HEART Trust/NTA signs employment agreement with Sutherland Global
THE HEART Trust/NTA on Tuesday signed a training subsidiary agreement with Sutherland Global, which will allow almost 3,000 unattached youths to intern in the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) sector.
The agreement, signed at the head corporate office of HEART Trust in Kingston, falls under the Government’s flagship training and apprenticeship programme, Housing Opportunity Production and Employment (HOPE), which targets unattached youth, aged 18-24, who are not in school or unemployed, a release said yesterday.
“We believe that this initiative will yield some employment opportunities and have a big impact on reducing the unemployment rate of our youth in the country,” Nicole Manning, senior director of corporate planning and strategic development at HEART is quoted as saying. “This partnership is good for us. It not only allows us to focus on the youth but also those that are unattached and would not otherwise be engaged.”
Sutherland Global is one of 15 BPO firms currently being engaged by the trust to train around 3,000 youths, with each firm accepting 200 individuals. HEART has already partnered with four other BPO firms: Itelbpo, Centrefield, IBEX Global, and Concentrix (CNX), the release said.
Under the agreement, HEART will subsidise the students in the programme while the BPO firms will assist in providing work experience and training.
“This model has the potential to make it much easier for the BPO sector to grow while still being sustainable. I believe HEART Trust/NTA will be patient enough to tap into a pool of individuals that are sometimes overlooked because the industry is moving quickly and overhead cost is of the essence,” said Odetta Rockhead-Kerr, vice-president and country head for Sutherland Global.
“This agreement is concretising the confidence and commitment in the industry. I think partnerships like this are required because we have some very aggressive goals for the company and the industry. The only way for us to achieve them is by identifying a partner that will not just comb the job market but develop the skills and prepare them so that we can absorb them at a faster pace,” Rockhead-Kerr continued.
According to the release, the BPO sector is one of the key industries identified by the Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) with the potential to drive economic growth in the island.
“We try to facilitate agreements like this to grow investment. In the BPO sector, this type of agreement is an additional financial incentive for companies while improving our competitiveness as a country to attract and retain these investments,” Roger Williams, national outsourcing coordinator at JAMPRO, said.
As Jamaica’s human capital development agency, the release said HEART plans to train and certify 11,000 people for the BPO sector annually over the next three years, for a total of approximately 33,000 BPO-trained graduates by 2020.