Mums with children at school are proving to be outstanding part-time call centre employees, according to Todd Johnson, customer service manager at Aviva Australia.
Mums with children at school are proving to be outstanding part-time call centre employees, according to Todd Johnson, customer service manager at Aviva Australia.
"And the mums love the stimulation – and the extra cash," said Michelle Stephens, mother of two young boys and Aviva client service officer.
Following research highlighting the busiest times for inbound calls, Aviva has recently recruited seven mums looking to work during school hours to plug a growing gap in its customer call centre.
"Essentially, we found peak demand for incoming calls is between 10am and 2pm, which fits in very comfortably with the school day. As a result, we specially targeted employing mothers as part of our recruitment process," said Todd Johnson.
"We found our flexible work arrangements appealed to women in their early thirties who don’t live too far away from our St Kilda Rd base. This allows the part timers to manage both their family commitments and their interest in maintaining a stimulating job," said Todd.
Michelle Stephens commented she didn’t feel like she was missing out on anything in her new role.
"I’m probably out of the house for the same time I was before going back to work. Instead of catching up with friends, I’m at work and earning an income – and feeling like I’m financially contributing", she said.
Todd Johnson added: "As well as the obvious benefit of having a flexible work force to provide additional resources during our peak time, we have also found a significant improvement in the quality of the work done by the whole team.
"I would suggest this is firstly because our part time staffers really want to be here and value their work, but also having dealt successfully with the demands of young children, the call centre is a walk in the park!"
"Another unexpected benefit of recruiting these part time staff is the influence they have on the rest of the staff. Typically, a call centre attracts young people in their first professional role after university, or a second role following school. Having a team of people with more life experience around helps the younger members. Quite a few of our ‘mums’ are natural mentors to the less experienced team members."
Aviva has also recently upgraded it’s maternity and paternity leave provisions and has in place a lactation room, complete with refrigeration and water supplies, to assist those mums who want to continue in the workforce and feed their children.
Alexis Beckwith, group general manager of Human Resources, said identifying a new talent pool in the community was very exciting.
"The success to date of our recruitment program shows how important it is for a modern employer to have a flexible approach. If we had kept a rigid outlook and demanded that staff are at work from 9am to 5pm we would have missed out on getting the benefits of employing mature, confident and experienced people to help cover our peak period.
"The company also has a number of mums who work part-time in other roles, ranging from strategy & process quality through to public affairs. We have also instituted a new ‘Keep in Touch’ program to ensure our colleagues who are at home on maternity leave continue to have regular contact with us and feel part of the company.
"When you add the family benefits and the flexible approach to employment, we are striving to make Aviva Australia an employer of choice – and I think we are well on the way to achieving that goal," said Alexis Beckwith.
For further information please contact:
Simon Morgan
Group General Manager Public Affairs
tel: (03) 9829 8892
mobile: 0407 966 632
Notes to editors:
- Aviva Australia is a group of two specialist financial services companies: Navigator and Norwich Union Life Australia Ltd. Portfolio Partners, the Australian funds management arm of Aviva plc, is a sister company. Through these companies we provide products and services in the areas of wealth creation, wealth management and wealth protection for more than 300,000 customers throughout Australia.
- Globally, Aviva Australia is part of Aviva plc, the world’s fifth largest insurance group, the largest insurer in the UK and one of the top five life companies in Europe. Aviva was formed in May 2000 through the global merger of CGU plc and Norwich Union plc.
- Aviva is a leading provider of life and pensions products to Europe and has substantial businesses elsewhere around the world. Its main activities are long-term savings, fund management and general insurance. It has premium income and investment sales from continuing operations of A$78 billion, and more than A$624 billion of assets under management (as at 1 July 2004). The group has more than 56,000 employees and 30 million customers worldwide.