Hello, and welcome to the Teleperformance conference call. My name is Jess, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand over to your host, Daniel Julien, Chairman and CEO, to begin today's call. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. First I want to thank you to be here, listening at this very important conference. Clearly, I'm right now in New York City, and I got, in the middle of the night, a kind of very violent wake-up call with the news of a massive sale of the Teleperformance stock on the market. These massive sales came following a tweet posted by the Minister of Labor of the new recently elected government of Colombia, and the tweet was stating that they had decided to start a control on Teleperformance Colombia Labor Conditions and Environment. At this time, the company has not yet been officially notified. In fact, we learned that by Twitter.
Clearly, as long as the projected audit will be fact-based, managed with integrity and fairness, we welcome it. Teleperformance Global Policy has always been to be fully compliant with all local laws, and we trust the Teleperformance Colombia and Teleperformance LATAM Top Management team to always have fully respected their duties, which are to respect the Colombian laws. So far, TP Colombia has always been perceived as a benchmark. Benchmark in terms of economic dynamism, strong work ethics, and very people-oriented. Yes, there have been some challenge and disagreement with the representative of UNI Global and these challenges are still pending. By the way, Teleperformance Colombia CEO made an offer to UNI Global Union to open a constructive dialogue which did not get any answer.
What I expect is that at the end of the day, from this very negative situation, this move could be an opportunity to establish a better understanding. Clearly, right now the aggressive approach has the potential to generate a lot of negative perception for all the parties and, the best testimony of that is the oversell of this morning. Before to answer your question, I want to remind you that in third-party surveys of Great Place to Work, Teleperformance Colombia always got extremely high employee engagement score. In fact, the last one for the whole company was 85% engagement score, which is way above all benchmarks. More specifically, 89% engagement score for the content moderators that are part of the topic, who by the way, also have an attrition ratio that is half of the standard customer experience agent population.
Clearly, the Teleperformance management team of Colombia and of Latin America is ready to answer all questions, open the door, and we are ready to answer your questions. Before, I have to tell you something. We, Teleperformance management, we think that after the sale of this morning, the stock is grossly undervalued. That's the reason why the top management decided to launch the buyback share program. There is a personal commitment, the unanimity of the ExCom members of Teleperformance Group. The President of Teleperformance Latin America, the CEO of Teleperformance Colombia, all together decided at personal level to also acquire shares as long as we will be in that kind of situation, and this will be in any case, in a global envelope that will be for several million dollars. This is a commitment. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm ready to answer the questions.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally as you'll be advised when to ask your question. Once again, that's star one, if you'd like to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Anvesh Agrawal from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for holding this call. First, can I ask one by one, please? The first is, can you explain the challenges that you have with the UNI Global in Colombia? I mean, what is being proposed by the company and what were the questions they were asking?
Of course. I mean, there is an ongoing difference or perception between Teleperformance Colombia management and the UNI branch in Teleperformance Colombia. I'm going to take numbers. I hope they are exactly accurate. But if there is a slight difference, please do not hold me responsible. Right now, in Teleperformance Colombia, we have. I speak under the control of the top management of Colombia who is listening to this call, so they could correct me if I'm wrong. Right now, the total employee base of Teleperformance Colombia is 42,000 people. I think that UNI wanted to be recognized as a representative union in this company, stating that they had 53 employees requesting the creation of a branch of UNI in the company.
Teleperformance CEO and local management check the list, and I think that unfortunately, some of the employees' names that were listed on the UNI list were not anymore part of the company. The submission of UNI was not receivable. This is a dispute that is in court for some times and where the decisions have not been made. I think and I hope that I represent very precisely the actual reality. I would say it's clearly much more of a representation and topic than Teleperformance breaching the rules.
In any case, as usual, when there is this kind of statement, I already asked our Chief Legal Officer and our Chief Compliance Officer to diligence an internal audit according to the rules of the Institute of Internal Auditors. That is going to start as soon as tomorrow. I think I answered your question.
That is clear. The second question is, you obviously, I mean, the issue came to light in August as well when Forbes published something and then you conducted an internal and third-party inquiry. In this instance, will you be willing to make the results of this audit that you're gonna carry forward from tomorrow public to essentially, make the investors sort of?
We clearly will review that with our lawyers. I think I got a clear advice from our Chief Legal Officer, which states that it's against standard practice defined by the Institute of Internal Auditors to release externally the finding of internal audits. I have not made any kind of statement, but we have to be also extraordinarily cautious because some findings in an audit can have an impact on some client business with whom we have a contractual confidentiality clause.
