One of the 25 best places in Europe to work for — here's why - Outbound Call Center Representative bei TP: Mitarbeiterbewertung

I'm still on the rather extensive onboarding training — loving it every minute! — and I also understand that I've got extraordinary circumstances: allegedly having the best trainer in this area of TP with his faithful sidekick, who will act as our senior expert later on. Work conditions are fantastic, even during the training session. You get to work in the most modern neighbourhood of Lisbon, with a glorious view of the Tagus River, two steps away from the train/subway station, and a short hop away from the international airport. While the base salary is pretty much in line with what is being offered these days, it's the perks that make a huge difference: meal allowance is twice what you pay for in the cafeteria, which has several different courses to choose from (and yes, that includes many vegetarian and vegan options) and could be considered a 3-star restaurant elsewhere — it's that good. Everybody, including the personnel at the cafeteria or even the people doing the maintenance and cleaning, are outstandingly nice and friendly. TP's strongest points are inclusion and diversity — and this is immediately apparent when stepping into the company itself. English is the working language in a 2,000-people building where only 40% or possibly less are actually Portuguese native speakers — the rest come from all over the world (mostly from Europe and Latin America, but there are people from literally everywhere), TP even has accommodations nearby for many of its employees, and, in any case, they'll go the extra mile to make sure you feel welcomed and comfortable here. All this sounds "too good to be true" but it also shows in the way people are familiar with each other — there is a good esprit de corps across the teams, making friends is easy, and the trainers encourage us to develop one soft skill to perfection: laughing. That doesn't mean they cannot be harsh when they need; or that they aren't strict in the rules and expectations; but that doesn't mean that you can't have some fun, either. We are actively encouraged to think out of the box and to be creative in how we reach out to customers — for robotic scripts, customers can simply use AI chatbots these days. What they want is having engaging conversations with friendly human beings who also happen to be quite good at figuring out what the customer needs and reach out proactively with solutions. If you're fine in delivering that kind of experience, you're at the right place! Small perks include your own locker, the possibility to be able to park in the underground parking for free (it's not available to anybody, but it doesn't hurt to ask permission), heavily subsidised vending machines scattered everywhere, health & dental insurance, a card-based meal allowance (which gets replenished every month and you can use it practically everywhere where food or drinks are offered — including supermarkets and even some bars and nightclubs!) that even has a small cashback incentive, a monthly bonus that you get just by "being there" every day (really — this is to fight the tendency that the younger generations have of ghosting their employers) but which quickly rises if you keep doing your work according to the set expectations (but if you fall behind, don't worry, you'll be coached and trained until you reach that level), and a lot (I mean really a LOT) of opportunities to acquire new skills, improve and extend your own education (using online training courses), which, in turn, may be useful if/when you decide to switch projects inside the company, something that is even encouraged: TP prefers a happy employee who might not like their "first" job at the company very much and is reassigned to somewhere else internally than having a disgruntled employee that just leaves without notice, never to return. There are more, unspecified perks that you might encounter, such as getting some goodies for free (wearables and other trinkets), a point-based system that is given out when reaching some milestones and at Christmas — which you can convert into vouchers to acquire things from partners — and the possibility of getting extra days off beyond the mandatory 22 days of paid vacation per year. TP has several buildings in Portugal, and not all of them have the same amenities (depending on their size), but where I am, these include several lounges, an esplanade with a view where you can either take your meals or just take a nap under the sun, arcade games and even e-sport competitions, a multifaith room, genderless bathrooms, wellness rooms, and even an internal mini-clinic with doctors and nurses whom you are free to consult (and who also do online consultations). Mental issues — such as dealing with depression, burnout, excessive stress, etc. — are addressed by professionals in absolute confidentiality. They try to scrupulously follow the work-related laws and regulations that are mandatory in Portugal (instead of avoiding them with all sorts of loopholes, as companies are prone to do) and even go beyond these whenever possible. For instance, to work on multinational projects and comply with the expected 5-days-a-week work routine, that means working on national and municipal holidays — which are paid at twice the rate, something which is "in the law" but often skipped by many companies. Extraordinary hours are also allegedly paid in full, "by the book", even if it seems that some employees are almost ashamed to ask for that compensation – considering all the other perks they already get. Well, I will definitely add more "pros" once I start working at "full steam ahead", which TP doesn't expect to happen before 3 to 9 months (depending on the project and how complex it is). Hiring is much more "traditional" than it's usual these days: you apply for a job you like, you send your CV/résumé, and shortly afterwards, you get an interview with an AI. So far, it's the familiar hiring routine of all contemporary multinational corporations. But then, *very* shortly afterwards, you get a HR representative assigned to your case, who will push hard to