What you need to know
- Google is doubling down on its Operations Centers.
- The company will expand its in-house customer service facilities in India and the Philippines — and build a new one in Mississippi.
- Operations Center staff is expected to grow from 1,000 to 4,800 by the end of the next year.
Tech companies have often outsourced call center and customer service jobs to countries with cheaper labor around the world. While the tactic has resulted in massive savings for these institutions, customers have often found the resulting quality of service lacking. For companies like Facebook, outsourcing the oversight of its platforms to third parties has resulted in massive controversies and the sub-par moderation of its platforms. Moreover, these jobs are often cited as being incredibly low-paid and often exhibit poor conditions for workers.
As a result, Google last year decided to experiment with bringing at least some of its customer-facing operations back in-house with the launch of Google Operations Centers, call centers and customer support hubs run by Google itself and staffed by Google employees. The program seems to have found some success in the time since, with the company planning to expand its Operations Centers portfolio in India and the Philippines. The Palo Alto giant is also planning on creating more jobs stateside, with the launch of an all-new facility in Mississippi. The end result of all this expansion? Google's Troy Dickerson suggests the company will be creating 3,800 new jobs through the program in the next year, in addition to the 1,000 customer support agents already employed by Google.
Dickerson also took time to boast of the industry-leading remuneration and benefits Google is providing its customer support agents, with "three weeks of paid vacation, up to 22 weeks of paid parental leave, and comprehensive health care (medical, dental and vision coverage)." A staple of the idyllic Google employee experience, they'll also have access to free meals at work.
