Now hiring: Over 500 jobs coming to Montgomery

When international call center giant SYKES Enterprises decided to open a new customer service hub, one of the top priorities was to find a place with friendly people.

"If you start with a person who already has that engrained in them, just being kind and nice, then you're ahead of the game," said Rob Duncan, senior vice president for SYKES North America.

On Thursday they announced they had found that place – Alabama's capital city. SYKES will open a $3 million center in east Montgomery by September, hiring 250 people this year and another 250 over the next three years.

Duncan said the key was having access to a work force with a high level of "emotional intelligence."

"It's engrained in the culture here, right?" he said. "Being kind, being nice, being thoughtful with people."

He said about 80 percent of the jobs will be full time, and salaries start at $10 an hour with the possibility of also earning on-the-job incentives. Hiring has already started, and candidates can apply at sykes.com/careers.

Work is also underway to repurpose the three-story, brick and glass office building at 201 Technacenter Drive that will be the center's home. The 45,000-square-foot building sold for $2.5 million last fall according to RealtyTrac.

The city and county offered the company a total of $150,000 in incentives over three years, keyed to employment levels.

Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange welcomed Duncan to the city Thursday during a ceremony at the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce and called SYKES "a class company."

SYKES takes customer service and tech support calls for Fortune 500 companies. It has 20 centers in North America and others in 21 countries around the world. It's based in Tampa, Fla., but has nearly 50,000 employees globally operating in 30 languages.

Duncan said the company's "product" is friendly and helpful service, which is why they settled on Montgomery after a nearly year-long search.

"We have people who are answering these interactions, and we have to make sure that they're prepared to do that at the standard that these companies are wanting and needing," he said. "It's a high level."

The company was trading for about $25 a share on the NASDAQ Thursday afternoon as SYKE.

Strange said he hopes this won't be the last major new job announcement of the summer.

"If everything goes right," he said, knocking on wood behind the podium, "we'll have some announcements in the next two to three weeks that will keep pushing that on up."