Boise police called to Sykes call center. Company hasn’t said why
A Boise police officer spent most of the day Thursday at the Sykes Enterprises call center.
Ryan Larrondo, a department spokesman, said he did not know why the officer was dispatched to the center, located at the former Hewlett-Packard campus now owned by the state on Chinden Boulevard in northwest Boise. One officer was there from 6 a.m. to midnight, with a second officer there part of the time, he said.
Officers were also called to the call center last July, when Sykes laid off 640 workers.
Two people emailed the Idaho Statesman this week regarding Sykes. One said that a group of workers would be laid off May 30. The other said layoffs were taking place Thursday.
Dana Wiederman, a Sykes spokeswoman at the company’s headquarters in Tampa, Florida, did not return calls Thursday and Friday and an email Friday seeking comment.
Georgia Smith, a spokeswoman for the Idaho Department of Labor, said her office did not receive a layoff notice from Sykes under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. A 60-day notification is required when a company lays off more than 500 employees, or between 50 and 499 workers if that number represents at least a third of the company’s employees.
On its Boise Facebook page, Sykes posted that Friday was Employee Appreciation Day.
The company operates 20 call centers in the United States — down eight from a year ago — and another 52 in other countries. It had 51,600 employees as of Jan. 1, according to the company’s most recent annual report, issued Tuesday, down from 55,000 a year earlier.
Two hundred seasonal workers were laid off Dec. 1 from a Lakeland, Florida, call center operated by Sykes. They had been scheduled to work until Dec. 31.
This story was originally published March 1, 2019 at 2:23 PM.
