Ibex recruiting for new GTECH centre

Gordon Tewani, the developer of Portmore’s newest business process outsourcing facility, has secured a lease arrangement with American company Ibex for the three-storey edifice.

The deal marks the fifth location for Ibex in Jamaica – two of which are now in Portmore, St Catherine – and paves the way for Tewani to start earning from his $3.5 billion investment, the cost of which was disclosed at the project launch in October 2019.

GTECH Park sits on a five-acre property that the developer owns along Municipal Boulevard in Portmore, St Catherine. Tewani did not return calls for comment on the arrangement.

Ibex told the Financial Gleaner that it will occupy all three floors of the building, and is in the process of recruiting 1,500 workers, but has not given a date for start-up of the new centre.

“The Ibex GTECH centre will deploy our Ibex Campus Model, based on a university-style layout with sites within less than one square mile,” said Jaime Vergara, Ibex senior vice-president of operations and country manager for Jamaica, in a press statement.

“The result of this purpose-built model for BPO is improved efficiencies and site services for employees. It will also enable us to grow our presence in the St Catherine parish and align us for further expansion over the next two years,” Vergara said.

Ibex’s other Portmore call-centre hub is at Portmore Pines Plaza, less than a 10-minute walk from the new location.

The BPO operator says it has invested US$7 million ($1.02 billion) in setting the GTECH facility, so far, even as the sector meanders policy shifts around workplaces and conformity to COVID-19 safety protocols and restrictions.

The Jamaican Government has granted BPO operators an extension of up to June 30, 2021 for temporary work-from-home arrangements. The Global Services Association of Jamaica, GSAJ, the umbrella organisation for the BPO sector, is using the time to lobby for a permanent fix. Its desire is for at least 25 per cent of BPO employees to migrate to a virtual set-up under the existing special economic zone or SEZ regime.

If policymakers agree, it would mean that BPO or call centre firms would need to lease less commercial space to accommodate their workers. In that scenario, the developers and lessors of commercial space would be the losers, as CEAC Outsourcing, a provider of BPO space, has noted.

Up to the end of December 2020, around 32 per cent of BPO employees were on work-from-home arrangements. The sector employs around 40,000 in total.

GSAJ President Gloria Henry says there has been no forward movement on the sector’s entreaties to the Government for the permanent fix. And they’re not expecting to get a solid response on the recommendation until the latter half of this year.

Since signing off on the lease arrangement for GTECH Park, Ibex has requested that a portion of its workers resume working from the office. Concurrently, he noted that it is taking steps to minimise the outbreak of COVID-19 in all its facilities.

“With Ibex’s rigorous COVID-19 protocols in mind, the new location will provide employees with a safe environment and the industry-best standards of every Ibex site worldwide,” the company said.

The company currently employs 6,500 workers at centres located in Portmore, Ocho Rios and Kingston.

karena.bennett@gleanerjm.com