English is opening bilingual job opportunities in Cali as the BPO and Contact Center sector gains ground in Colombia. The country has captured about 13% of BPO sales in the region, according to market research firm Frost & Sullivan. Since bilingualism is a valuable skill in industry, various Cali institutions from the public, private, academic and social sectors have come together to create programs that help strengthen the English skills of the city's highly talented workforce.
English, life changer
TaskUs, Inc. (NASDAQ: TASK), a North American multinational of outsourced digital services, began operations in the city in March 2021. It has recruited a large number of young people who have recently improved their level of English thanks to initiatives such as the Language Academy of TaskUs “The Art of Fluency” and the 'Cali Open To Work' program, led by the Secretary of Economic Development of Cali and Comfenalco Valle Delagente. Programs aimed at all Caleños and Caleñas totally free who want to improve their level of English.
In alliance with Invest Pacific and the Mayor's Office, “The Art of Fluency” program is designed to help improve English proficiency for those wishing to enter the BPO and Contact Center industry. Classes focus on two aspects of communication: technical skills including vocabulary and pronunciation, and conversational skills such as active listening and establishing trust and empathy. The program is held virtually to ensure the safety of the participants in the comfort of their homes.
“Many people from Cali have great potential to enter and be successful in companies that have a global reach,” said Guillermo Ulloa, vice president of operations at TaskUs In colombia. "The Language Academy TaskUs it is our way of unlocking the talents of our own people, giving them the opportunity to grow personally and professionally while contributing to the economic development of our city.”
Like the Language Academy of TaskUs, 'Cali Open to Work' aims to equip participants with job skills through programs such as English proficiency training so they can access work.
"Bilingualism has an importance that is highly noticeable and relevant within the labor context, which is why it becomes a great opportunity to mitigate unemployment in our beloved region." stated Felice Grimoldi Rebolledo, General Director of Comfenalco Valle Delagente. Young people, through teaching and acquiring English language skills, will be able to access highly paid jobs within an industry such as BPOs, which have a great development in Valle del Cauca. This means that if unemployment is currently centered on young people, specifically on women, it is precisely this type of industry that rapidly absorbs this skilled workforce, by our institution.
English, life changer
These initiatives have helped many Caleños launch a career in the BPO and Contact Center industry. This is the case of Kevin Sánchez, a graduate of the Cali Open to Work program, and Ariakna Ardila of the English Academy of TaskUs.
Kevin Sánchez is from Cali who struggled to get a job. He had faced rejection from local businesses and was even homeless for a period of time. But despite these challenges, he never gave up. For him, perfecting his command of English would help improve his employability, so he continued to study the language by reading encyclopedias and listening to class recordings. Thus achieving employment linkage in TaskUs.
Like the case of Kevin, Ariakna Ardila, a woman from Cali who also had trouble finding work before joining the program. Ardila already had experience in English, learning the language from the age of seven through books, movies and music. He also obtained a B1 (Intermediate) English level certification during his time at the university.
Ariakna had no BPO experience, but was interested in applying to TaskUs when he heard about the culture and benefits of the company. Unfortunately, she did not meet the required level of English. However, the recruiting team TaskUs He saw her potential and approached her to ask if she would be interested in improving her skills at no cost through the language school. Today, this young woman is a proud teammate of TaskUs after successfully graduating from the program and gaining entry.
Cali advances with firm steps in bilingual training
According to data consolidated by Invest Pacific, in Cali, the percentage of people with a B1 level or higher in English skills has grown in the last decade, going from 4% of graduates in 2009 to almost 15% in 2019, which means that the city has an annual output of almost 4,000 bilingual high school students. It is also estimated that 36% of undergraduate graduates in 2019 have an English proficiency level of B1 or higher, with more than seven thousand bilingual undergraduate graduates per year.
"English is an attribute that companies are increasingly demanding, especially those of services and new technologies, being a differentiating factor to get more companies from these industries to be interested in our city-region", highlights Alejandro Ossa, Executive Director of Invest Pacific. "Hence the importance of continuing to strengthen these public-private synergies, together with academia, to improve bilingual skills and employability, even more so when we see companies like TaskUs that are contributing to the generation of formal and quality jobs, generating a highly positive impact on the lives and families of hundreds of young people from Cali who are fluent in English”, he adds.
To the growing interest of bilingual BPO contact center companies to develop their operations in the region, the leadership that different institutions have been having to promote English proficiency and ensure that the city improves its bilingualism indexes is added, through training routes. , many of them free and with easy access.
Hello Valley! is one of them. It is an effort of the Family Compensation Funds comfandi and Comfenalco Valle Delagente, together with Invest Pacific and ProPacific, to contribute and respond to the needs in human talent, mainly in the BPO/Contact Centers sector. In the first year of the program, it is expected to reach 1,000 beneficiaries. Guided autonomous work, interaction with other participants, virtuality and face-to-face, are part of the methodology that will be implemented to teach the language.
There is also the English for Contact Centers program, promoted by the Javeriana university, ProPacific and Invest Pacific, within the framework of the Compromiso Valle initiative. This alliance allowed the graduation of 26 people, between young people and adults, who went from level B1 to B2, several of them are already working.
Another of these routes is being led by the SIGN Valle del Cauca branch, focused on the comprehensive training of Bilingual Omnichannel Contact Center as a BPO shared services model with 4.0 technology.
Similarly, Amcham Suroccidente together with the Warren Buffett Foundation, projects in 2022 to benefit 550 citizens, with free bilingual training that will have a subsidy for the student.
"Bilingualism is a priority, a wave of investment has been developing in the city, by companies that provide outsourced services in English, specifically BPO companies, which are undoubtedly offering the most job opportunities," he said. Liliana Sierra Chavez, Secretary of Economic Development of the Mayor's Office of Cali.
Sierra added: "As mayor of Santiago de Cali we have supported the generation of skills in English for job seekers in the city and the commitment will undoubtedly continue so that companies such as TaskUs have a strategic ally in the district administration to promote their growth that, at the end of 2021, close to 500 people went through our program, strengthening the use of English as a second language, of which more than 20% reached a job relationship in the same year and the others have participated in selection processes that continue to deliver better results, without a doubt we cannot stop supporting the initiatives that promote the development of Cali and the region.”
Those who wish to learn more about the roles available in TaskUs you can visit this link or register here to join the company's Art of Fluency program.
For more information on TaskUs, Visited https://www.taskus.com or follow these social media accounts:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TaskUsColombia
LinkedIn: https: www.linkedin.com/company/TaskUs
Instagram: @TaskUsColombia
About TaskUs
TaskUs (NASDAQ: TASK) is a provider of next-generation outsourced digital services and customer experience for innovative and disruptive technology companies, helping clients represent, protect and grow their brands. Leveraging a cloud-based infrastructure, TaskUs serves clients in the fastest-growing sectors, including social media, e-commerce, gaming, streaming media, food delivery and ride-sharing, HiTech, FinTech, and HealthTech. As of September 30, 2021, TaskUs It had approximately 35,600 employees at twenty locations in the United States, the Philippines, India, Mexico, Taiwan, Greece, Ireland, and Colombia.
Forward Looking Statements
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Comfenalco Valle Delagente.