Okay. That's clear. Then finally, I mean, given this is more like a perception issue, are you sort of taking steps to give, for example, access to media, to your Colombian centers to see for themselves what, and see how the business is run as usual?
Of course. We are going to organize that for independent trusted media, and of course for the investors who will want to see and touch. Of course, we have an open door transparent policy.
Yeah. That's all from my side. I'll get back with you. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Just one, please. I think you mentioned in your Q3 call that the entire Content Moderation business is just 7% of sales. Given the share price reaction today, if you know there is going to be an overhang which is not getting resolved. Can it not be possible to consider exiting this entire business? Because clearly the share price reaction is so much more than the actual value of the business.
Yes. I understand your point. It's of course something that we will have to carefully balance. There are two level of consideration regarding your question. There is an opportunistic business decision. Is it better to stay on a market that grow by 20%-30% per year and risk this kind of perception issues, or is it better to exit it? The second level to consider, and this comes from the fact and we are going to work on that to make a much better education, communication of the general market. The second level of this question is we do, like some of our competitors, including Accenture, we do a very useful job for the society.
The digital world is as negative as the real world, and our people are the gatekeeper that protect you, the public, your kids and so on. Yes, it's a little bit like the police in the real world. Sometimes, it's challenging in terms of perception, but a real world without police would not be a nice world. The second point is you have to keep in mind that, in the Content Moderation process, the AI algorithm already exclude 97% of the egregious content. Our content moderator review just 3% of the total volume that are typically in gray areas, where the social media platform have to make a decision and accurate decision. If the decision is not accurate because you cut content that is legal, the social media platform get in trouble and is accused of censorship.
If the content moderator let pass something that can be perfectly acceptable in one society but not in another one, the social media platform is going to be in trouble. I'm going to give you an example. In many Occidental countries, LGBTQ is legal and LGBTQ people have the same rights than the other. In some countries, these people are considered as criminal. What is going to do the platform in the country where this situation is considered as criminal? There is a real society question that goes way beyond all the skirmish that we see. I just want to give you another information. I think extremely recently, I'm sure you can double-check, the government of Singapore has made mandatory for all social media platform to have Content Moderation to exclude any kind of egregious content.
There is a business case, an opportunities case, an ethical case. The answer, you know, the answer is never an answer of principle. The answer is it a problem of misunderstanding? If yes, can we correct it? Or is it definitely a dead-end situation and, either we are going to let other people do that, or we are going to let the public, like some people want in some social media platform not to have Content Moderation.
Thank you. Yep, just as a follow-up, have you spoken to all your customers in Content Moderation? Have they expressed any concern that-
No.
About the employees?
Yes. First, we have a very standard policy that is designed with our customer. Typically, the employees are paid significantly above the CX classic agent. Second, instead of working eight hours, they work six hours, and they have two hours break to decompress. Third, in the case of the gray file that we control, and we have made a statistic, the highly egregious content has nothing to do with what has been said in the press. Because the highly egregious content, according to the statistic that I got from our different operations, are in the range of one case per one million reviewed. To take your follow-up question, clearly the other social platform we are working with know that it is a sensitive topic. They know Teleperformance, they audit Teleperformance, they know what our practices are, and they have not expressed any concern.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Oscar Val Mas from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, Daniel. Thanks for taking this call. I have three questions. The first one is, you've said you haven't received a notification from the government. Do you expect to receive one, or have you had a conversation with them? Why do you think this is coming from the government? That's the first question. The second question is, at a group level, I think about 25% of Teleperformance is unionized. Do you expect that to increase? Or why are you not unionized in Colombia? And then the third question is on the timing of the buyback. Do you have more details on just the timing of the buyback? Thank you.
Okay. Great, great question, and thank you. The first. What was first?
Notification. Have you received a notification?
Yeah. Excuse me. You know, honestly, I'm not a lawyer, I'm a business guy. All my life, I saw that government when they want to make an audit, they first send an official notification, and then if they want to communicate, they communicate. It's very strange to suddenly learn something via a tweet. Probably it's a new generation of the way of understanding the duty of an administration. Clearly, yes. Here, probably we are going to ask our legal people, but first we have to receive an official notification to start to discuss what is the planning.
