Tuesday, July 17, 2007 BPO firm launches ‘career cafe’
A US-based contact center has found a way to lure workers in the call center industry and to meet its target of getting 100 hirees per month.
ePerformax Philippines, which officially opened its full-blown operations in Cebu last July 8, has introduced Xpresso Career Café, which is described to be a “one-of-a-kind” career café, said ePerformax president and chief executive officer Teresa Hartsaw.
She said the center is designed similarly to a high-end Internet café with a coffee shop.
“The café allows applicants to browse through the company’s numerous employment opportunities while enjoying a free cup of coffee at the same time,” she said.
Hartsaw said before it formally launched its contact center facility, the company has relied on its career café as a recruitment center, which she considers as the “hippest way” of attracting potential Cebuano workers to the now burgeoning call center industry.
Confident
Riding the waves of the “call center phenomenon” in Cebu, Hartsaw is confident the company will be able to fill its 400-seater facility before the year ends.
Once filled up, ePerformax will continue to expand its operations in the Philippines, which the company believes “is the premiere country for providing top value and top quality contact center services for English-speaking customers,” read a press statement furnished to Sun.Star Cebu.
Hartsaw added the company has not even mulled plans to expand in India since she believes the Philippines provides the “best venue” for its offshore operations.
Contribution
The company, she said, prides in its Performance Maximization Model, which is to develop every employee’s passion to maximize performance in order to capitalize on the team’s contribution to the company’s business objectives.
“We don’t hire for the sake of hiring,” she said in an earlier interview.
In its website, ePerformax requires that applicants hold a college degree or an equivalent technical degree and pass a series of American English proficiency tests, comprehension and listening tests, plus applicable partner-specific tests.
ePerformax, which began its Philippine operations in Manila last 2002, has 1,800 employees.
It has provided solutions for companies in information solutions, telecommunications, transportation, technology, travel, hospitality and retail.
Earlier, the Contact Center Association of the Philippines said it expects the increase in the country’s contact center business to reach $5 billion by 2010.
The Philippine Institute for Development Studies also predicted that the Philippines can grow its market for call center agents to 50 percent. (MMM)
