My concerns with Home Based Agents (HBAs) are multiple. First, it strips away any sort of “team building” or ability to interact with coworkers and leadership. This will make it almost impossible to move upward in the company because you’re no longer a physical presence within Verizon property. Second, I can very well see HBAs becoming a part of Landline Call Centers after 2019, and at the least going for those post-2003 hires that do not have CWA No-Layoff protections. Makes it a lot harder to organize for a strike if call centers are virtualized and you have no connection to your coworkers. Third, it makes “shadow layoffs” much easier. Instead of a physical company location having hundreds laid off, it will now just be jobs disappearing without others realizing it until it’s too late. Finally, just at a basic level, HBAs may end up lonelier because they no longer have those workday interactions that we’ve taken for granted.
HBAs are still better than having jobs be offshored to the Philippines like Sprint or Slovakia like AT&T, but it just feels like there’s no long-term win for employees here. I also would be hestitant to relocate to a traditional Wireless Call Center because once those leases are up, they’ll go HBA as well. I suspect that only Business and Government Verizon Wireless Call Centers will remain, and that’s just from a contractual obligation with those customers.