We are open, we are transparent, but we are not going to start to deal this kind of topic by Twitter. The second point, unionization. Yes, of course, we strictly follow the law in the countries where we are present. Different countries, different laws. U.S. does not have the same law as France. India doesn't have the same law as Colombia. Different situation, different way to address the topic. We have never been reluctant to observe the social laws of any country in which we are. If you take, by the way, Teleperformance France, I guess that probably in Teleperformance France we have four or five unions at least. We have unions in Germany.
By the way, in Europe, we have European Works Councils. We work very well with them. By the way, we worked hand in hand during the COVID time, at a time where UNI was also aggressing us on a topic that had no foundation. I think that there is very much a kind of strategic attack rather than a political rather than a natural content. Again, you know, anytime we can discuss, put the things on the table, and come to mutually agreeable solutions, I'm super in favor. You know, I always think that wars are lose-lose situation. I always think that fair discussion reflecting legitimate expectation resolve the vast majority of the problem. Now, after the unionization, the third was? I have no time.
The timing of the buyback.
The timing of the buyback, again, you know, we are a public company. We have to check what is the legal framework and what are our legal constraints. We are ready to start that as soon as tomorrow. The only point that could delay something or whatever would be some specific legal constraints. I don't see any because we just released the Q3, so I don't think that we are in a blackout period. Of course, our corporate lawyers are going to check that.
Thank you, Daniel.
You are welcome.
The next question comes from the line of Ed Pienaar from Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead.
Hi there, Daniel. Thank you very much for the call. Maybe just a follow-up on the previous question regarding unionization in Colombia. At the moment, Colombia isn't unionized at all. Is that correct?
Can you rephrase it, sir, because nobody understood the question.
No worries. In Colombia, there is no union at the moment. Is that correct?
Yes, I think so.
Okay. Do you have a direct philosophy against recognizing a union? Because obviously some of these issues that are being raised could have probably been handled as working condition issues. If a union was recognized, surely some of these issues could have been handled internally.
First.
As opposed to through the press.
Okay. First I understand your question. First, when I say I don't think so, it's because you know, we are in 80 countries and as the topic of unionization of each of our companies are local matter related to the local laws of the countries. I really do not keep account of where we have unions, where we don't have unions. It might seem strange, but at least it tells you that we do not have any negative agenda behind the line. I would have to check if we have unions or not. I think the problem in Colombia is, which is strange, but the problem in Colombia is we have a very high score of satisfaction of engagement and the unions did not get any traction.
Even when UNI wanted to open a union, they. I think probably you need 50 people. Again, if I'm not correct, don't hold me responsible. My perception is there is probably a threshold, and this threshold was not met.
Don't you think that?
They just have to meet the threshold and it's okay.
I hear you, but don't you think a lot of pain and suffering would have been saved if they were recognized. And these things could have been handled internally?
Honestly, maybe probably, you know, most of the time when you have crisis is because two people stop to listen to each other or to understand each other. It's probably it is clearly an unpleasant situation. I'm here to tell you that, again, we respect the law. We are transparent. We welcome an audit as long as it's based on fact, fair. Wait a minute. Sorry, sir. It's very difficult to speak today about Colombia, and I'm not going to elaborate on that. It's very difficult today to speak about Colombia without putting the political change that has happened in Colombia in context. The government changes, I think in Colombia after decades, exact few months ago.
Uh, please.
So sorry Daniel. Sorry, this is Bhupender. If I can actually add to what Daniel said. Specifically on the question that you asked as a philosophy, do we have anything against the unions? Categorical answer is no. On the contrary, Teleperformance signed the UN Global Compact in 2011, and that clearly recognizes the right for collective bargaining, and we have applied it in practice. All over Europe, we have unions that we work with. Most of North Africa, we have unions. Even in Latin America, almost every country, we have unions. It's not that as a philosophy, we have anything against it's just that it has to be done in a proper manner. In this particular case, it was not done in a proper manner because it did not meet the right thresholds.
That's the only thing that we have. We are willing to work with the collective bargaining associations of employees in every country in the world.
Can I make a quick comment? I suspect part of the reason for this rapid share sell-down is because some investors may fear that you are not complying with the Global Compact, i.e., nothing to do with the abuse of materials, more to do with your labor being represented. If labor isn't represented, we may end up in a situation where sustainable funds are not allowed to own the shares. That's just something to consider. I hear there's a legal threshold, but there's something else where you also need to consider whether it's worth it to push the envelope a bit too hard. Just regarding staff turnover levels at Teleperformance, historically, it has been very high. I see the best workplace designation, but does the staff turnover not perhaps cause management to have a look at working conditions a little bit differently?
