Columbus Business First reports today "Verizon to close Hilliard call center." But it's not what you think.
Affected employees have the choice to work from home, transfer to a still-open center, apply for another position or take severance. Work from home?
It is, indeed, a new era. And the way companies think about where work happens is changing. Has changed. More companies recognize that it is not necessarily true that workers need to come to a single place to get work done effectively. Or efficiently.
Working from home is not perfect. And, for some people, it is not right--they can't do it. Too many distractions. But mostly both companies and employees benefit. Companies don't have the expenses associated with buildings and equipment. Employees don't have the expenses of time and transportation.
The most important lesson in all this is that, just because we've always done something this way, doesn't mean we must continue to do it. Every day we need to be looking at our circumstances and question: "Why are we doing this? Is this the best thing?" On occasion it turns out it's not the best thing.
Because we've always done it this way is not a legitimate business strategy.
The original article, Verizon to close Hilliard call center – 500 employees offered switch to work-from-home, by Carrie Ghose appeared in in Columbus Business First on March 14, 2018, and can be found here:
https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2018/03/13/verizon-to-close-hilliard-call-center-500.html?ana=e_me_set1&s=newsletter&ed=2018-03-14&u=HhcYhD1SNcdhABwn8YN%2FVQ009f496c&t=1521043639&j=80486031