Uncategorized

<p>In the beginning of February, I finished the last article in a series of 10 about the Agent Bill of Rights (ABOR) at Rethink Staffing (RTS). In that series, I explore the individual agent stories that inspired the rights of the founding document of RTS — the rights upon which we built our own little society within [&hellip;]</p>

<p>At Fair Trade Outsourcing, salary increases are not automatic but based on individual merit. In fact, we have made tenure raises obsolete in our compensation policies. It’s a bold move. It may appear, at first glance, like we’re very selective in who gets a raise or that we’re trying to be cheap and keep more [&hellip;]</p>

<p>New data from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), the pre-eminent economic research think-tank in the Philippines (even though it’s funded by the government), does a great job of defining the middle-class in a developing world society like the Philippines. As Rethink’s mission is to use a BPO job to get people into the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>This Third Impact Report makes us feel we’re starting to hit our stride in how we impact people’s lives in our Philippine delivery center. We’re making progress in the way we measure our social impact as well the quality of impact work we’ve been doing. This report has seen some changes in the way we [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I’m finishing up my quarterly visit here in our « home base » delivery center of Iloilo, Philippines. As Rethink Staffing begins its expansion in earnest here in 2019, where we’re in the process of doubling the size of our center, I’ve come to call this Philippines center first, our « proof of concept » and now our prototype [&hellip;]</p>

<p>At first, it may seem like an added cost, but paying a COLA actually will cost you less and produce better results than you expect. Here’s why. Original image by Sanja Gjenero via Picspree The erosion of economic power has been the driving force behind much of the social unrest that has gripped various societies over [&hellip;]</p>

<p>For almost a year after starting Rethink Staffing in the BPO industry, I felt an immense guilt about how I was making my living. I would read news reports about the horrible conditions in offshore call centers. When friends asked what I was doing, I stumbled about, responding confusedly and obscuring the truth, in order [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Over the course of this series, in explaining nine of the 10 Agent Bill of Rights, I thought it was best to help explain what Agents live through by giving you, dear reader, their stories. Because I always want the focus to be on our Agents, I hesitated to mention any of my founding story [&hellip;]</p>

<p>January 2019 By Mike Dershowitz, somewhere over the North Atlantic Nearly a year ago now, we rededicated Rethink Staffing to the social and economic welfare of our Agents, not just as the right thing to do, but as a whole new way of doing business in the Outsourcing/BPO industry. Today, I’m pleased to report our [&hellip;]</p>

<p>“You’re an idiot.” JP’s supervisor said to him, reviewing his error. “I’m going to issue you a sanction for this — you should have known better. We have to hit our stats, and this mistake will hurt us in the quality SLA (Service Level Agreement) that we need to hit.” JP was just 20 years old, and [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Elma Mae “Mimi” Pinto used to work at another BPO company in Iloilo before she got hired at Rethink (now known as Fair Trade Outsourcing). She was already a QA Specialist at that time, being promoted from a phones Agent. She usually went to work at around 12 midnight. She was riding her scooter to [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Pixabay.com By this point, Jenny was sick of what happened every time she said the lie. It was so predictable but was undoubtedly responsible for a lot of the misery she felt whenever she came to work. Why did she have to lie every time she took a call? Callers from the U.S. knew that [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The client had always been challenging since day one. Maybe, it was because they were a New Yorker. Perhaps, it was because they were under a lot of pressure to make their small business successful. Whatever it was, the client had quickly developed a reputation for expecting a lot and not being clear about what [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Ailes couldn’t believe this guy was going to do this to him. It wasn’t just that he was going to lose his job. It was the way in which it was going to happen, especially after Ailes had taken a chance on a new, small company, after having been employed at one of the biggest [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Amy (name changed) had been working at her job for 6 months at one of the largest and oldest call centers in Iloilo when it happened. Because of her odd shift schedule, which started at 3 AM local time and coupled with the last jeepney arriving at her office at midnight, she was always at [&hellip;]</p>

<p>In the Philippines, when you work hard in school, graduate well, and apply that same hard work to your early career, opportunity abounds. In particular, Filipinos have the ability to work abroad as “Balikbayans” or “OFWs” (Overseas Filipino Workers). For the last two decades, money that OFWs sent back to their families was the single [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Albert (not his real name) grew up on a subsistence farm in a rural area in the Philippines. His parents were palay (rice) farmers, working as tenant farmers for most of Albert’s life. They made less than $1,000/year, and Albert’s father sold ice cream at the local town on the weekends to supplement their income. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>“It’s going to be another hot day,” Mark (not his real name) thinks to himself, as he begins his three-part journey from his family’s home in their Barangay, 10 km from the center of the town. Mark wishes he can afford to stay at a boarding house closer to work, but the $40/month that will [&hellip;]</p>

<p>From 1784 to 1788, in the years after the end of the Revolutionary War in America, leaders of the revolution, with only state governments to live by at this point, began to feel that the dream of liberty may never be fully grown on the land of America without forming “A more perfect union.” Throughout [&hellip;]</p>

<p>On the Agent Bill of Rights From 1784 to 1788, in the years after the end of the Revolutionary War in America, leaders of the revolution, with only state governments to live by at this point, began to feel that the dream of liberty may never be fully grown on the land of America without forming [&hellip;]</p>