Excuse me, sir. Maybe Bhupender, you understood, but here the communication is not clear, so we have hard time to understand the comments.
Sorry. Staff turnover levels are quite high at Teleperformance. Does that concern you?
Bhupender, do you understand something?
No, I also did not understand it properly, Daniel. I don't know whether it's a line issue or some other issue.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you. Okay, thank you.
In any case, sir, I'm going to be clear. We are open. We manage more than 420,000 employees all around the world. Generally, this is a company that is known for its values, its ethics, and not for breaking the law.
Thank you very much.
Okay, can we pass to the next question?
Yeah.
The next question comes from the line of Ben Wild from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just I'll take them one by one, if possible. The first one, what actions can you do and what confidence can you give to investors and indeed your clients that issues around Content Moderation and employee welfare are treated in a sensitive and structured way at Teleperformance?
Okay. This thing, I mean, for our clients is very simple because, of course, they have at all times, without giving notice, access to their own operation. They know in detail our process is fully transparent. Now for investors, because there is this pandemic that has been created, clearly my plan is to invite investors who are going to be interested, in fact, in two different tours: a tour in Europe where we have Content Moderation. And a tour in America, Content Moderation. These investors, they will see the process, they will speak with the field management, they will have the opportunity to speak with a content moderator.
Again, all that subject to the fact that we get the legal authorization of our client to do it. Because at the end of the day, the content material, the content data belongs to our clients, not to Teleperformance. We are going to push strongly because the more Content Moderation will be understood the right way, which is we are here to protect you and our content moderators are proud of their job. As long as it will not be understood that way, we are going to do a job of education.
Very clear. On that front.
Sorry. If I can add one more point, because this question was asked earlier also as to the impact on clients. We announced our numbers last week, Q3 numbers. You would have seen this issue was raised on August 4th, and we continue to grow overall across the quarters. Specifically in Content Moderation, we can confirm that even after August 4, we have won more business, both with the client that was named and also other global majors in this space. You can understand these are mega companies. They have teams of people who do an intensive due diligence, and given the publicity, they would have done even more diligence on us before awarding this work. We have continued to get awarded more Content Moderation work in the U.S., in Colombia and other geographies.
There are essentially two sides. Yes, there is something that is coming out in the open press, but the clients have full faith in TP's ability to handle all these activities at a large scale.
Understood. In terms of the education program that was just described, why are you so reluctant to publish the results of previous and future audits? Would you consider hiring a top law firm or third-party organization to conduct a publicly available investigation into the issues raised?
Okay. Thank you for the question, sir. I think I already answered in another, maybe in another, venue to this question. Clearly, as you can imagine, it's also the rule of the large auditing firm, I mean, the top auditing firms. When they agree to make an internal audit on a sensitive topic, they require a non-disclosure of the results of their audit publicly, and the results of the audit should be reserved for internal purposes or for any kind of official investigation. We made an external assessment on the basis, on the allegations that were mentioned. This third-party assessment was made by a very highly recognized name. The results of this audit, they are, of course, information that are confidential to clients.
They are available to our management, available to the client, and available to officials in case they want to know it. They are not available for the public by contract.
Are you categorically saying there is no way you can provide a summary or reduction of any audit?
I have already asked 10 x my Chief Legal Officer and who came with an official press release that has been approved by our third-party auditor, which is that the third-party assessment was in line with the finding of the internal audit and could say that there was no materiality to the allegation that was published in the press, and so they were misleading. The official statement has been released, I think Monday or Tuesday.
Agreed. That, yes.
Thanks.
Can we pass to the next question?
The next question comes from the line of Patrick Jousseaume from Société Générale.
Good evening, Daniel. Good morning for you. Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Very well.
Okay, thank you. In 2020, 2021, you had a case with a UNI Global Union, and there was an arbitration of OECD, which let's say said that after some difficult time you were able to handle properly the COVID crisis consequences. There were nevertheless various recommendations made to you. These various recommendations were mostly about unionization, representation of workers and so on, in I think seven countries, actually six, including Colombia. Could you comment on where you are currently in these recommendations, please?
Of course, with great pleasure, I'm going to let Olivier Rigaudy to answer this topic because he's much more accurate on the specific of your question.
Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Patrick, for this question. Effectively, by July or early August 2021, we have been cleared by the PN, by the NCP on the way we have ran the COVID story or the COVID protective measures for people, and that was absolutely in line with the OECD rules. Beyond that, there were six recommendations that was issued by the NCP, of which we spent all of last year to make them happen. There are six of them. We had a meeting. We provided to the NCP early July all the answers. All of them were mainly reimbursement of salary of people in the Health and Safety Committee in the Philippines, in India.
The fact that we recognize union in Albania. There was also two other question, one on Greece, one on Portugal, on which we answer. There was the last question, which was the fact that to engage negotiation with a union in Colombia that we did, because as you know, the Colombia management team met in Utraclaro, who is the representation of the so-called union that want to be recognized in Colombia. We met them. I'm speaking as a Controller of the CEO for Colombia, the 17th of August on an informal meeting to say how we can move on. That's where we are.
We produce this, all this information to the NCP, the 7th of July, and we are still waiting for a final press release to be issued by the NCP. We are absolutely in line on these six recommendations, as you can see.
Yes. To be clear, Patrick Jousseaume, what Olivier says is the top five are. The box is ticked. We have been compliant with the top five recommendation. The only open topic, and which is pretty difficult because it seems that it's not easy to resolve, is this topic in Colombia.
Yeah.
For which we have made the move.
Do you think that it is because of that you have this issue in Colombia? We might
You know, I cannot make supposition, but I have learned to connect the dots.
Okay. Fine. Among the five recommendations, there are number of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Which one is it exactly? The six you mentioned?
I'm sorry. The six, all of them are Colombian one, but one which we still negotiate.
Okay.
From three, there was one on Portugal, one on Greece. Health & Safety Committee in India and Philippines that have been elected and part of a monthly meeting, plus recognition of a union in Albania, which is also.
Which has been done.
Which has been done. There are still this one, which we're spending despite the fact that we met the union to find a way to move on. So far we have not been answered on that. To a certain extent, if you read the press that has been done on that, you will see that the people of this union were recognizing that this meeting has been held, sorry. They were recognizing that the negotiations were ongoing.
Okay. Thank you, sir, for this details. My second question, you mentioned, Daniel, at the beginning that you are going to launch an internal audit in Colombia. What is the specific topic of this audit? I have not understood that.
It's, you know, each time, it's, I would say it's a kind of systematic management posture that we, the ExCom of Teleperformance, take when there is an open issue, even if we trust deeply what says our local management, we always want to have people who have no vested interest in analyzing the situation to make an assessment and give us a report. Typically, you know, it's all the question that can be related to the working conditions, the right of the worker, everything.
Okay. Okay, fine. To come back to the unionization in Colombia, should I understand that there is not a single union that is able to get. I don't know how many people needs to be put together in order to make a union representative?
I'm not going to answer because I don't know.
Okay.
If Juan Carlos Hincapié can enter in the discussion, because Juan Carlos Hincapié should be around and he is the President of Latin America. He is going to be much more specific than I can be. Do we have Juan Carlos?
We do not have Juan Carlos at the moment.
I think this is Agustin Grisanti, the Global COO for Teleperformance. Juan Carlos Hincapié is not in the list of the speakers, but I can answer that question. The reality is that there were several issues in the process when it comes to formalities to be recognized as a union. We highlighted those. Now the union is in the process of correcting those problems. This is what we agreed with them. Once they solve the issues and present with all the formalities required by law, we will seek to negotiate if they have the appropriate representation.
Okay.
To understand more than negotiate.
Okay. Two last question, and they are I think it is very simple. First of all, the 85% and 89% satisfaction rate that you mentioned a few minutes ago in Colombia, does it compare to the 65% threshold that is usually?
Yes.
That's benchmarked by yes?
Yes.
By the best work? Yes. Okay. My first question is, do you intend to organize, I mean, a meeting, a nice meeting or something about ESG topics?
Probably with this very unfortunate event that made people take probably decisions that are against their interest, it might be an interesting suggestion. We are going to review that in our next ExCom.
Thank you. That's all from me.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Simona Sarli from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening, and thanks for taking my questions. First of all, a clarification. The external auditor that was completed on Content Moderation, was that also looking into Colombia? Secondly, following these allegations, have you proactively been engaging with employees in Colombia, apart from launching obviously the internal investigation tomorrow, from tomorrow? Let's start from this and then let's go with others. Yeah.
