Training young people
in call centre professions

Senegal has become a popular destination for outsourcing customer relations and IT services over the past decade. According to the local investment promotion agency APIX, the West African country's international profile for these types of services is steadily growing. This includes the call centre sector, which now employs over 5,000 people in Senegal, including many young people and women.

Established in Dakar in 2006 as one of the country's first call centres, Way2Call now employs over 1,200 people in five countries in Africa and Europe. "When call centres first appeared in Senegal in the 2000s, the working conditions were difficult. 90 percent of the employees did not have a proper employment contract," reports Khadim Gueye, head of human resources at Way2Call. The company therefore attaches great importance to continuously train young people and to offer them permanent employment and career opportunities. Through continued training, the company hopes to get qualified employees and to proactively counteract the lack of skilled workers.

Despite a steadily growing economy, high youth unemployment remains a major challenge for the West African country. More than 60 percent of the Senegalese population is under 25 years old. Many of them work in the informal sector, are underemployed or unemployed. Every year, around 300,000 new job seekers enter the labour market. To enable even more young Senegalese to find permanent employment in call centre professions, Invest for Jobs currently supports Way2Call by financing trainings and equipment such as computer.

Invest for Jobs supports Way2Call in training 1,250 people. The training is aimed at 600 existing employees of the company, who can improve their skills and thus achieve a higher salary. A further 650 external persons are to participate in the training, 500 of whom will subsequently be hired by Way2Call. The training lasts between 4 – 6 weeks and covers topics such as problem-solving methods, data security and English language skills. Since there is a great demand for trained professionals in the growing sector of customer and IT services, the trainees do not only increase the chances of employment at Way2Call but also at other call centres. 

Way2Call primarily targets students and young university graduates from all parts of society with their trainings. "We attach particular importance to people who live with a physical disability. At Way2Call, their recruitment becomes a priority from the moment they are able to practice this profession. We do not hesitate to provide suitable facilities or even let them work from home. Our goal is to show society that this part of the population is also very useful. This helps them to be accepted in society and to develop," says Khadim Gueye.

Way2Call's long-term goal is to become a major player in the field of customer relationship management in West Africa and a global reference for quality and transparency.

In addition to providing support in the areas of training and employment, the partnership with Invest for Jobs is also intended to place Senegalese companies from the call centre sector on the international stage and to reinforce the countries capacities in customer relation services. "Thanks to the financial and logistical support we receive from Invest for Jobs, we can achieve our goals," explains Khadim Gueye.

With the support of Invest for Jobs, more than 580 young people have been trained at Way2Call on topics such as end-user requirements, managing customer relationships and mastering support channels and mobile data offerings since the beginning of 2022. 124 people have already been employed by the company.  

The company Way2Call is being supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH within the framework of the Special Initiative "Decent Work for a Just Transition" on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).