tries to understand how the perception has changed over the years
Change for the better?
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- Pawan Sharma |
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- Aniruddha Limaye |
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- Harsh Vinayak |
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- Manuel D’Souza |
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- Tim Huiting |
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- Sandeep Soni |
"The traditional convention no longer holds true; employees now prefer to work night shifts, so that they can assume their personal responsibilities during the day"
"People working with WNS
"Demand is high in the BFSI sector, for chartered accountants, acturians, underwriters, etc., while in the industry there is a shortage for employees with good command over English and other foreign languages"
"Seven years down the line, the share of voice process has reduced owing to the industry’s transition to higher value-added activities like feature-rich and non-voice transactions such as invoice processing, and company and equity research"
"Operations management, quality control and assurance, business development, project management and process migration, client services and account management, facilities and infrastructure management, are some of the career options in BPOs"
"Transport facility, attractive lifestyle, medical insurance coverage, performance-based incentives, recreation, cafeteria, concierge facilities, are just a few examples that the BPO industry offers to an individual"There was some skepticism and a lot of criticism about the outsourcing phenomenon—questions about its very survival to its ill-effects on the gen-next, every move was under the scanner. But as the story goes, and the case study is evident, it has survived and it is here to stay. BPOs are no longer restricted to the initial notion of being pertinent to tele-calling alone. Almost, all areas of interest and specialization can be honed and nurtured. Careers are shaped, progression is charted out, skills are put to use, and monetary and intangible benefits, a by-product.
Harsh Vinayak, Senior VP, Keane, said, “In the past four-five years, not only have we seen a reverse trend in the ITES sector, but in the general psyche of Indian parents also who are slowly understanding that in new India, meaningful employment and career growth opportunities can be obtained without an engineering or a medical degree. This coupled with the fact that the BPO sector in India has moved up the knowledge process value chain requiring people with higher education, has brought in the acceptance of BPO as a long-term career option.” He added that demand was high in the BFSI sector, for chartered accountants, acturians, underwriters, etc., while the industry has also been plagued by the shortage for call center employees—people with good command over English and other foreign languages.
Manuel D’Souza, Executive VP, HR, Intelenet Global Services, explained, “The Indian BPO industry has evolved drastically in the last seven years. In 1999, when the BPO boom had just taken off, voice-related services dominated the Indian BPO industry. However, seven years down the line, the share of voice process has reduced owing to the industry’s transition to higher value-added activities. These include feature-rich and non-voice transactions such as invoice processing, and company and equity research.”
Careers in training and development, personality development experts, communication and language specialists, quality management, the HR function, finance, banking and operations, analysts, sales and marketing, subject matter experts, well, BPOs have opened up a whole new set of avenues for people to envisage and explore. Tim Huiting, VP, HR, Convergys, listed down few of the career options:
- Operations management
- Quality control and assurance
- Business development
- Project management and process migration
- Client services and account management
- Training and development
- Human resource management
- Finance and accounts
- Information technology and systems
- Facilities and infrastructure management
Sanjiv Kapur, Senior VP and Head, Patni BPO, added, “Today BPO is an industry of choice both for young and experienced professionals as well as seasoned experts from unconventional fields like MBBS, pharmacy, actuarial science, Japa-nese language professionals, etc.”
Professional experts in any field, not restricted to the work purview alone, ranging from yoga gurus to dieticians to counselors to gym specialists, all are employed by BPOs as an add-on, to combat and weed out any form of employee stress. Strict quality control measures like Six Sigma and Kaizen, adoption of global standards and best practices, a keen focus on time management and stress management, acknowledging and emphasizing on team work, cultural integration, etc., have given a boost to this industry, and an impetus to people working therein.
Malini Gupta, Senior VP, InfoVision, felt that there has been a shift from primarily hiring freshers to a more mature approach attracting talent with years of experience in industries such as hospitality and sales teams across various verticals. She opined that fast paced growth, opportunity to work for leading brands, interaction with people across the globe and excellent work environment with people-focused practices, assist people to stay in the business for long.
