Well, let me share my story based on 8 months of experience with Teleperformance.
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Will try to be as neutral as I can, but keep in mind that this is just a version of the reality, do your own research before taking any of this into consideration (or not) before applying for this position/company.
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Will divide this history into 3 chapters, each lasting 2.5 months approx.
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Chapter 1 - FOMO during training:
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The training was ok-ish, no big complaints here, actually the opposite! The atmosphere was positive, there were plenty of new waves starting with +- 20 new hires! Actually, we were hearing things like “This project is growing so much, you guys are starting in a good moment” kind of thing, it´s funny to remember that I saw no more than 5 promotions since I started working, but dismissals on the other hand…
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Chapter 2 - The Downhill - no more than 2 months after being on the production floor, we had 2 colleagues from our wave being fired without any proper explanation and the chaos started to spread between us. A few weeks later, one of the employees that were closer to the Sindicato flagged the information that our 6 months probation period was illegal! Now you can guess what happened to her, she has been fired by HR 2 weeks before her probation periods end, oh and by the way, that person had great numbers and even assisted other trainees during their shadowing/training.
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Here is when we start to see lots of people being fired, some of them had some good reasonings, some others…not that much, but one thing they had in common: ALL of them were on a probation period.
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We quickly understood that the hunger games season was starting to come into play, and everybody under the probation period (legally or illegally speaking) started to be worried about their job, you can imagine the atmosphere at the workplace.
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One thing was interesting though, they didn't manage to do a proper layoff, it was designed to be a soft landing one! Super sneak-ish actually, as they were firing people in batches of 2-4 humans, twice a week.
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As they knew that they did something illegal with our contracts, Teleperformance started to offer 800 euros for agents to stay shut and take no legal action against them.
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And for the end of the second chapter: We had an event where one of the project leaders had the courage to invite all agents on the floor and made it official:
“Our contractor needs to cut hours”, in other words, to fire people.
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Of course, the first reaction was to ask for more details like “How much / when”, but unfortunately, she said that she had no extra info, (which we knew it was not true, but at least we officially knew that the hunger games had started.
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Chapter 3 - The hunger games season
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As the dismissal season had been confirmed, the following days worked as expected: It was common to see an average of 6 coworkers being fired every week, all of them were on probation period (as it’s easier and cheaper to do so, no notice/justification is required).
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So, as you can imagine, the environment and energy were horrible. Everyone on probation was fearful for their job…and the craziest part:
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There was not enough work for everyone, so the employees started a fight to get the few remaining tickets in order to have better KPIs and keep their job… Fear, uncertainty, and scarcity took control of the office.
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At this point, the project accumulated lots of negative stories that won't be shared here due to lack of space, but I had one incident with a team leader who, from my perspective: Was a TOTALLY unnecessary case of power abuse, persecution, and micromanagement. I heard different team leaders (even one that is close to that person) stating that this leader had “strong character” / “lacked emotional intelligence”. The case is much longer, but this is a space to review the project and not about that person/incident.
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Key points: in my opinion, the project needs to fire more people and as no one was on probation anymore, they started to be more strict in order to have reasons for a “rightful dismissal”.
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Last but not least, In my eyes, the biggest issues of this project were connected to those facts:
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1) They overhired agents;
2) Illegal 6 months probation period contract;
3) Camouflaged layoff;
4) Lack of ways to dispute/communicate/position against the opinion of a superior;
5) Favouritism, persecution, and power abuse.
