Notes on the application of remuneration administration and strategy are at Appendix 2.
Salary and Reward Setting Factors
Survey respondents reported lower levels of reliance on National Wage and Award provisions as mechanisms for salary and reward setting. In contrast, a significant proportion of respondents reported reliance on enterprise agreements and individual competencies and skills.
This trend reflects the wider picture with recent trends in enterprise bargaining, individual contracts and workplace agreements replacing the centralised employment relations scene in recent years through government reform.
A large proportion of survey respondents reported reliance on market rates as a mechanism for setting remuneration scales. This will become an increasing factor in the ability of organisations to attract and retain more highly skilled staff as increased growth in call centres places demands on the labour pool.
The tables below show the factors organisations are currently using to determine salary and reward outcomes for call centre staff.
| Salary Review Strategy - Present | Firms Using This Factor |
| National Wage | 13% |
| Awards | 25% |
| Head Office Policy | 23% |
| Market Rates (eg through surveys) | 44% |
| Enterprise/Workplace Agreements | 41% |
| Competencies & Skills | 52% |
| Job Evaluation Systems | 25% |
| Frequency of Various Combinations of Salary and Reward Setting Factors | |
| Market Rates, Enterprise Agreements plus Competencies & Skills | 38% |
| Market Rates & Enterprise Agreements | 7% |
| Market Rates plus Competencies & Skills | 40% |
| Enterprise Agreements plus Competencies & Skills | 16% |
Future Intentions - Salary Review Strategies
The trend towards the use of individual performance will increase, as shown by the figures below in future intentions for the development of salary and reward setting strategies.
Another notable trend has been in the adjustment of salaries to allow for parity between classifications. This has been a general trend in organisations recently and reflects the changing nature of work value within organisations.
| Salary Review Strategy - Future | Firms Intending to Use This Factor |
| Individual Performance | 68% |
| Increase at risk pay | 8% |
| Increase benefits | 6% |
| Exceptional Cases Only | 7% |
| Adjust for Parity | 20% |
A large proportion of survey respondents (67%) reported that their organisations are presently offering, or considering introducing multi-skilling of staff, while 57% state that their organisations offer true career paths. A significant proportion (30%) of organisations attempt to promote staff into other roles in the call centre, while 22% promote them to roles outside of the traditional call centre structure. Only 18% of organisations do not have, or do not plan to introduce, a formal career management system.
Although a distinct correlation between the size of the company and the existence of a career development plan was not evident, there is evidence to indicate a correlation between industry groups and career development, particularly in the financial services/insurance and services industries. Of particular relevance is the fact that 91% of financial services and 100% of services organisations promote their customer service staff to other roles within the call centre.
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