First, I'm going to let Bhupender to answer to the specific about the scope of the different audit that preceded. Second, typically we manage the business by working around management session. Unfortunately, something happened in the world that you know very well, that is called confinement. The Top Management of the group has been able to travel again only recently. By the way, I spent the whole month of October, but in the other direction because I was in Dubai, in all our site in India, in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and so on. Of course, with this topic, Colombia becomes on the top of the list. So far it was not really at the top of the list because Colombia has always been perceived, not only internally, but by the different stakeholder, including the authorities of Colombia, as a model company.
Yeah. Simona, on the specific point, the external audit was at that time focused only on the U.S., because it was also in the context of responding to the letter from the senators' staffers. It was not focused on Colombia. Having said that, when that issue was highlighted, what we did do was we conducted detailed focus groups and audits, both from our side and also in some cases clients also did, including in Colombia. We did not find anything which was, though at that time Colombia was not mentioned, other countries were not mentioned, but we did do an internal review at that time and along with our clients, and we did not find anything that was, something, as for the allegations. We have done the first level when this thing happened.
The second thing is also regarding are we speaking to our staff and other things. We actually do have as part of our SOP anyway skip interviews on a regular basis where employees are able to speak to, the managers of their managers so as to understand if there is something that we need to improve. In addition to that, there are two other channels for employees to raise their concerns, which may not be resolved at a site level because even the skip level interviews are at a site level. One, there is the global whistleblower, and second is an anonymous channel to the ExCom. At least in the last two years, none of these two channels, we have heard any of these type of allegations that have been made in these two anonymous channels. It's not that we don't get.
We do get messages on these two channels, but we've not heard anything regarding some of the allegations that have been made regarding Content Moderation business.
Thank you. Apart from then starting also an internal investigation on Colombia specifically, so are you looking to expand also the auditing that has been done by one of the top four?
If we consider it necessary, why not? I mean, you know, it's a very volatile situation right now. Clearly, I think that there's been a kind of an earthquake because of something that was not really material. Now if we have to spend a few hundred thousand more to get another third-party audit there, I mean, it's not going to stop us.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Karl Green from RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you very much. My first question, just going back to this point about you being open-minded as to whether to stick with the Content Moderation business for the medium to longer term, depending on how your stakeholders feel about that, maybe when they've gone to visit your operations. Could you just help me understand the revenue breakdown within Content Moderation? Specifically, how much of the revenues are generated from the AI, which does the heavy lifting, and perhaps some of the other services like fact checking or false advertising monitoring. If you were to walk away from the human-led monitoring Content Moderation, actually, what proportion of that 7% of revenues would disappear?
Understood. In fact, there is a little misunderstanding. There are zero revenue that comes from the AI in Content Moderation because this is not our AI that makes the screening. This is the client AI that makes the screening. The client provide to Teleperformance what is gray zone, borderline. Because the clients have to manage between Charybdis and Scylla. Not to let something egregious pass, and at the same time not to be accused of censorship. I mean, I am sure you know that. I'm sure you have read a lot of things about that because it's a hot topic today all over the world, and specifically with the change of ownership at Twitter.
Okay. That's helpful. Within Content Moderation, how much do you generate at the moment from the non-content reviews? Things like fact-checking and false advertising, if anything, maybe they're immaterial.
Most of our lines are not about egregious content. The problem is that even in lines that are not egregious content, in the gray stuff, you can have something that finally reveals to be egregious. Keep in mind what I told you on the operations that we manage. Whether it's in Portugal, whether it's in Colombia, whether it's in the U.S., the statistic of this case is one occurrence per one million cases reviewed. 1/1 million is not all the guys, they are exposed continuously to a role of disgusting stuff. It can happen, but it's statistically one per one million. It has been checked, rechecked. Excuse me. Bhupender, am I right or not?
Yes, Daniel, that's we have rechecked many times, and in most countries, actually, it's even less than 1/1 million .
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Just a second unrelated follow-up question. You, you’ve mentioned there that you’re keen to organize a tour at some of your U.S. and European facilities for investors. What sort of timescale do you think you can organize that on? I guess, therefore, there’s gonna be a bit of a lag now before investors can make up their mind as to whether to support your continuing work in Content Moderation.
Obviously, it needs to be organized. We need to get first the agreement of our clients, so it's a negotiation also. If we think that it's such an emergency that the people cannot understand what we say, we can do it tomorrow. Otherwise, reasonably, it's something that we are going to shoot for in the Q1 of 2023.
