Why Working In A Call Center Is Great For Building Your Retirement Fund

Image by Business Pundit

One Philippine corporate niche that I note that has a great potential for a worker to be able to build his retirement fund would be the call center industry.

Here are my reasons why a call center agent is in a great position to be able to save up for his retirement:

1. The salaries of Philippine call center agents are higher than the regular wages of either government or private sector employee. More money = more margin for savings.

2. The call center agent, once he gets regularized, enjoys a lot of compensation perks and benefits. The rice allowance, the travel allowance, health care, even gift certificates from Sodexho for some companies. Having these would enable the agent to create a nest egg for himself, from the benefits alone.

3. The targets-oriented and productivity-focused environment leaves the worker little room to be distracted while at work. If he does his job well, he gets to enjoy the perks of promotion pretty fast.

4. The nature of the call center job is such that one's tasks and targets should be and are wrapped up within the same shift. If you're a mere agent, there's almost no such thing as work backlog. Thus, you can enjoy the fruit of your labor in exchange for work that doesn't follow you home. For supervisors and upper management roles, however, it may be a different story.

5. Supervisors and upper management people are given great perks and higher than average salaries and benefits. This leverage alone will enable you to funnel your income into a good nest egg.

If you're in the call center industry, this may look like an ideal to you. In all truth, there are other sources of pressure for the call center worker: not hitting stats, workplace politics, slacking off on some days that lead to dire career consequences. These pressures may lead a call center worker to think about quitting or jumping to the next call center in search of ideal conditions.

Let us throw reality's cold water on you and remind you that life is not perfect. Nobody's life is perfect. That's a fact. Everyone faces duress of some sort. And what conditions you may complain about in your current call center may be the same in another. Or worse. The point is, why are you in the call center industry in the first place? If it was all about money for you, then that's it: use this part of your career as a means to an end. Build that retirement fund, invest, and think about an early retirement. Your career does not define the whole of who you are. It is just a small part of you.

What are your dreams? What are your life goals? Use this moment in the call center industry as a means to an end, not an end in itself. That way, you will be able to maximize your time there and be able to build for yourself a happy, fat, retirement fund.