Glenn and Kitty, both with 10 years in BPO, explain why they left: rigid schedules, scheduled breaks, and inflexible leave policies. Kitty recalls a coworker told to give two weeks' notice when her grandmother died. Virtual assistant work offered them the flexibility and morning hours BPO jobs wouldn't.
Questions this video answers
10 years (mostly graveyard shift).
10 years (with one BPO company for the full period).
Business Systems Accelerator (David Jenyns); promo references systemology.com BSA.
Chapters
I worked at the BPO for I think 10 years and that's all graveyard shift. And then after it was close to getting to pandemic when I shifted to the virtual workforce and a lot had changed. I mean, because in the bpo, work from home is not a thing like five years ago. We know that it's available. But a lot of team members in the past, especially those who are in the BPO industry, are afraid to switch to work from home or virtual workforce because they say there is no security or stability. Like you can get a client today and the following day that client might let you go. Well, in the bpo, if you get the client today and then suddenly the client left or they pulled out, you will not totally lose the job. But your company, the BPO itself, is going to find another client that you're going to work with, while if you're on your own, you have to find another one for yourself. But there's a lot of differences, actually, that I've noticed that I was happy to let go in a way when I shifted from virtual workforce from BPO to virtual workforce. So one.
Flexibility with the time when you work in a bpo, probably that's the old setup that I'm talking about. Probably it's a little bit different now for some. But in my time when you work in the bpo, you have a very strict schedule. So you come in and they tell you.
The schedule that you need to go. You can choose like I want to work 8 to 5, but that's not available. So you can, you can work say 10pm to 7am or maybe another later shift. And usually we would go what we call schedule, bidding so ever has the best performance for the month, gets to choose the best schedule. So in, in contrary with the work virtual workforce, most of the time, especially if you're working for an Australian client, you get to work in the morning and then you get to take breaks at almost any time you want, as long as it's not impacting like your deliverables or your meetings. That's another thing in the bpo, actually, that's a lot different. You're even your break schedules are scheduled. So if you're scheduled to take a break after three hours from your shift, then that's the only time that you can take your break. I said a lot. Katie, do you want to share?
I'll just chime in with one particular thing that pops up in mind. Also, the way that we set up, as I said, I've tried a few different ways and I think we're more the exception rather than the rule. Like all my team work from home. Like they don't go into a facility and I've heard a lot of horror stories of people not being able to make it work. I mean, Rodney touched on it saying it's probably something, especially when you're starting out, trying to start there without that support, there's so many different things you have to navigate through. I think one of the things that really helps us is the process. That's our secret weapon. Like a lot of what we do is process driven and we can plug different team members, things like that in. So what Glenn's talking about is, yes, working out of a facility very much versus working at home. And there are some challenges and we'll talk later in the afternoon about some of the pros and cons with it as well with regards to the extra work that you'll have to put in if you're going to go direct. But I wouldn't necessarily suggest that you start there. But that's one of the reasons that I, and I said this way back in the day, Melbourne SEO Services Day was if you can offer flexibility, a lot of great team members will make compromises where, you know, whether that's in their hourly rate or the work that they'll do if they get that extra flexibility. That's why I always say return to work. Mums and dads are fantastic because they might be trained historically for corporate and you know, they were on, you know, high salaries, really well trained, but then when they have kids, they can't go back into corporate and they value the flexibility of being able to work from home and move times around to pick up school kids and things like that. So it's with that same thinking, it's the same with work at home for Philippines based team members as well. You can get some really great talent that will be. They highly prioritise that flexibility, which means if you find the right people. But as I think Rodney mentioned, sometimes it is a little bit of finding unicorns, but I found quite a few unicorns. So the unicorns do exist. Glenn's definitely one. And Kitty, I'll let you chime in, you're another one of our unicorns.
Yeah. Hi, my name is Kitty. I also worked in the BPO industry for 10 years, but only for one BPO company for 10 straight years. And I can really attest to what Glenn shared about flexibility. Just want to share. It's a funny but sad story.
So because we in the BPO industry, we have schedules we need to adhere to very strictly. So that is always reinforced by our leaders. So when you're a staff, you don't really have the flexibility to go on emergency leave unless you have enough accruals to do that. So when you are out of accruals for leave and say there was a story where the grandma. The grandma passed, right. And the team member had to go on emergency leave, I can't go to work today. Texting the team leader, I can't work today. I'm sorry.
My grandma just died. And so the team leader being responsible for the team member and their attendants would respond and say.
The next time that you do this, instead of empathizing, instead of really feeling for the team member, they would proceed to say. Instead of. I mean, they would proceed to say, you could have told me. You could have notified me two weeks in advance per policy, and we can't. It's a funny, but it's a sad story, and it's true. It happens a lot. Not in. Not in like this extreme situations, but, you know, it just explains how less of a flexibility and sadly, sometimes to none in the BPO industry. But that also disciplines you. That's where I got my discipline from. And transitioning from the BPO to the VA industry, where I have more flexibility, I have more control of my time, I have more time with my family. I'm a single parent, and I value a lot.
Time with my son. And it was easy. It was easier because I got the discipline from the BPO industry. And then I now have the flexibility.
To, you know, to balance my work time and family time and really see the value of the family first, of putting family first. Where in the BPO industry they would say, yes, family first. But you. It's not really implemented because again, it's just really from the management point of view, where it's implemented, it's what's reinforced down to the staff. And so, yeah, I think I also said a lot, but that was my biggest.
I just wanted to say that that was during our time. It probably has a lot of changes.
It must be different now. I've been working as a VA for like two years, almost two years.
As in post Covid, a lot has changed, and I think Matt touched a bit on that.
I think a lot of BPOs adapted to the hybrid setup where some are working from home, some are working in the office and. Or like, there are some days that you're at home and there are some days that you're in the office.
I hope you enjoyed that clip. Just a heads up, it was a snippet taken from the Business Systems Accelerator program, which is the world's first training for systems champions to help you build a systems driven organization. If you'd to find out more about the program, head over to systemology.com BSA and I'll see you in the next video.
