Best Training Programme of the Year'

Sitel, a leading customer care outsourcing provider, won the Best Training Programme of the Year award in the prestigious North East Contact Centre Awards on Friday. The team was also a runner up in the Contact Centre Team of the Year category. The North East Contact Centre Awards celebrate the success of one of the region's leading industries and recognises and rewards the achievements of employees who make North East contact centres among the best in the world.

Sitel is committed to providing learning opportunities that enable all employees to perform in their jobs effectively and to assist in career management. Despite the common misperception that contact centre employment is a dead end, many of Sitel's employees have very fulfilling careers and this is due in large part to the company's ongoing investment in training and career development. The award-winning programme at the Newcastle centre, called Track Training, is a specific training, career-development and succession-planning programme that has been successfully implemented within the Newcastle site for the last 10 months.

Track Training supports development of internal talent within the Newcastle site, utilising a combination of role-focussed training activities, experiential learning, coaching and mentoring. Progress through role-specific and individual Learning Plans is supported via an internal Learning Management System, Sitel University, which enables the integration of on-demand e-learning materials and virtual-classroom training from a Global Learning Team. It also provides automated and bespoke reporting to be able to track completion and quantify the success of training activities.

Since the launch of the Track Training programme within the Newcastle site in November 2010, 18 employees have participated in the programme. Comparing pre-test and post-test assessment scores, this training resulted in an average knowledge-point gain of 30%. Six of the employees who took part have now successfully attained a substantive position within their chosen career path. There are more than 50 candidates who hope to join the programme within the next three months.

"As well as promoting the work of contact centres in the North East, a significant aim of the Awards is to raise the profile of the sector as an attractive career path," said Paul Buie, manager of Tyne and Wear Development Company, which organised the awards. "In this respect, Sitel's Newcastle team has exhibited leadership and innovation that sets the standard in the contact centre industry for training and career development practices."

"The Track Training programme, developed in our Newcastle centre, has enabled us to adapt and flex more quickly in response to our clients' requirements. In all cases where the programme has been implemented, operational performance has exceeded client expectations', leading to a number of client commendations," said Lawrence Fenley, Sitel managing director for UK and Ireland. "We are very proud of the fact that this programme has been recognised with the Best Training Programme of the Year award in the esteemed North East Contact Centre Awards."