Okay, thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Antonin Baudry from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for this call. Two questions if I may. The TIME article speaks about compensation and working conditions of your employees in Colombia. Should we expect an increase in costs or increase in wages related to improve working conditions in the future in this country? Will you be able to pass this potential higher costs to your clients? My second question is, why do you do this high-risk business in Colombia and not in the U.S. or in Europe, where workers might be better protected with more regulation? I have a sub-question that is short. You say one occurrence per one million case. One million case, does it include AI cases or is it just human interaction? Thank you.
One million case is just human interaction. It doesn't integrate the AI cases because we don't work on the AI cases. The AI cases is before the work is transferred to us. Is it clear?
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. The second point, the Content Moderation is not different from any kind of business that is outsourced. Sometimes they are made domestic, sometimes they are made nearshore or offshore. In this specific case, to give you a precision, the Content Moderation that is done in Colombia is not for the U.S. The Content Moderation because the Content Moderation that is for the U.S., we do it in the U.S. Content Moderation typically has to be very localized because there are things that are acceptable in one culture and not in the other one. The Content Moderation in Colombia is for Spanish LatAm and Brazil. I hope this answer your question.
Yeah.
Third-
Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Third, I'm not finished. Third, right now, I do not. Clearly, we do not invent the level of compensation country- per- country. The level of compensation in Sweden is not the level of compensation in France. That is not the level of compensation in India or the Philippines. What I can tell you relatively speaking, and here I speak also under the control of Bhupender, if I am right, our content moderator in Colombia are paid 50% above the average salary of the normal local customer experience agent for Colombia. For Brazil, they are paid the double because it's bilingual. Bhupender, am I right or not?
Yeah. This is one of the items that we had audited as part of our internal reviews. The average compensation for content moderators in Colombia is 115% more than the minimum wage, and somehow the TIME article was trying to say that we are paying minimum wage. It is 45% more than the average compensation of the customer experience staff. It is paid more than both customer experience and significantly more than the minimum wages. Also, the point around attrition. The attrition is 3.06% for Content Moderation staff per month in Colombia versus 8.3% for the normal customer experience staff. If you combine the two facts, they are paid more, they are more engaged, and the attrition is lower, doesn't kind of make any point towards increasing compensation.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Nicole Manion from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. The first question would be just about your focus on the results of employee engagement surveys. You know, these are not generally seen as maybe the best way to measure how things are for employees, especially when other metrics such as churn and pay may suggest some issues among the reports that employees might be concerned about job security if they speak about some of the issues they're facing. Is there anything else that you can maybe point to, as a metric that might give us some more comfort here, on the sort of experience on the ground? I may have missed this, but could you please confirm what percentage of Content Moderation is in Colombia and also Brazil and the U.S., I guess as well? That would be helpful. Thank you.
Clearly, maybe Agustin you can answer this, the distribution, because we have content moderators in Europe, we have content moderator in Asia, we have content moderator in U.S., we have content moderator in Colombia. Please, Agustin, you are going to be more precise than I am.
Yeah. Today, we do the Content Moderation out of Colombia for Latin America mainly. The volumes that we handle in Latin America from Colombia are the double versus what we handle today for the U.S. Please, you need to understand they're also not the same clients that we serve for Latin America, are the same clients that we serve for the U.S. and also the lines that we serve are different. As Daniel was saying also, we have a significant activity additionally in Europe and Asia.
To give some more specific numbers, we globally have about 15,000 people on Content Moderation. Colombia is about 2,400, U.S. is about 2,000.
Okay.
Coming back to your first point on your question about how we evaluate the employee experience, not only we of course are in a competitive market and we look at salaries and the conditions that we do, we also include the wellness part and less hours that the moderator works versus a normal customer agent when it comes to hours per day and break time versus work time for the same salary of course. Also we do the Great Place to Work survey. We have the focus group, but also we do constantly internal engagement surveys that are surveying our population every single week.
We, again, not only this happens in a Great Place to Work, but also in our internal surveys, the Content Moderation moderators for Colombia rank the experience that they have as our employees significantly above the rest of the company in the customer experience. I must say also that in Colombia we have one of the highest engagement scores in the world when it comes to a sentiment survey or employee satisfaction.
