BPO firm, school sign call center training deal

About 320 new graduates and out-of-school youth will get an opportunity to earn while getting trained for a job at a call center this year.

Aegis People Support together with its training arm Aspire People Solutions has partnered with Asian College of Technology (ACT) for a dual training program called “Earn and Learn.”

Under the partnership, Aspire People Solutions will work closely with ACT to train near hires.

The first batch of trainees had already started their one month training in ACT, said Dennis Ponce Tagamolila, Aspire People Solutions senior manager.

They will then undergo another 480 hours or two to three months training with Aspire People Solutions.

The trainees would be paid a minimum of P305 a day as allowance, said Tagamolila.

“We started with 11 trainees and six faculty members last April 10. They will end their training at ACT on May 10 and then they will undergo more trainings with us,” said Tagamolila.

This is the first dual training system implemented between an outsourcing company and the academe, said Luisita Yee, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority provincial head for industry services, who attended Thursday’s event.

“We are very happy about this program and we will be committing our support to them. This will help enable us bring the academe and industry closer,” said Yee.

She said that the program would better enable and equip the academe to conduct trainings to would-be outsourcing employees.

“It’s good that Aspire decided to share their expertise with the academe on how to do trainings for call centers. We always welcome such initiative,” said Yee.

ACT is the first academic institution who responded to the partnership proposal of Aegis People Support and Aspire People Solution, said Tagamolila.

“We target to have 20 to 25 trainees from ACT every month,” said Tagamolila.

Aegis People Support also plans to partner with other schools like the University of San Jose Recoletos (USJ-R), University of Cebu and University of San Carlos to achieve their 320 target of trainees this year.

“We will be signing another MOA (memorandum of agreement) with USJR on April 24. We are also currently talking with UC and USC,” Tagamolila said.

Aegis People Support is one of the largest business process outsourcing companies operating in Cebu IT Park.

They are currently building their second tower which will seat an additional 4,000 employees.

“We expect our numbers to double next year with our second tower near completion. This program will help us supply that huge demand,” said Michell dela Vega, Aegis People Support vice president for operations.

Tagamolila said that they are working on getting the program officially registered in TESDA so that their partner academic institutions can offer the training for other trainees outside of the partnership.