We first heard the news that our center was closing in the early days of March this year. Sure enough, by the 2nd week of that month, our center shut down until further notice. This development sent a shockwave of emotions and the very first question we had in mind was, where do we go from here?
The first obvious answer would be Working from Home and I'm glad that our leadership was very quick to react. However, quickness doesn't mean it was easy! From March to June, we struggled to get a foothold on creating policies, regulations, and rules that we need to follow.
I work as a Workforce Specialist and if you are familiar with the Business Process Outsourcing business, you know what our job description is. No, we just don't say "Mag Auto-in na kayo!" or "Naka ACW ka!". We are the monitoring body of the whole center and we need to make sure that we have the right people getting the right calls at the right time.
... but how do you do that when the person you are monitoring is at home?
Well, it's not easy at first and it's not getting easier as time goes on! For this experiment to be successful, we have to do it first ourselves. I was the very first one to test out the new monitoring system at home. My computer was busted during this time but fortunately, I still have my laptop. This was the most important piece of equipment that I have during the first 3 months of lockdown!
This is now my work station at home, which still need some upgrades, lol!
After establishing that we are capable of using our tools at home, we have to work on our scheduling process. As the Workforce, we have to experiment again with ourselves. First, 2 of my colleague stayed at the center. We had our supply of "goods" and a makeshift bed set up at the office.
Then came our worst nightmare, doing the solo act! At the peak of our operation, we have around 100 - 200 agents working at any given time. Imagine working solo in a large area with empty stations and chairs, and you have to do that at night! I have a colleague that's so scared, she literally begged to be allowed to render shift in the morning.
I didn't mind working alone at night though and I quite enjoyed the silence. Especially when I got to do this in the office!
-- This is me lying down on the makeshift bed inside our office
Also, meet my best friend who gave me company all those lonely nights alone at the office!
His name is Nigel and he's a handsome fellow!
Slowly but surely we were able to gradually increase the number of agents working at home. When we stabilized the process, it was time to finally open the center for agents to work onsite. This provided another challenge for us. We are basically handling 2 sites at once! Here is a screenshot of the teams we have to monitor in MS Teams (The platform we use for real-time monitoring):
-- Some are blacked out for data privacy
Believe me, the influx of requests, concerns, inquiries is nonstop. Oh, and while we monitor this, we also have to do our reports! So yeah "Windang na kami, kadalasan sabaw na utak namin", but this is what we were bred and trained to do. Improvement of our policies and processes are still ongoing and I'm glad to be part of the team that is spearheading it.
It's easy to complain about how hard our job is, how it's challenging, and sometimes you just like to quit! I had those days but I'm so glad that I stick with my guts to just do my job and do it the best I can. It paid off since we were not given a pay cut and we did not miss a day of work.
On a side note, the announcement of our very own Presidential Spokesperson is bittersweet:
It's bitter since there's nothing to be igagalak about 45% of Filipinos not having a job. However, if you are one of those that have, you now have the opportunity to take responsibility for your actions. The sweet part is having a job but during this crisis, it can be gone in an instant. Show your love for the company.Iwasan na ang petiks since our employers may already be operating in the negative just to keep us employed. I've had these sentiments before and it has come into fruition. This saying is true: love your job and you'll never work a day in your life.
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@Schneidy
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