Graduates of the Foundation Certificate in Contact Centre Planning top 180 in the last 3 years, as latest students say the course gave them the confidence and skills they needed to implement changes in their own centres.
 The latest tutor group of six students recently attended their Certificate Day at Yell’s new contact centre in Trafford Park, Manchester. Recognised widely as setting a benchmark for making effective use of planning and analytical skills within the contact centre industry, the Certificate programmes offer a clear development path, with training, mentoring support and formal recognition of skills.
“What worked particularly well was that the course provided us with the tools to take back to our organisations to find out which methods work best for us rather than delivering prescriptive methods which may have seemed irrelevant or unworkable” explains Kathryn Merrick from Yell. And Becky Wright, from Hillarys Blinds, says “I found the tutorials really helpful – good support from my tutor – I feel I’ve got a lot from it.”
The Foundation Certificate combines an intensive 3-day introductory course, with a four-month mentoring programme that includes workplace projects and a benchmarking site visit, followed by the final certificate integration day.
Working well for planners newly promoted to the role, or for more experienced analysts wanting a refresher on the basics, confidence is a key output for all students. The Forum’s 2006 research underlined the importance of this, with over 70% of respondents saying that confident skilled planners is the key factor behind successful work-life balance projects.
The latest graduates strongly supported this view and Lucy Cooksley, from L&G: “I have more confidence in what I do on a daily basis – I’ve been able to implement new ideas that I heard about during the course.”
The Professional Planning Forum currently offers both Foundation and Advanced Certificate Programmes, with an intermediate level of Specialist Certificates becoming available later this year. These will include new Certificates in Forecasting, Scheduling, Skills-based Planning, Spreadsheets for Planning and Planning for Outbound.
“Congratulations to our recent graduates” says John Casey, Director of Professional Development at the Professional Planning Forum. “More and more organisations from across all sectors are now recognising the value that is gained from investing in their resourcing specialists in this way. Each student goes back to undertake practical projects and we’re seeing more and more change happening as a result. It’s a real confidence –boost for new planners to be able to achieve something real early on in the job.”. |