Talk Talk firm set to double its workforce

Carphone Warehouse is set to recruit its 1,000th member of staff in less than 12 months and is expecting to double its workforce in 2007, Personnel Today has learned.

The telecommunication giant is recruiting more than 20 staff a week to deal with increased demand for its Talk Talk telephone and internet service, introduced in April.

At the start of 2006, the company had 40 staff at its call centre in Preston, Lancashire. By December, it is expected to have a workforce of 1,000.

Richard Smelt, group HR director at Carphone Warehouse, told Personnel Today that the company had underestimated the demand for its Talk Talk service.

"It's been a very busy time and we have ended up with many more customers than we'd anticipated," he said.

The company is using a range of local recruitment methods, including news­papers, shop windows and even bus stops in Preston. But Smelt insisted that standards had not been compromised by the scale of the programme.

"We've continued to use assessment centres to recruit. We've been targeting people with a strong customer ser-vice ethic who may not necessarily have call centre experience," he said.