The duo of Tech Mahindra and Spanco have exonerated Airtel Nigeria from the suspension of its call centres, which culminated in the relieving of some 3,000 call center agents.
Although the two
operators of call centers for Airtel Nigeria, noted that as operators
of global Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) ,
operating out of two call centres in Lagos and Abuja respectively, their
attention have been drawn to several messages circulating on the internet
alleging that their client, Airtel had fired 3,000 call centre agents due
to a disagreement over a purported plan to reduce salaries.
“This is untrue and we want to use this medium to put
the fact right,” part of the statement read.
Also, they said that last year, following the signing of a
landmark BPO agreement with the Airtel Group, the duo jointly inherited
over 1,200 Call Centre agents from Bezaleel, HR Indexx and CCSNL who hitherto
provided agents for the company known then as Zain.
They explained that the contract existing between them and
two of the agencies namely CCSNL and HR Indexx expired
effective Friday September 30, 2011, therefore, the third
agency, Bezaleel’s, contract will expire in January 2012.
“So, there is no issue of mass sack but expiration of
existing contracts,”
Further, they stated that prior to the expiration of
the contracts; they had engaged representatives of the agents and that of
the organized Labour on how to manage their transition to the
roll.
“Due to a lack of consensus on the way forward and an
apparent threat to our facilities by some of the agents, we were compelled to
suspend operations at the call centres last Friday, September
30, 2011,” they claimed, stressing that their plans is to expand the call
centres nationwide, therefore they would also recruit new agents with about
5000 employees.
“Going forward, our plan is to offer some of the affected
agents a new contract with attendant salaries and benefits based on their
qualifications and experience,” part of the statement read.
They insisted that on salaries issues, and as world
class organizations, they offer employees remuneration and benefits
comparable to standards across the world and in compliance with
the working and labor laws of Nigeria.
“We, therefore, appeal to all
Nigerians, especially Airtel customers, to bear with us as
we seek to expeditiously resolve the issues and re-open the call
centres in the coming days. Indeed, we
have also taken appropriate measures to ensure
that our client’s customers experience minimal inconvenience during
this brief period,” the duo submitted.
Just as they warned that the activities of these disgruntled
agents are capable of frustrating investors with good intentions and make
nonsense of the Federal Government’s drive for Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI).
They reaffirmed their commitment to growing the BPO industry
in Nigeria and give meaning to the quest by the Federal Government of Dr.
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to create jobs as part of his master plan to
re-engineer the Nigerian economy.
Remmy Nweke:
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
1 comment:
There are a lot of work at home agents who dreamt of having the same job these 3000 agents have. You can see that BPO is a growing industry and they're still looking for more agents. But I prefer to work at home still.
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