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SYKES
2.9 of 5 149 reviews
www.sykes.com Tampa, FL 5000+ Employees
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SYKES Reviews

Updated Mar 12, 2013
All Employees Current Employees Only

2.9 149 reviews

                             

63% Approve of the CEO

SYKES President, CEO, and Director Chuck Sykes

Chuck Sykes

(83 ratings)

50% of employees recommend this company to a friend
32 employee reviews Back to all reviews
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Lakeland, FL (US)

Former Employee – worked at SYKES full-time for more than a year

Prosan easy job as long as you can overlook the company garbage

Consback to back calls and extremely biased qa reviews

Advice to Senior Managementvalue your employees and you would not have so much turnover

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Former Employee – worked at SYKES full-time for more than a year

ProsI learned A LOT, for better or worse. Great experience on my resume.

ConsSo many unscrupulous things happening behind the scenes, I don't know where to start. Very few career options/paths within the company if you have aspirations to grow. Dishonesty and finger pointing run amuck. With the exception of a select few, some of the most generally disrespectful people I have ever worked with. No sense of teamwork, only 'ME ME ME'

Advice to Senior ManagementBack up your people when they are doing their job or acting on your behalf. Otherwise, it sends the message to everyone else not to take them seriously. Identify the rare employees you have that truly go above and beyond and recognize them, instead fo acting like they just performed the very basics of their job and continually using scare tactics to drive them to take on extra responsibilities, without the benefit. Be honest, and be accountable for your decisions.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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Chavies, KY (US)

Current Employee – been working at SYKES full-time for more than 3 years

ProsIt's a job. At least they hire after an interview and want to make every attempt to retain you.

ConsForget about a promotion unless you kiss some serious management butt. I considered myself to be qualified to do many jobs with Sykes, but found myself being passed up on a consistent basis. Certain employees get away with more based on who they know as well. It's a 'good ol' pal' network and if you're not in said network, then you're days are numbered. Did I mention the salary is a joke?

Advice to Senior ManagementSeek employment elsewhere and hopefully someone with sense can help manage the solid workers they have employed. Or pay lower level employees more.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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Current Employee – been working at SYKES

Proshard pressed to come up with other then you can buy some good dope easily there.

Conspoor management
need to drug test the whole center
if you can walk breathe and say "hello" on the phone more than likely they'll hire you

Advice to Senior Managementbulldoze the place and turn it into a parking lot

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Chavies, KY (US)

Former Employee – worked at SYKES full-time for more than a year

ProsMostly professional people that work there.

ConsPoor Pay, poor health benefits packages, inability to keep contracts.

Advice to Senior Managementspend less time kissing butt, and more time on delivering what the client asked for.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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Amherst, NY (US)

Current Employee – been working at SYKES part-time for more than a year

ProsGreat pay, stable hours, health, vision, and dental benefits. Ability to change from one program to another. Tuition reimbursement, Leave of absences, FMLA participation.

ConsVery little advancement opportunity, unflexible when familial issues come up, uncaring management, issues with massive favoritism when it does come to promotions

Advice to Senior ManagementPlease be more careful when you're so obviously choosing your friends over those who are well-qualified for the positions. It's very disheartening to work there when you know you'll never be promoted just because you're not "in" with the managers and QA.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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Tampa, FL (US)

Current Employee – been working at SYKES part-time for less than a year

Prosability to work at home

ConsIneffective training that was too short and did not prepare us for work; trainers and floor support representatives who talked condescendingly to us, too much focus on one main "resource of information" when this resource is incomplete and not tailored for the types of calls that we get; imbalance of support reps to agents; insensitivity to needs of agents; constant "mandatory/voluntary" overtime.

Advice to Senior Managementbe more sensitive to the needs of your agents, as they are the face of your company. unhappy agents will make for bad customer service. choose quality over quantity. understand that they would not ask you questions if they had not checked their resources. become more of a team with your agents.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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1 person found this helpful  

Cairo (Egypt)

Former Employee – worked at SYKES full-time for less than a year

ProsIt is in quite a good place in Cairo, with spacious rooms and good equipments. There are lots of nice people although the management suxx

ConsThe worst management I have ever seen, no order or system and lots of connections buisness there not to mention the injust and unfair unequal treatment of the employee or that is at least what I have experienced there. That is a totally subjective opinion, take it or leave it , it is your thing.

Advice to Senior ManagementShould work on communication and give everyone equal chances. They should also work out some kind of system that prevents misusage and trickery

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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Atlanta, GA (US)

Current Employee – been working at SYKES part-time for less than a year

ProsIf you need a fairly consistent paycheck, part time work to help pay bills and dont mind super self guided learning and you dont mind winging it in live phone situations then consider this company

ConsLets start with the hiring process. You get pressured into accepting a position with things like, "This wont wait" "Are you prepared to work with us" etc ad other tactics to make you feel its a perfect situation. The onboarding process is botched as much of the info you fill out may be lost byt the time you get to training. Typical urine test in 48 hours of receiving hire package.
They just switched to USB based VPN (from dvds, and both are barely working) (which is like a WAH industry standard!). The ATT program specifically is way too complicated. My previous framework helped you follow a path to solutions and auto populated notes. With Sykes you have to use literally 7 programs, one for billing, one for services, one for technical, one for back up billing, contracts, mapping/service options etc.
then the training itself (i believe because wah is new for sykes) is total bs. I trained for a month with my last company and was better prepared for the phones. We spend 6 weeks doing powerpoints that are a yawn at best and everything is very convoluted. I havent gone into nesting yet but I can already see I may be accepting another job soon or at least looking.
The main issue I have is that the trainer and assistant trainer are nothing but talking heads, we get sent to IT (outside usa outsource) for the slightest things, no one has answers. (mainly because the main trainer is still in brick and morter and wont be wah until a month from now). She also has the audacity to get rude with us and talk to us like kids just because she doesnt know how to control a class room.
Oh and please remember that unless you are sup/team lead/trainer or above "full time: isnt an option, although you may get 39 hours per week

Advice to Senior ManagementNow that Sykes has bought Alpine Access (not much better but at least they give off the illusion that they care, which they dont either, I think Apple Care might be the only positively approved wah option) you guys need to take heed to their comprehensive tools. Also compeltely revamp the training course and immulate Alpine Universities option within training to make it more motivating

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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Little Rock, AR (US)

Current Employee – been working at SYKES full-time for less than a year

Proseasy to get a job here

ConsDo not value education, poor management on all levels.

Advice to Senior ManagementChange the culture or you will not keep good people, just below average employees

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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SYKES – Why Work for Us?

For more than 30 years, SYKES has been in the business of creating and maintaining satisfying relationships between client companies and their customers. During this time, they have also been creating gratifying jobs… Full Overview

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