Telecoms giant Virgin Media O2 has moved its Manchester HQ from Wythenshawe into the city centre – and bosses at the new “marquee location” is already helping it to attract new staff.
Greater Manchester is home to the company’s customer care hub, dealing with calls from customers across the country. Virgin Media O2 has been based in Wythenshawe but as its lease was set to expire early next year, the company decided to look for a new base.
It has this week moved its 1,100 Manchester staff into the new Island development in John Dalton Street, off Deansgate. The company says the move is already paying dividends as, in its most recent recruitment round, it got twice the volume of applications for roles at the new site compared to the old one – even for evening shifts that can be harder to fill.
Rob Orr, chief operating officer at Virgin Media O2, said the company wanted to “make a statement that we need a proper marquee location” for its customer services teams.
He said: “This is part of a series of things that we've done over the last several years to really stamp our presence in Manchester as one of the key cities in the Ƶ.”
And he added: “Getting from our old site in Wythenshawe to a brand new building has been the plan for a while.
“It's stunning, I have to say. Our property teams have done a brilliant job. They've really created a space that's fit for the next ten years and really considers how we use hybrid working and flexible working spaces.
“The site's also really important because it's the home of our customer hub. So a lot of our frontline customer service folks will be based in Manchester.
“Typically what we have in Manchester is those really important customer care calls, such as bereavement and managing account difficulties when things like fraud happen. So this really is our kind of marquee site.
“Throughout this whole programme we've talked about creating a customer hub and being in the heart of Manchester and being able to attract really fresh talent as we think about how customer services will change over the coming three, four, five years, with technology like AI.
“It’s really key for us to have a building that will attract employees. It's part of our employee proposition, to help us attract talent, and also to give our employees a home that they can be proud of in the North West.”
The red brick-clad Island building has been developed by HBD, part of Henry Boot plc, and Greater Manchester Pensions Fund. Virgin Media O2 has taken around half the space in the building.
Mr Orr says the response to the move has been hugely positive, both from staff who have already moved and from those moving this week. Speaking to BusinessLive before the move, he said: “I've just sent out a communication internally and my email is literally pinging, pinging, pinging, pinging. The overwhelming response from staff has been super-positive.”
The site has also been designed to accommodate hybrid working, which Mr Orr says is here to stay at Virgin Media O2 even as other firms push to get employees back into the office full-time.
He said: “We're not demanding people to come back. And the way that we spend time when we come back is training, mentoring, coaching, improvement, transformation. Our employees, certainly on the customer hub side, will continue to do what they've been doing in the previous site – three days out, two days in.”
He added: “We're very, very much of the view that getting to a really strong hybrid policy is what the workforce of the future demands, but we also have to recognise that being together is where creativity really happens. Entry-level employees need to be around people to learn the ropes, to learn the job, and so finding that balance is something we spend a lot of time thinking about.”
Mr Orr said AI was not a threat to the business’s customer service teams, but could instead be “a tremendous opportunity for upscaling and upskilling our teams”.
He said: “Many companies talk about taking out costs with AI, but I think about it very differently. I think about how we can use that technology to fundamentally change the way organisations like ourselves talk to customers.
“Initially we'll take out ‘low value’ calls, but in this vision, eventually it (AI) becomes a concierge or a constant conversation with you as a customer of our organisation. And what that means is more jobs, higher skill jobs, different skill sets coming into the business – and Manchester will be the heart of that.
“In Manchester, just to be clear, we will always have the level of human presence that we have. There are just some calls where you have to talk to another human being. You know, if someone has lost a relative or a parent or something's gone wrong, you're not automating that call. Any company with a heart is never automating that call.”
He added: “The key point for Manchester is it's always going to be our primary site for voice contact with customers.”
