7 News Belize

Ready Call Going Through Changes, 100+ Jobless
posted (June 1, 2017)
Tomorrow the Ready Call Center celebrates it's 12th anniversary in Belize. While there may be a cocktail or even a party for the staff and employees, something even more significant will be happening: the operations up at their Burrell Boom office will be shut down. It's bitter sweet because some workers will be accommodated at Ready Call's shiny ICON building in the City, while others - as many as 100 - will have to say their good byes and move on, at least for now. Courtney Weatherburne has more details.

Anita Garbutt, Employee
"I'm from Orange Walk and normally to get here I have to wake up about around 6:00 in the morning, wake up do what I need to do, go out get the bus by 7, get here for my shift which is at 9:00."

Courtney Weatherburne reporting
That has been Garbutt's routine for 7 years as an employee at the Ready Call Center in Burrell Boom. But that routine will change for Garbutt.

And for her co-workers. That's because the owners are shutting down the cellular service campaign in Boom and moving their operations to the ICON building in Belize City.

Nubia Ramirez, CEO, Ready Call Center
"We have informed everybody including our employees that we are going to stop offering services to the cellular company that we started with 12 years ago, and of course 3 years ago we started to work on the location here in Belize City."

Ramirez says they are shutting down the Boom campaign because the American cellular company TracFone Wireless Inc. didn't renew their license with the Ready Call Center, it's a change they were expecting.

Nubia Ramirez, CEO, Ready Call Center
"Of course this is something we knew was going to happen of course sooner or later."

While Ramirez was anticipating this outcome, she and her team are doing their best to ensure that the transition especially for the 300 employees in Burrell Boom, is smooth and straightforward. But it won't be easy because over at the ICON building in the City, there are 8 different campaigns including Insurance Claims, Pharmacy, and telemarketing among others. And Ramirez says these campaigns require a more advanced set of skills than those used in cellular service.

Nubia Ramirez, CEO, Ready Call Center
"So our clients are in different industries than cellular so the requirements are also different meaning some of them are requiring better conversational skills, some of them are requiring good reading skills, the most neutral accent that we can be able to provide and also their shifts are different so here we open at 5:00 in the morning and we close at 1:00 in the morning."

61 employees have already been selected to move to the ICON building. And there is space for 80 to 100 more Boom employees. But Ramirez has to recruit and interview the employees to see who will be able to meet the requirements.

Nubia Ramirez, CEO, Ready Call Center
"We want to switch as much people as we can but unfortunately some people are having restrictions that we are not able to handle so we have a lot of people from Cayo, from Corozal, from a lot of villages they can handle only maybe AM shift and we need people for different shifts."

"We will try to retain as much people as we can."

And for those remaining employees who can't adjust to the new working hours or meet the campaign demands, there may be some hope for employment later on.

Nubia Ramirez, CEO, Ready Call Center
"There might be people we won't be able to take right now let's say during June and even beginning of July maybe because they only can work AM shift, they are coming from villages and that and right now maybe some of our clients need a specific number but that doesn't mean later on we don't need AM."

But regardless of what may come in the future, it was a good, long run for Ready Call at the Boom Junction.

Nubia Ramirez, CEO, Ready Call Center
"I told them to feel really proud because no company in Belize has reached 1000 employees so they have been a part of something that nobody has done, you don't keep a customer, a big customer like that for 12 years thinking that you are done something wrong, it is just that nothing lasts forever, so they might feel really proud, we might feel really proud of what we have done."

139 employees will be out of a job after the recruitment process but as you heard Ramirez isn't permanently closing the doors on anyone. June 28th is the final day of work for employees at the Burrell Boom center. The ICON building is a very spacious building with 800 workstations, a cafeteria, nice bathrooms even a Zumba area: it's a major upgrade for those who will be moving over.

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