Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Philippines Call Center Workers Live By Inverse Work/Sleep Schedules
For foreign outsourced call centers, time zones have been key when serving North American customers: companies looking to “follow the sun,” or provide 24 hour customer service, having agents who are in day shifts while Western contact centers are closed for the night has been an important feature. But for contact centers handling business for companies that have no in-house facilities of their own, this often means contact centers are working on a completely flipped schedule in order to serve customers during the day.
When it’s 8PM on the East Coast of the U.S., it’s 8AM in Manila, and tens of thousands of call center agents are just getting out of work.
“Once you’re a call center agent, your life turns 180 degrees,” Filipino contact center agent Rene Reinoso told Public Radio International. “First of all, you do not (sleep) anymore like the rest of us. Or rather, the rest of them, (those) who wake up in the morning and sleep at night.”
Essentially, there is a large segment of the Filipino workforce operating on a completely flipped schedule. To accommodate agents looking to socialize, Manila features a number of 24-hour bars that allow call center workers to relax and unwind: even if it’s 9AM. Furthermore, not only are many Filipino agents working nights and sleeping and playing during the daytime, they are operating on U.S. holiday schedules, as well.
“Normal workers of the Philippines would enjoy the holidays. We have a lot of holidays in the Philippines. But for us, call center agents, we only enjoy U.S. holidays, like July 4, Labor Day, Memorial Day and Christmas,” Reinoso told PRI.
It’s even a matter of living on U.S. culture: skilled call center agents must be in tune with the weather, the entertainment, the sports and the current events of the U.S. and Canada in order to sound “in touch” when making small talk with customers.
While it sounds like an inconvenient way to live a professional life, call center jobs are highly sought after in the Philippines: call center work pays significantly better than the average low-level office job. Workers say these jobs also open opportunities for more independent social lives.
Call center work is growing in the Philippines: it’s already a critical vertical industry for the economy of that nation. The industry is predicted to be worth about $25 billion by 2016. With this type of growth, more and more Filipinos will likely find themselves getting out of work and heading to a bar or a restaurant at dawn.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi