BY ADRIAN P. NEMES III
Business Process Outsourcing firm Transcom Worldwide reiterated its commitment to continue its expansion and development in Bacolod City, that is one of their biggest sites globally.
Mark Lyndsell, chief executive officer of Transcom Global English Region, said their site is one of the pioneers of the BPO industry in Bacolod and the reason why they would like to stay, is the fact that there are strong pools of talent on top of the strong educational system in the city and in Negros Occidental.
Craig Buckley, senior vice president for Client Service Management of Transcom, said that aside from education, Bacolodnons and Negrenses have very good English skills that attract BPOs to continue expanding in the city and province.
Buckley said that with work-at-home as an option, they would like to see how to continue the investment and development of their site in Bacolod.
Transcom Bacolod has at least 2,800 employees and 2,330 of them or about 95 percent are currently working offsite, or on a work-from-home arrangement.
Lyndsell also said that the challenge that they have right now is that many of their clients are from the United States, who recently changed their strategies and approaches to outsourcing.
Lyndsell said their clients will be the ones dictating whether there will be an expansion or not, adding that every time a site is locked down and work is disrupted, like what happened in Bacolod, the clients would question the management of the location and the delivery of their services.
Transcom’s onsite operation remained closed yesterday after 41 employees tested positive for Covid in January. The firm was also reprimanded for not using the city’s baCTrac system that made it difficult for the Emergency Operations Center to conduct contact-tracing.
What happened will not in any way affect their relationship with the city government of Bacolod, Lyndsell said.
SURVEILLANCE TESTING
Dr. Chris Sorongon, EOC deputy for medical and data analysis, said the 121 Transcom employees who are set to go back to work on site this week have already been re-swabbed Saturday to ensure that they are Covid-free.
Sorongon said the results are yet to be released. If some of them yield positive, they will be extracted from their homes and isolated while their close contacts will be traced, he added.
He said these employees have been under home quarantine after the outbreak at Transcom last month.
The Transcom management is set to finalize today all the things that they need to comply with, based on the recommendations of the EOC, like the installation of air purifiers and additional exhaust fans at the work stations.
Once all of these are in place, and they have already resumed onsite operations, the EOC will conduct another round of inspection to see the movement of employees and whether they are following the recommended health protocols, Sorongon said.
During a virtual courtesy call on Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia Friday, Transcom’s top executives lauded the city government for helping their employees, and both parties agreed to closely coordinate with each other.
PARTNERSHIP
Leonardia said he recognized how crucial the partnership of Bacolod with Transcom is, especially because they have been providing thousands of jobs for residents of the city and nearby local government units. Sorongon noted that Transcom is already in talks with the executives of Moderna Pharmaceutical firm for the possible purchase of vaccines for their employees. He said they may also ask their employees to avail of the AstraZeneca vaccines that will be purchased by the city.*
