Call center firm offers free training to the unemployed

CEBU, Philippines —  Performance 360 has started to offer free call center training to unemployed and housewives, in a bid to provide employment opportunities in the middle of the pandemic.

In an interview yesterday with Performance 360 founder Mike Cubos, he said outsourcing demand is on the rise even during the health crisis, thus call center companies are constantly seeking additional manpower, albeit per project basis.

The company started its free training offering at its host town in Cordova early this month, Cubos said and 45 percent of the 60 participants were housewives.

In the next few months, Cubos said the program will be launched in other towns like Liloan, Compostela, Danao, Carmen, Sogod, Borbon and other northern Cebu towns for its 100-hour online call center training class.

Interested applicants will learn familiarization of the US, Europe, Australia working culture, English communication skills, sales and telemarketing, customer service, call handling and hands-on phone experience.

 According to Cubos, this free training course is not only limited to housewives but also to senior high graduates and jobseekers who want to pursue a career in the call center industry.

This pre-pandemic plan has taken the backseat for while, but Cubos saw the need to revive this planned initiative this pandemic time as more people have lost their jobs.

 “Now is the time to boost job training particularly because the work-from-home setup has become a favorable working style for most companies due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.

Cubos, who is also the founding president of Cebu Innovation Council, and currently the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) vice president for Mobility, said training graduates do not need to work for his company after, although they will offered a job at Performance 360 if needed.

Expanding the training program to the countryside is also the firm’s contribution to attract call center companies to open sites in rural areas with ready manpower.

After tapping the north of Cebu, Cubos plans to replicate the same concept in the southern part of Cebu.

In 2017, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) pledged to work with Performance 360 to roll out the rural impact sourcing in the country.

The DICT’s Rural Impact Sourcing (RIS) program aims to speed up countryside and rural business process management development by forging partnerships with the local government units (LGU).

Rural impact sourcing is an initiative that specifically focuses on areas where there is a high population but low employment due to lack of investors. It is aimed at contributing to the country’s development plan’s pursuit of inclusive growth.