Okay. Thank you. I've got two follow-up questions, if that's okay. The first one would be, can you sort of clarify where the liability sits here between you and the client? You know, when these investigations are launched by governments or whoever else, you've mentioned that the content, for instance, belongs to TikTok, but clearly you have contractual obligations. So where does the liability sit in a legal sense? And secondly, you've said that the union request in Colombia wasn't done in the proper way, and that it was rejected. So what is the sort of conditions here for getting people back to the table, and what is the likely sort of timeline around that, or is it just not likely at all at this point? Thank you.
Really, I see across many equation that there is a kind of suspicion that we are a sweatshop factory. We are not, and I engage you to come to visit our operation, to visit the sites to the mindset, the spirit, and you are going to discover that it's far from what you can have in mind. Now on this specific topic, you know, to progress, you need to be two. It's like in everything in the life. We are going to try to manage to really avoid this big explosion of inflammation. We are far from being the guilty people that many imagine. Can we pass to the next question because it's already 1 hour 15 minutes?
The next question comes from the line of Alan Kurtz from Lord Abbett. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Just on your ability to talk about what was in the audit so far and maybe what's in some of the future ones, I was, you know, wondering why it's not possible to just address some of the issues in a press release directly. You kind of did just a few minutes ago, talking about the TIME article and the claims about compensation there. I mean, why not just kind of aggregate all the allegations that are made against Teleperformance in Colombia and talk about what Teleperformance is specifically doing in those areas and, you know, any opportunities to do more.
You know, I understand your suggestion. These kind of things are always very delicate to decide. We obviously have the advice of the best professional in terms of crisis management and public relations. Sometimes it doesn't make so much sense to go back to public debate because you put more oil on the fire. There is no ideological position on that. It's a question of what is the best to manage this aggression.
Right. Okay. I'll hold off until we can talk another time. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Bianca Kao from WCM. Please go ahead.
Hello. My question is, what is the percentage of your overall labor force is in Colombia? And what is the risk of the contingent? Is this just the beginning, or do you think you're getting similar probes in the Philippines or any of the other regions? That is my question.
Yeah, I understand. Our Colombia is more or less 10% of our total workforce. Let's be clear. There is no workforce issue in Colombia. This is all again Twitter government decision to make an audit. It will not be the first time that a company gets an audit. Then the way it has been put into perspective, I mean, our employees in Colombia are very happy. You go to Colombia, you are going to see a very energetic company. Are we expecting that we are going to see any kind of spill over the other countries? Oh my God, I wish that in every country where we are, people would be half satisfied with Teleperformance as they are in Colombia.
Really, there is a kind of dual reality, cognitive dissonance that I strongly stand against because Teleperformance Colombia is not a company that is close to the internal social rupture. Not at all.
I'll add one more data point just to support that. We hire about 4,000 people every month in Colombia. If we were the kind of employer that was being portrayed, we would not be able to hire people at that scale.
I think that we are going to go with the last question, if you do not mind.
The last question comes from the line of David Cerdan from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Okay. Good evening, gentlemen. I have some very short question. Just two, one, if I'm right, Utraclaro, the Colombian trade union was also in dispute with some of your competitors, I think that, Atento. What is the unionization rate of your competitors for Colombia? Second question is just on the share buyback. What is the maximum size of a share buyback? Just to clarify this point. Thank you.
I don't know anything about Utraclaro and our competitor. Maybe Agustin knows. I have no idea. Let's be clear. We are the typical. Not only Teleperformance, our type of services with a lot of employees, we are the natural target in a nice way of these organizations. As long as they respect the law, no problem. Again, we cannot start a relationship on a fight of power with people who do not respect the law and on top of that, have made fake statements about us. Now, the total amount of the share buyback, we need to manage it, and as long as we are going to consider that it's a very good deal for the company.
Is there a limit to the share buyback? Is it limited to?
Of course. Probably there is a limit of the reasonable resources of Teleperformance. As you can imagine, EUR 150 million is not the total available resources of Teleperformance. Frankly speaking, I think a lot of Teleperformance managers are going to be very happy to be able to buy Teleperformance shares at discounted price.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. First, we tried, Agustin Grisanti, Global COO, Bhupender Singh, President of Global Transformation, and I, we tried to give you a fair and accurate representation of the situation. We really think that there has been an overreaction in a volatile environment. The judgment belongs to you. Teleperformance business is strong, is going to remain strong, and there are no crisis except the ones that have been created in the media in Teleperformance Colombia. I would like to thank you very much. Thank you.
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