The contact center industry aims to employ 96,000 Filipinos by the end of 2005 and will need a competent workforce to fulfill the demand.
Convergys Corp. decided to focus its assistance for national development on what it knew best: oral English communication.
Speaking at the recent Corporate Social Responsibility Expo, Marife Zamora, Convergys vice president and country general manager, said the company was determined to maximize its effect by training teachers who could train other teachers and students in the subject.
For this, Convergys partnered with the Department of Education’s Mentorship Program, which involved teachers of subjects like English, Math and Science who have passed the qualifying exams for the National English Proficiency Program of the National Educator’s Academy.
The academy is also tasked with training public school teachers.
"We had to reach out to people who could influence others by their passion as well as skills in passing on what they knew. We needed trainees who were open to challenging themselves to go beyond what they had grown accustomed to, and had the courage to initiate change," Zamora said.
The Oral Communication Skills Training for Secondary Public School Teachers was conducted for participants from Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.
Backed by their experience of teaching English as a second language and communication arts, as well as training well over 5,000 technical and customer service representatives, Convergys trainers from the culture and communication group facilitated the workshops.
They volunteered to give up their weekends and conducted the training for free.
The two-day training workshops consisted of modules in accent neutralization, intonation, pronunciation, practical grammar, assertiveness, positive phraseology, and thought organization.
To fully complete the course, the participants were required to train other teachers in their school divisions.
Oral communications training for public school teachers is only one of Convergys’ projects for Filipino education. The company has also supported Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation and has a new literacy program underway with the Philippine Business for Social Progress.
Convergys was named the "Most Admired Company" by Fortune Magazine for the fifth consecutive year recently. Fortune also rated it number one for social responsibility.