Ex-pats in Spain to fill gaps for UK businesses as remote workers

Ex-pats living in Spain are being recruited and trained to work as remote telemarketing staff for English businesses because there is a shortage of suitable candidates in the UK.

Call centre staffing company Sensée has hired 10 sun-soaked British workers as telesales agents for Sense On Hold (SOH), a UK-based company providing marketing to callers while they are waiting on hold. The agents will never meet their new bosses at SOH, as all elements of recruitment and training take place online.

The move reflects the growing number of employers using mobile workers for traditional, office-based jobs.

Steve Mosser, managing director of Sensée, told Personnel Today: "The idea behind recruiting ex-pats is that it doesn't matter where you are to do this job, as long as you fill certain criteria.

"The application process is online, so we don't ever meet the employee. Interviews and training are conducted over the web, and when they reach a certain grade, we match the skills of the person to the employer."

Working from home, the agents will call UK businesses to sell SOH services and set up appointments.

The type of work makes it easy to measure individual performance, according to Mosser, as employers can track how many appointments and calls they make.

Hiring candidates remotely costs approximately £400 per employee, compared to £4,000 per employee when recruiting in the traditional way.

"We wait the longest time possible before having to make human contact with them, which brings huge HR savings in recruitment and training," he said.

SOH said it had won more than 60 new contracts in the past six months since working with Sensée telemarketers.