speed up the whole process and make sure you send them as much documentation as possible (including some skill assessment tests, if pertinent to your future role), and get onboarded for training as swiftly as you're able to. In other words: if you're currently available for being hired, you'll be hired *immediately*. They say they'll be in touch in 6–8 weeks, if I'm not mistaken, but it's more like "a few days", in a worse case scenario; after 6 weeks you've most likely completed the training and are doing your job at cruising speed. "Training" is unfortunately still seen by many companies as "cheap/slave labour" for a few weeks — the idea being that "you learn on the job" after a short introduction of one or two days (which they know most people will sleep through it!), and then just spend the remaining 2 or 3 weeks actually doing your work — for free. Or, rather, *paying* to do that work, since you'll have expenses in commuting costs and eating, without any guarantee that you'll get hired at the end of the "training" session. TP works exactly in the opposite way: you can't even start your training before signing a contract with them. It's a training contract, sure, but nevertheless a binding contract. It stipulates how much you'll get paid per day, and the idea is that the theoretical part is paid at a reduced rate, sure, but enough for you to be able to pay for food and transportation. You'll most often get the training pay split in two (the calculations are not obvious to do, but they'll help you with that), although to get the whole payment, you *must* complete the training. Of course, you can leave at any moment — if you decide to go home mid-training, you won't get paid; if you completed it, however, you're free to go, no questions asked. Depending on the project, the next step is getting a short-term contract. Here you'll get a regular contract for a full-time job, and your working hours will be those you've applied for. Your training still continues, but now as a "regular" employee, benefitting from all the perks and the full salary. You become "one of the team", but you're still in a "probation" phase, during which either party can terminate the work agreement without any issues. This is partly by law and partly because, that way, you can break your ties with TP giving a very short notice, but TP is also free to either encourage you to switch to a different project which might be better suited for you (this means going back through training — but this time, getting full payment as an employee!). If all goes well, after a period of time (2–12 weeks, I think — again, it depends on the project, and how well you perform), you'll get an offer to sign a full contract with a renewal term every 12 months — a standard practice everywhere. The renewal is automatic, so long as both parties agree to continue (which is the default that all companies apply). What is extraordinary is that TP is willing to sign a termless contract with you after only two years of work with them: this is quite rare these days, since it binds the company basically "forever", and they aren't allowed to let you go without extraordinary compensation, as specified by law. And, of course, there is hybrid work and/or remote work, sometimes "mandatory" (in the sense that you're *expected* to work outside the office), sometimes as an extra perk (for those who consider it a "perk"), depending, again, on which project you're assigned to. In some cases, you start being in the office during the training phase — as said, this can take several weeks — but are then expected to work from home (also depending on your role). Every now and then, you might be required to spend a few days at the office — not necessarily just to attend boring meetings, because those can (and will) be done remotely as well. In other words: in multinational teams, most people will work "remotely" across the globe anyway, with just a handful of employees physically present in each location, and the rest will be working out of home. TP has no issue whatsoever with that — their internal structures are designed to deal with thousands of employees working together at multiple locations, and whatever you need to have in the workplace to do your job can also be easily brought into your home. And while TP is not known to pay "remote work compensation" — after all, they will provide most of the equipment you need — but they still pay the meal allowances. Of course, working hours, pauses, and lunch/dinner time is expected to be done exactly as if you were at your workplace, and no, you aren't allowed to show up to meetings in your PJs or anything besides business casual attire. But, of course, you won't waste any commuting time, and that means — depending on how far away from the office you live! — getting some extra hours of rest instead of non-paid commuting time. Otherwise, there is no difference. TP boasts of being one of the 25 best working places in the whole of Europe, which surprised me when I read that (it consistently scores on the top three in Portugal), because they act in an area of business that is traditionally considered as the rock-bottom layer of the service industry — where people end up when they can't get a job anywhere else. Their closest competitors around here are essentially sweatshops, just barely a step above "modern slavery", where people are just replaceable parts of a machine, and the churn ratio is insanely high. It's hard to imagine a company that is even able to compete with those but actually makes such an effort to make their overall employment experience at so high-level standards that they get consistently excellent ratings from their employees. But only after a few days looking around the place, that becomes a bit more clearer. You don't see long faces here (and those you might come across at the cafeteria come from Vodafone, the company who shares the twin building with TP): unless they're all hired actors to "pretend" to be happy, or being heavilly drugged to "appear" content, one must assume that, in general, most people are there by choice, not because they couldn't find a job elsewhere — and that, at least, must mean something.