6 roles you need to pay more to access skilled talent.

Hiring employees requires a balance between sourcing the best possible talent and minding your business budget.

It's tempting to cut costs by hiring at the lowest wages possible, but paying above market rates can sometimes be a more prudent strategy.

Yes, boosting the hourly wage you're offering above what some competitors pay can increase your upfront costs.

But it often leads to better outcomes, such as improved productivity, access to highly skilled talent and reduction in attrition. 

Find out if you're paying your workers enough and check out six positions you might want to pay more for below.

call centre or customer service reps

Call centre and customer service representatives work directly with your customers, often managing interactions with upset individuals.

Whether your CSRs are handling these potential conflicts face-to-face, via the phone or over communication methods such as chat, the jobs can be stressful.

On top of dealing with some unhappy customers feedbacks, CSRs must continually use problem-solving and critical thinking skills to help people.

In short, it's generally a difficult job that comes with relatively low pay. Yet, these employees are critical to your brand reputation and ability to retain loyal customers.

Good customer service leaves a lasting impression—and drives positive word-of-mouth marketing and retention. That's all worth paying more for.

bank customer service and junior accounting staff

While these positions are often considered low on the ladder for financial jobs, they're still critical.

Professionals working as bank tellers or customer service staff or anyone in a junior accounting position may directly work with money, and even a small mistake can make a big difference to your customers and business bottom line.

These positions require a lot of attention to detail and precision.

Paying a bit more to hire junior accounting staff willing to take on those responsibilities with diligence can help improve overall processes and outcomes.

admin assistant

Administrative assistants interact with C-suite and executive employees, business partners and clients on a regular basis.

They're trusted to manage schedules and put the finishing touches on important presentations, called on to set up or troubleshoot tech equipment such as projectors and positioned as the voice of your brand on many occasions. 

Juggling multiple priorities and potentially reporting to a few people can be stressful, yet admin assistants have to remain poised and calm in the face of any task.

That takes exceptionally strong time management, organizational and communication skills—and you're more likely to hire people who bring those traits to the table when you pay more.

developers and IT specialist

Developers and other IT specialists are critical to developing high-quality products or ensuring productive workflows.

And while it's fairly easy to fill your seats with people who seem to fit the bill for your IT positions, it's a lot harder to find professionals who are truly up to the task.

You want developers who can deliver thoroughly tested, high-quality products on time and within budget.

And you want IT specialists who take intelligent, proactive steps to keep your business running as smoothly as possible.

Paying more for senior IT and development professionals can save you in long-term costs related to poor product execution, inability to develop within budget, unnecessary downtime, and other technical issues.

general labourers

When it comes to general labourers, minimal pay equals minimal effort.

Offering rock-bottom wages can also make it harder to find and keep employees, but even if someone does commit to the position at a lower pay, they are unlikely to go above and beyond in any way.

That can impact your overall production numbers or lead to problems when issues aren't reported or handled because they're outside of the scope of someone's basic job description.

Paying just a little more can help ensure workers are happier in their positions, more apt to rise above mediocrity and likelier to remain loyal to your company.

The long-term savings from reduced attrition and better efficiencies may even pay for the increase in wages.

healthcare support staff

Healthcare has always been a high-stress industry, and the COVID-19 pandemic only escalated that.

Nurses, administrative staff and other clinical support staff are often tasked with holding everything together daily and managing the details of patient care.

Yet, on average, these positions are compensated at rates much lower than physical positions are.

By paying healthcare support staff more, employers in the medical industry may be able to keep top talent, increase the quality of patient care and reduce costly errors.