Stream Global Services: Agents get Bonus blues
By Juan Dela Cruz

BPO Stream Global Services is targeting revenues of $1 billion by Dec, 2010.  It currently has BPO’s in USA, Europe, Philippines, India, Latin America, Mid East and Africa. But many Stream Global Services Agents in the Philippines are upset and crying foul over management’s broken promise of giving them bonuses this December.

Traditionally, December is a bleak month for all BPO companies in the Philippines as it is the peak season when they find most employees resigning. Filipino employees, who have plans of leaving their company, often wait till the first week of December, usually after they receive their government-mandated guaranteed bonus equal to one month’s salary prorated to the number of months they have stayed in the company in the current year. Most call centers are already anticipating this phenomenon and are typically in hiring mode come second week.

However, it seems that the highly regarded Stream Global Services will be hardest hit with employee attrition as they are unaware that more than the usual of their employees plan to file their letters of resignation as soon as they get their bonus in their banks scheduled first week of December. The reason behind this unexpected exodus is that many tenured employees were dismayed when the company announced no anniversary bonus will be given to the pioneer employees as promised. Stream agents told me they will be missing an average of 18,000 pesos (a peso has the same value as an Indian rupee) because of this. Their anniversary bonus is part of the provisions offered in their contract when they got hired. They are under the impression that management is using their failed CSAT performance as a cop out or excuse for not giving them their due. Another group of employees from Stream also plans to do the same as they were told their performance appraisal bonus will be released by December 8 but due to an undetermined cause, this will not be happening as scheduled and has left these poor Agents hanging. The Stream employees who I spoke with said they are set to lose anywhere between 5-30% of their base salary multiplied by the number of months stayed.

Unfavorable feedback has been proliferating online against Stream Global Services. For a global company that is backed by respected international corporate giants, with huge offices in the US, India and the Philippines and who have recently bought out BPO giant Etelecare, many employees are wondering why Stream would suddenly become so stingy.

What makes this situation so unbelievable to their call center employees now is Stream’s public announcement recently that they project to earn revenue of almost $1 billion at the end of next year because of the recent merger. Most employees who plan to resign says that it appears to them Stream’s management only talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk. Among all other things, Stream’s disgruntled employees say they don’t want to be a part of a company that doesn’t want employees to taste their fruits of their labor.