Penn State Outreach Cutting Eight Call-Center Jobs

Eight positions in Penn State Outreach will be eliminated next month as the university closes a general-information call center there, Outreach spokesman David Aneckstein confirmed Thursday.

He said eight workers — six under annual contracts, two with more permanent appointments — learned this week that their jobs will be cut as of June 30.

The University Park-based call center where they work handles general customer inquiries about the Penn State World Campus, Continuing Education and other Outreach-affiliated operations.

While Outreach and its programs are growing, Aneckstein said, call volume at the call center has dropped substantially as more people rely on the Internet for general information.

‘Our prospect pool for academic Outreach programs is growing (20 percent a year). But the volume of calls to our general-information lines has dropped because of things like easy access on our websites,’ he said. ‘ .. We put a lot of information on our websites.

‘What ends up happening is, people are looking for general information there,’ Aneckstein went on.

And so, more and more, those who do ring the general call center are looking not for general information, but for someone who can answer more specific questions about the program-registration process, he said.

In fact, Aneckstein said, the enrollment-services portion of Outreach is looking to fill three new positions that will address callers’ specific advising- and registration-type questions.

The eight people whose call-center jobs are being cut may apply for those three new jobs, Aneckstein said.

He said the call-center cuts are not related to the Core Council-led cost-control process that’s happening across the university. Nor are the call-center cuts related to the state budget situation, Aneckstein said. He described the change as a ‘strategic business decision.’

Additional coverage

• Cuts at Penn State ARL Seen as ‘Temporary Slowdown,’ Director Says (Feb. 23, 2011)
  

• StateCollege.com’s Penn State news page