Air New Zealand is temporarily outsourcing some call centre jobs to the Philippines because of staff shortages.
The airlines chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty says a team of 100 staff will be working out of the Philippines, dedicated to handling online inquiries.
Speaking to Breakfast this morning, Customer Contact Network boss Elias Kanaris said the move "cheapens the profession".
"If we are going to be outsourcing calls, or in this case emails, why are we going to be sending them to the Philippines, are there other alternatives for us to consider here locally."
He said overall, there's a massive shortage of staff in contact centre industry but a lot of the jobs aren't necessarily entry level which makes them harder to fill.
"The reality is, I think we're starting to grow more people capable delivering those sort of services here in New Zealand, we just need to make people more aware of what's available locally."
Kanaris said he would like to see the roles outsourced locally to people needing work, rather than those overseas.
"At the moment, we are working with the Ministry of Social Development to recruit and train people who are on the benefit. In the last two years, the industry has recruited and trained more than 300 people who were on the benefit."
“Local staff are more skilled at solving local problems and offer improved customer engagement and an overall better brand image for the organisation," he said.
Geraghty told 1News Air Zealand is still continuing to recruit within New Zealand.
"We are not sending jobs offshore, we are retaining all of our employees and our service partner employees and looking to hire more here locally.
"This sort of work is complex and requires a very specific skill set. Not all providers are suitable."
She said the airline will begin training people from the end of October through till next year.
"Our intention is to recover our service in the short term and ensure a level of ongoing stability for our customers.
"Once we recover, and as we continue to enable more capability for customers to self-serve, we will review our resourcing strategy. This includes considering whether this offshore team would be needed in the long term.”
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