BPOs formulating new strategy to check attrition!
posted in Outsourcing to India |The IT enabled services (BPO) industry has been looked upon as the next big employment generator. Nasscom predicts 1.1 million job requirement in the BPO sector by the year 2008.
Apart from rapid growth, BPO players were seen grappling with issues that kept surfacing all through the year.
Issues ranging from increasing attrition levels, the need to scale up rapidly and billing pressure have received maximum attention during the year.
High attrition rate has become a big challenge for BPO companies and this situation is very much popular because of the high demand in labour and available job opportunities for workers in the country.
BPO companies have formulated a new hiring strategy to beat attrition. That is to promote entry-level employees. Featuring in this list are Convergys, Zenta and 24/7 Customer, among others.
While BPOs claim that the strategy could give employees growth opportunities in the organisation, industry experts caution that it can work to the company’s advantage only in the short term, as attrition in BPOs is linked mainly to salaries. “This is an attractive strategy. But it needs to be bundled with on-the-job attractions to avoid boredom. If not, it may not work in the long run as the employees may end up doing the same work even after they are promoted,” said Adecco (India & Middle East) CEO Sudhakar Balakrishnan.
Convergys, which employs about 13,000 people in India, also follows the ethos of promoting from within and providing training programmes to groom future leaders. “A number of employees who started with us as agents now hold senior management positions within the company including Birgit Neumann, our vice president (operations) for India,” said Convergys-India vice president-HR Tim Huiting. Last year, the company promoted 20% of its 10,000 employees at the entry level in India.
According to Mr Sudhakar, companies across industries promote entry-levels depending on their contribution, potential and growth. “It is, however, not typically used as a retention strategy alone, unlike in BPOs, which face high attrition at that level,” he said.
If promotions are solely used to control attrition, output quality is most likely to suffer. “So, companies should also focus on training in order to ensure quality,” he added.
Going forward, there will be increased emphasis on quality certifications. BPO outfits will move to smaller towns and experience a reduction in attrition levels, leading to further consolidation.
