It’s a struggle to attract and retain talent for collection operations, may it be a junior position like a collector, legal assistant, or an executive level to head the operations.
Here are 3 common reasons why hiring is still hard for collection agencies,
1. For many it is considered as a temporary job – 2 out of 4 employees joining a collection agency consider their position to be a temporary role. This is because of the notion that one cannot build a long-term career within collections as an industry. So, most of them consider this as a provisional role in their career journey and constantly look out for an alternative in less than 6 months.
2. Negative perception – For decades the negative sentiment around collections and debt recovery is still prevalent and there is very little work done to change this. It is hard to find a newly graduating student who has an aspiration to build a career within the accounts receivable industry.
3. Still on dated technology – Even today, for various reasons agencies are reluctant to adapt modern technologies which could make it a less attractive place to work, especially for the next generation workforce. Remember, Gen Z’s walking in for an interview grew up with smart phones, gaming consoles and multiple social media platforms. If the workplace is filled with manual work and legacy technology, the likelihood of retaining them is very low.
The truth is - all of these are addressable.
There are constant efforts taken by many including the associations representing the accounts receivable industry, ACA international through its scholarship program and increasing the financial literacy among students and young graduates. Hopefully this will build the reputation the ARM industry deserves.
Though accounts receivable could be a very domain specific, many have chosen to build a successful career in collections and emerged as a successful leader in various areas of operations – Legal, Client success, Sales, Operations, Data Analysis, Technology, etc. Maybe it’s time to share more of these success stories to young employees and reduce the turnover.
With the rise of AI and RPA in collections, agencies are rapidly adapting technology and choosing to implement it within various areas – consumer communication, dispute management, EDI, legal, accounting, etc. Importantly, many of these requires no integration with your host systems, makes it easier to deploy it within weeks on those manual tasks and modernize the workplace.