Outsourcing increases the interaction between HR managers in the West and India. Some insights into the common challenges our Indian colleagues face may improve support and collaboration between managers in both locations.

• Recruitment
• Attrition
• Salaries and bonuses
• Job Satisfaction
• Training
• The recruitment process
• People-oriented    

Recruitment

"The absolute number one challenge in our organisation is recruitment. The number of people we recruit at an entry level varies from 200 up to 750 people per month," said Guillaume Gevrey during an interview at the inaugural conference of SIETAR India in Bangalore last August.

Sietar is the 32-year-old Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research. Indian and foreign human resource managers and intercultural consultants and trainers celebrated the creation of SIETAR India by sharing theories, ideas and innovations in the field as well as the    challenges Indian organisations face on 17 August 2006.

Gevrey, who worked for four years as a behavioural, functional and intercultural trainer for TransWorks, a Business Process Outsourcing company (BPO) in Bangalore explains that "recruitment is often linked to the season. Some BPOs recruit up to 200 people per week around the Christmas period. In order to recruit 200 people you have to interview 1000 people. This means lots of logistics as people come from different parts of the country as well as loads of paperwork. Once selected, we train the recruits to get them operational within four to five weeks."

Attrition

Recruitment reduces once the organisation is able to keep the loyalty of the employees. Attrition remains an enormous challenge as the average BPO attrition rate was 30-35 percent in 2005.

A Nasscom Hewitt-Associates Survey shows that the cost of attrition is 1.5 times the annual salary of an employee. Costs are due to loss of productivity, temporary replacement, loss of knowledge and new recruitment and training.

The attrition rate is linked to a number of causes, one being the average age of the employee. 87 percent Of the BPO employees are under the age of 30. In the article Managing attrition in BPO, authors Anirban Majumdar and Kamal Poddar of the Institute of Management in Kozhikode, Kerala, state that attrition is linked to career opportunities. Only 10 out of every 100 people will ever make it to consultant level and one out of every 100 to line manager.

Their research shows that the job is stressful as employees are moved from one process to another with little time to adjust. The work environment has rigid rules and strict monitoring and employees become affected by sleep disturbances due to working irregular hours.

Last but not least, regular poaching by competitors contributes to employees leaving the organisation for a better salary, a better position or career opportunities.

Salaries and bonuses

According to Gevrey of TransWorks, "New hires are offered a competitive salary of anywhere between USD 200 and USD 300 a month, which is very interesting for Indian youngsters. Those who are capable and loyal to the company get a chance to move up within a reasonable period of time. There are financial bonuses for best performers. We recently gave a bonus of a scooter worth a USD 1000."

Job Satisfaction

In order to manage the expectations of the recruit, the job description and role of the employee in the organisation should be clear when entering the organisation.

A Tesco employee segmentation survey in 2005 indicates that there are five broad attitude segments of people working within their workforce: 25 percent work-life balancers; 25 percent want it all; 18 percent pleasure seekers; 16 percent live to work and 16 percent work to live. 

By understanding the drives and needs of each segment the organisation can tailor the employment proposition to improve retention.

Training

Gevrey thinks that the recruit's level of competencies and their job expectations can only be fully understood once they have entered the initial training programme. This programme should be followed with interpersonal and intercultural training at a later stage.

Once people move up the ladder there is little time for training. There is a lack of leadership training on the operational level which is reflected on the work floor and consequently on the job satisfaction of the employee.

"In certain cases, when we have two candidates," says a Bangalore BPO manager, "one candidate may be technically very competent but low on soft skills and the second candidate scores very well on soft skills. So what we do is take the guy lower on the technical skills and give him intensive training on the job and assign him on to a leadership profile."

The recruitment process

In the end it all boils down to the recruitment process says Satish Seetharam, Manager at Bosch in Bangalore. "At Bosch", he says, "We look at the business requirements first. We make sure that the job profile we are looking for not only matches with the skills and competencies but also the job expectations of the candidate. An open discussion with the candidate gives insight into how long he will be staying with us."

Seetharam who believes that training, job rotation and career planning may be equally important to the candidate, explains, "We then offer a long-term plan which gives a clear perspective for the new recruit and the HR manager. We use the Bosch worldwide recruitment procedure and adapt it to our local situation." 

People-oriented

The daily reality and the challenges for HR managers in India are truly different from challenges faced in the West. Even though the attrition rate is high in India, HR managers are very people-oriented, while their western colleagues are far more process and task oriented.

According to Gevrey, the happiness of the employee and consequently the well-being of his extended family are important to the Indian organisation.

The employee is given leave to take his mother to the hospital regardless of whether other siblings are available to do so. The employee is allowed to attend the wedding of a neighbour or to go and mourn a family member on the other side of the country.

The well-being of the employee on a personal level is of benefit to the organisation. Western HR managers may learn from this and take this into consideration when working with Indian colleagues.

1 November 2006

Author: Eleonore Breukel. Amsterdam

For more information email ebreukel@intercultural.nl or visit www.intercultural.nl