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Cebu City, Philippines - A newly-established call center training company is working on improving the Cebuanos? speaking and comprehension skills to bring in more qualified employees to work in the industry.
?Top clients in the US would really want good customer care. It is not hard for Filipinos to be caring because we are natural on that. What we need is to brush up on comprehension skills and work on accent reduction,? said lawyer Aileen Therese Bernadas-Cabalda, vice president for legal affairs of Enovlink Training Center (ETC).
ETC is a Cebu-based performance and improvement company that caters to the needs of business process outsourcing companies.
It recently opened this month in Angelica building along Osmeña Boulevard, Cebu City. It currently has 12 students.
While Cebu ranks as the top emerging outsourcing city worldwide, the quality of its talents who enter the call center industry is slowly becoming dismal.
?Only three out of the 100 call center applicants get hired by top call center companies,? she told Cebu Daily News.
This alarming trend, she said, has encouraged the formation of Enovlink. The company aims to improve English proficiency among potential call center employees and promote financial literacy and good values.
The need to address these issues is crucial as low employment turnout of call center applicants might become a reason for call center companies to move out of Cebu, said Bernadas-Cabalda.
?By working on these skills, call center agents will be able to communicate well with Americans and understand what they are saying,? she said.
She said the center has three call center-calibrated trainers who have worked for call center companies for at least five years.
The center serves as the channel between the industry and workforce. It has partnered with four companies namely Western Wats Philippines, Sykes Asia, Convergys and iComm International.
Apart from English proficiency, the center also integrated financial literacy in its 100-hour training curriculum.
?Most call center agents are earning well but end up broke. We are teaching them financial responsibility and values.?
Bernadas-Cabalda also dismissed worries that the number of call center seats in the country will decline because of perceived pressure that US president-elect Barack Obama will keep jobs within America following the financial crisis.
Citing industry projections, she said, an additional 600,000 call center jobs are needed to reach the target of generating one million jobs in 2010.
As a high-paying profession, she said, working in the industry is one way of keeping people in the country instead of going abroad to seek greener pastures.
The 900-square meter center has four training rooms which can accommodate 20 to 25 trainees each. It also has a computer and conference rooms, where simulations can be done. /Reporter Cris Evert B. Lato
