Agent Alert: A Good Work Ethic Often Surpasses Experience

Too many collections firms try to fill their staffs with experienced collectors, when the better value may be workers with solid work skills that may or not may not have collection industry experience, according to Dan Steinman of Dan Steinman Consulting Group, a Ventura, Calif.-based collection industry consulting firm.

Steinman is presenting his views Thursday on collection firm staffing at a panel discussion on using technology to manage, train and measure collectors during the opening day of the Collection Advisor TECH’07 conference in Las Vegas.

“The mistake a lot of collection agencies make is looking for the most experienced staff,” Steinman told insideARM.com. “That leads to a lot of turnover. A lot of them will come looking for more money. So they’ll leave as soon as they can get more money somewhere else. And a lot of them bring bad habits from where they were before.”

With an inexperienced collector with the right personal and business attributes – eagerness to learn, reliability and dependability – the collection agency can teach the best collection methods, ensure he or she fits in with the corporate culture, and provide a career path that will help encourage lower turnover. That means less time and effort in training and in integrating new workers into the organization, Steinman said.

To provide a good, long-term career path, Steinman recommends that the agency have a work structure that offers promotions for top performers. If the organization is too flat with little room for advancement, Steinman said, then there’s little place for top performers to go other than another firm.

Steinman also recommends that collection firms learn in the initial hiring process the benefits that motivate the prospective employee to see if there’s a good fit. Again, those motivated primarily by money may provide only short-term help. Many other workers, however, are motivated by additional time-off or other perks that lie outside of the realm of salary, according to Steinman.