– Emerge BPO to establish new branch on Camp Street

CALL centres in Guyana, for years, have been providing favourable means of employment for youths locally and the industry is likely to expand as Guyana is soon to become an oil and gas producing nation.

Just recently, Emerge BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) Inc., a locally-founded company with a staff of some 600 employees, is capitalising on the impending boom by ensuring a professional and highly-competent workforce.

The company, which will soon build a new campus on Camp Street, Georgetown, has partnered with Nations University to train interested Guyanese for jobs in the field.

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle, Emerge Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Heidi Solomon-Orlick, said that the company has recognised the need to recruit and build talent in Guyana to meet the standards and developments expected over the next few years.

While the organisation has its own foundation training, career path and talent development programmes, Solomon-Orlick noted that there is a huge gap between the number of individuals who come in for interviews and the numbers that are eventually recruited.

“A lot of that fall out is due to just foundation skills. We can teach them when they come in [to Emerge] but when we found out that ‘Nations’ was embarking on this fantastic BPO training programme, we jumped all over the opportunity for the partnership,” the CEO said.

According to ‘Nations’ Corporate Training Centre Coordinator, Simone Phillips, the course will provide training in the areas of time management, voice and intonation, emotional intelligence, typing skills, how to address an irate customer, and more.

Emerge sees the training as vital to building a highly-competent workforce.

“I know there’s a lot of attention right now in the oil and gas industry and the impact that that’s going to have overall on the Guyana economy [but]… collectively, as BPO organisations, we are significant employers in the Region towards the youth market and the millennial market because the majority of the individuals that work with us are in that 17-23 age range,” the CEO said.

Women comprise some 77 per cent of the company’s staff, she said.

RAPID GROWTH

According to Vice-President (Operations and Diversity), Dalgleish Joseph, the total employee count of all BPO companies in Guyana some 10 years ago was between 100-200. Today, this number has since grown close to 5,000, he said.

“That shows that over a 10 -year period there has been significant improvement in the infrastructure and development of this industry,” he said.

Joseph pointed out that while the oil and gas industry requires specific degrees and skill sets, the BPO industry actively contributes to a reduction in the unemployment levels.

In addition, the oil gas industry has long indicated that it will only be directly hiring a few.

“All you’ve got to do is to see the buildings that these call centres are putting up to see there’s a growth market,” ‘Nations’ Director, Dr. Brian O’Toole said, adding: “They’re huge!”

His remarks are timely as, added to Emerge’s two branches, the company has committed to a new building on Camp Street, Georgetown, which will provide some 600 jobs for Guyanese.

“We believe that Guyana – with its proximity to the US; with high literacy rates; being English-speaking without some of the accent challenges you might find in India or some of the other prominent outsourcing markets – has so much potential that’s untapped and we’re going to grow it,” Solomon-Orlick stated.

Dr. O’Toole has agreed that the potential for growth in the sector is “colossal”, even as he noted that the Nations University is the only institution in Guyana offering courses specific to the BPO industry.

Being a private institution with international links, he said the university is able to quickly source facilitators from its numerous graduates and other specialists overseas.

Expounding further on the course, Phillips said: “Our goal, in terms of providing the course, will be to provide the essential, initial requirements for working in the call centre operations.”

The training, which will come in the form of a six-week course and will result in a certificate endorsed by Emerge, Sambora Communications Inc. and Teleperformance, is scheduled to begin on April 23, 2019 at a cost of G$55,000 with registration included.

Persons can branch out into various areas such as agents, supervisors, trainers, quality assurance and more, while they are also given the opportunity to “self-select out,” or work part-time.

Soon, Emerge and the Nations University hope to introduce other programmes that specifically target the different career paths in the BPO industry geared towards improving the competence of those already employed in the field.