Generous Bank BPO’s cold hearted cost cutting
By Annie Paul

JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) bank has been the poster child of all banks as emerging relatively unscathed from the crisis. Similarly, their captive in Mumbai has been well regarded in the market for paying excellent remuneration and employee benefits. But JPMC is succumbing to the market pressures and adopting unheard of measures to reduce costs in recent times.

Sources have exclusively told techgoss that almost 15-20 employees across their 'Service to Sales' (STS) process were terminated instantly last week due to 'integrity' issues. The STS process engages in cross-selling JPMC products to customers over the phone. Agents were fired for issues as minute as increased level of voice on the phone. Any other company would perhaps engage the employee in counseling or performance improvement programs as these are non-core issues affecting quality in a small way. Another innovative cost cutting method - JPMC has also issued circular across its employees warning them that if they do not report to the transport team of not availing company transport 4 hours in advance, they would be marked for counseling for the first offence. Third offence is termination. Similar such trivial issues have been used as leverage across other units as well to terminate employees.

Is this the same large hearted JPMC that provided complete reimbursement to all their employees who suffered financial losses due to property damage etc. during the 26th July floods in Mumbai and enforced its claim as being the most employee friendly BPO? We would expect Tanveer Alam, VP of JPMC to showcase restraint having grown up the BPO ladder himself.

Similarly, without adequate employee notice IBM Daksh Mumbai has sent its entire voice business to Manila and left thousands of employees in the lurch.  Being on the ‘bench’, they are given the option of moving across different locations & projects or shown the door.