Pay and perks
Pay and perks have never been an issue in this industry. Even under-graduates join in with salaries running into lakhs annually, plus additional attractions like joining bonuses, which in itself is a sufficiently large amount for the 10th and 12th pass students. Excellent business standards and world-class working environment, bonus and incentives, constant recognition and rewards, periodical plans for fun and outing, ESOPS, the BPO sector is buzzing and booming. Enormous pack packages and excellent perks, with a new work-area definition replacing the archaic model, for employees, seem to balance it out to sustain and withstand the high-pressured, stressful working zone. Sandeep Soni, ED and CEO, Spanco, reiterated, “The industry is a step ahead for education where even a graduate can join a BPO as the front-end workforce. Excellent, rewarding, open and transparent working environment, transport facility, attractive lifestyle, medical insurance coverage, performance based incentives, recreation, cafeteria, concierge facilities, regular get-togethers and other cultural programmes are just a few examples that the BPO industry offers to an individual.”
Kapur opined that innovative strategies like Bank@Patni enable financial stability and growth for Patni BPO employees. Under this programme, an employee below assistant manager level contributes a certain amount and Patni contributes a higher amount to the kitty. Within a period of three years, an employee can get more than double the amount that he/she contributed. The payouts happen every year.
Aniruddha Limaye, Chief People Officer, WNS Global Services, felt that focus on verticalization gave employees a deep knowledge of the domain, as also making them well-versed with the industry practices. People working with WNS thus get an opportunity to be part of industry verticals like travel or BFSI rather than being positioned as just having a BPO career. He outlined several factors that helped people to stay secure in the challenging, demanding and competitive workplace:
- Challenging work since you get an opportunity to work on various projects, each with its own unique business challenge and complexity
- Global roles—as BPO companies expand globally, it is creating global roles for employees
- Opportunity to work on big global brands
- Training and development on a continuous basis
- Nascent and fast growing industry that offers an excellent opportunity for growth and a challenging entrepreneurial environment
- Young and energetic environment where a person can grow to full potential
Climbing up the ladder
Just like multiple career opportunities are at bay, individuals careers are given due importance. KRAs and performance linked to aptitude and role, regular feedback sessions, constant monitoring and reviewing of goals, changing role and job rotation or vertical progression in the hierarchical ladder, both inviting and testing newer skill-sets and attributes, BPOs are engaged in retaining the workforce and augmenting the working span of employees.
Spanco has a career progression model for their front-end workforce, which ensures that whenever they have a position available in the non-operations functions, preference is given to the talent available internally within the organization, known as Internal Job Postings (IJP). They ensure that each and every employee has undergone a minimum of 60 hours of training in a calendar year and the same is linked with employees’ self development KRAs at the time of performance appraisal reviews.
Keane has a dedicated department called RCM (Roles and Career Management) that develops a customized career plan for each individual based on their aspirations, skills, capabilities and company’s vision. RCM then plans out the rotation of each employee within the different processes so that they get a well rounded aspect of the business and at the same time avoid monotony.
An Intelenet, an employee undergoes training programmes such as LEAD, GROWTH, and STEP to overcome the existing weaknesses and hone their skills. 80% to 90% of the promotions to team leaders and team managers happen through these programmes.
Pawan Sharma, President, KPIT Cummins Global Business Solutions (GBS), explained that the three parameters that were considered while hiring a candidate would be—educational qualification, skills they have, and the experience they carry.
The competency-based matrix and the profile formed would be based on the job, which will take the employee ability, aspiration and interest into consideration.
Sharma also sighted examples where the traditional convention no longer holds true and where employees prefer to work night shifts, so that they can assume their personal responsibilities during the day.
BPOs have thus opened up the job market and provided employment opportunities to people who otherwise would not have made it without a degree or a qualification. Similarly, it has definitely given mobility to the middle class income group who would have earlier never dreamt of earning big bucks, and climbing up the status ladder. With pros and cons in every field, let us just hope that the pros outweigh the negativity here.
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