BY HORACE HINES Observer West reporter
Friday, October 10, 2014
MONTEGO BAY, St James — Yoni Epstein, chairman of the Business Processing Industry Association of Jamaica (BPIAJ) has dispelled the notion that customer service agent positions in the BPO sector are dead-end jobs.
He stoutly defended the sector, which employs over 10,000 persons at call centres located in Montego Bay, St James and 14,000 persons nationally, noting that it provides vast career opportunities.
“The agent position is merely a stepping stone to a career in the sector. There is much scope for elevation. Many per sons who started as agents have since risen up through the ranks,” Epstein stated.
Epstein added: “Persons are trained on the job so it is easier to promote persons internally than to seek externally. It builds the moral of the workers.”
A number of persons who have been elevated to managerial positions after starting as agents gave the
Observer West an account of their upward journey in the sector.
Rhonda Rodriguez Simpson, an American-born of Jamaican parentage, who is now employed at Global Outsourcing Solutions, was among those who shared their story.
“I spent nearly two years unemployed after losing the last job from a call centre. So when Global Outsourcing Solutions called me and offered me the position I gladly took up the offer,” Simpson said.
“A few months later I became a manager and I am currently a project manager and I hear that there are more things in the pipeline for me as we speak.”
Michael Daley shared a similar success story.
“I started in the BPO Industry in 2008 as an agent and today I am Director of Operations for Itel BPO in 2014. The BPO industry has allowed me to provide sufficiently for my family and accumulate the necessary wealth to be well on my way to achieving the Jamaican dream,” Daley revealed.
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BPO employees hail sector
