Purpose Call centre taking mostly inbound calls from all
around the world.
Size 80 employees.
Massages every Thursday, an onsite gym and tanning booth, lots of cash incentives and an annual house-boating trip on the Shuswap. And you get to talk on the phone all day.
Call centres don’t usually have a reputation as particularly fulfilling places to work, but PDL Contact Centres shows it can be done, albeit with a lot of effort.
“It’s a tremendous amount of work,” says PDL president and COO Desiree Bombenon, who herself started at the company answering the phone. “It’s a tremendous amount of trust that you have to build with your front-line staff. Everything is important to the front line.”
PDL employs 80 people at its office in Calgary and runs another call centre in Cornwall, Ontario. It takes mostly inbound calls on behalf of clients such as Travel Alberta. If you call the Travel Alberta line to ask about provincial parks or historic sites, you’ll talk to someone at PDL.
Heather McWalter is one of those agents. She started at PDL when she was 20 and is still there 10 years later. “I like the flexibility,” she says. “Each day is different, and it’s a great team atmosphere.”
She likes the incentives, too. Five years ago, McWalter earned an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas; she was due to go to Mexico later this year but opted for cash instead because of concerns over the H1N1 flu.
Most of PDL’s employees are between the ages of 18 and 30, and the company’s incentive programs are designed for them. There’s a points program that allows employees to gain or lose points based on attendance, punctuality and quality of calls. They can use the points for gift certificates at the mall, or tickets to sporting events. The top three agents of the month do a “cash grab,” and all employees can earn Air Miles to use toward vacations.
Working at a call centre can be an isolating experience; PDL’s agents are on a secure floor and spend most of their time on the phone. To communicate with their co-workers, staff use the intranet to chat, ask for advice about problem calls and compare the quirkiest calls of the day.
As a result of all of these efforts, PDL’s employee turnover is lower than the industry average and getting better as the labour shortage eases off.
Bombenon says she thinks the boom was ultimately good for Calgary’s corporate culture. “Everyone learned that they had to treat their employees well to keep them on,” she says. “I hope it doesn’t regress back because there’s a recession.”
pdlcc.com
Key Employee Benefits
Lots of incentives, including cash bonuses and Air Miles toward travel; an onsite gym and tanning bed; weekly massages; flex days.
Why it’s the Best Place to Work
PDL’s owners treat their employees with respect and encourage independent thinking. Employees work as a team and contribute to each other’s success.
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Visitor
second home
Submitted 7 weeks 2 days ago
i've been working for PDL for 6 years now and can truly say I consider it my second home.
It is sad to see individuals dwell on the past. Oh well there will always be those types of people.
Life moves on!
Visitor
Almost there...
Submitted 17 weeks 6 days ago
I heard the owner finally fired his kid after putting her in charge of the call centre. Good for him. Now he just needs to replace himself with an honest business owner and PDL might have a fighting chance.
Visitor
Now really..who screens this propaganda
Submitted 22 weeks 1 day ago
I too must agree with the above statements. I worked there for about 3 months. Nothing they told me about there firm was true. I knew Heather and she is a great person and team leader. The company itself comes no where close to her in several ways. The equpment and office standards are abominable. There are computers sitting in the call center floor stations with notes on them saying they don't work. Mr Holmes should pay them a visit. The IT department never has there act together in terms of sure the equipment functions properly. Need I say more?
Visitor
What money can buy!!!
Submitted 1 year 7 weeks ago
There has never been 80 employees in calgary closer to 13 a year ago. The owners only think of themselves. I was an agent lasted for a few months, somehow they lost all the banked time hours, what a joke anyway of getting out of paying us properly.
Visitor
Silly Billies.
Submitted 1 year 9 weeks ago
As the previous poster had stated, this article amazes me also. I find it surprising that this company, after 28 years of business only had the aforementioned Heather McWalter to their credit as their only long-term employee. Nobody else has been there longer than a year.
They have violated several labour laws and seriously need an ego adjustment. Wake. Up. Bombenons.
Visitor
PDL = garbage
Submitted 1 year 19 weeks ago
This article amazes me. I worked there for a few months, and found it to be one of the worst experiences I've ever had. In the few short months that I worked there, they managed to prove themselves to be one of the most unmotivated, unorganized, retarded companies I've ever seen in my life. they docked pay for sick days that I wasn't sick for and actually worked, and then they had the nerve to bring up all my "absences" at my 3 month review. My only absence was the one day I took off to attend a funeral. 80 employees??? when I worked there, there were only 10 of us. maybe 15 in the calgary office. They lure you in with all these claims, such as coffee, snacks, a points program, etc... but they don't have any of it. the points program doesn't even exist.
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