A Dream Job

A section of our society today, works while the rest of us sleep. But far from being a nightmare it is a ‘Dream' job for many. Unemployment was a problem but suddenly the tables have turned! With newer and better prospects cropping up everyday, people retention is a huge issue.

Balaji: What is it like working in the BPOs, retention being a key problem?

Ahmad: Every job has it's pros and cons. Adaptive measures are being taken. Slow conditioning is the key to such problems.

Ravi: Many bright young people are working in the BPO industry today. Jobs being easily available, one has the comfort of doing the job they like, thus managing people has become difficult. Most of the managers are young, with 2 to 3 years of work experience.

Balaji: The problems can be classified into Health related problems and Retention based problems. Is it healthy to work
in a BPO?

Ahmad: It is healthy to work in a BPO, but the way of working in a BPO is unhealthy. In a BPO, one solves others problems by responding to stimulus, with presence of mind. Our biological clocks are not designed to be awake at night. Sleep cannot be compensated/substituted by anything else.  One should take precautions like consuming fluids; keeping a check on hormonal imbalances, doing yoga, etc to avoid any kind of health hazards. Stress is response to the stimulus. Stress has ultimately become like an umbrella with all its tentacles attached. It has its impact on each and every part of your body.

Apart from sleeping disorder, there are problems like gastrointestinal problems due to irregular diet patterns, bad ergonomics, etc. Ergonomics is science of making the job fit the worker. Research done on ergonomics, says that in the year 1999, 5.4 million days were lost due to various health problems, in UK, arising due to odd working hours, and in 2003, research says that the number has increased by 45%. According to NASSCOM, stress is increasing by 10 to 20% a year.

Some health issues are stress, mild irritation, migraines, insomnia, suicidal tendencies, unable to sit through work, depression, etc. There are ego clashes between the worker and his boss, due to lesser tenure levels between the two. There is also no supportive platform provided by the boss to encourage the worker. The workers are not aware about these symptoms and are misled by the regular chemists, who prescribe pills for temporary comfort only. While working at night, women experience hormonal imbalances, get into an irritable mood, suffer from dehydration and anxiety. They work against their body clock.

Ravi: 8 hours of work at night is equivalent to 10-12 hours of work during the day. It is not difficult to find a solution to the problem of lack of sleep. One has to strike a balance between the physical and mental state, by a disciplined approach of sleeping in the day, if one has worked all night. He should accept the demands and live up to them. You have to convince yourself and realize the job's requirements and make up your mind to work with it, rather than complaining about it.

Ahmad: Transportation is another major issue in the BPO industry. Research shows that employees cause rash driving, by instigating the driver to hurry up. Hiring the right person, for the right job is a big challenge. There is huge quantity available, but we have to focus on quality.

Ravi: A lot of ‘noise' is being created by the youth, about working at night. People have been working nights since independence, but they never complained, as they were blue-collared nurses, watchmen, etc, who have learnt to adjust to the situation whereas the youth today are the successors. White-collared people always have a voice in the society, as compared to the blue-collared workers. There is a medical transcription company by the name Spheris, a division of Healthscribe and Data Matrix, in Bombay which has enabled the workers to work from home.

Ahmad: As Ravi said, people in other professions have also worked at nights. They catch up with sleep the next morning, without making fuss about it. The stress levels in BPOs are higher than most other jobs; for example, a software engineer can take breaks whenever he wishes to, which is not the case in BPOs. Lack of flexibility, high supervision, pressure to perform, etc increase the workload in BPOs.

Ravi:The availability and schedule adherence is crucial for doing the job successfully. Success can be measured with the help of metrics. Average handle time (AHT) is an example. A call has to be handled or serviced within ten minutes AHT. So AHT is the metric on which the performance is measured. People orient themselves to the metric.

Ahmad: The solution to all the problems is to focus at the grass root level. Make the workers adapt themselves to the work environment and culture. Make them health conscious and aware about health related hazardous problems. Conduct pre employment tests and complete blood tests. Organize more health check-ups than team outings and parties. Brief the employees about the stress involved in the job. The capability of the person working will be learnt once the results of the health tests are out.

Ravi: Assume that all employees are healthy; but the attrition rate is high, due to which the existing workers are asked to over work, which is definitely unhealthy. It is a case of lack of proper management. Thus the healthy people become sick and blame the BPO industry. It is a myth that the job is of repetitive nature in a BPO. There is huge variety in the job.

Ahmad: A research by Dataquest says that 37% of the jobs in the BPO industry in Bangalore are repetitive in nature. For that matter, any job can be boring; it entirely depends on the individual's perception. A doctor's job is also mundane and repetitive.

Audience Member (Ashwin): Does team building in BPOs help?

Ravi: The individuals must be self-motivated to benefit from the team building activities. Motivation activities should not be interpreted as something to frolic and have fun only. Serious events also can be motivating such as making the manager speak to all the employees, which does not belong to the category of fun. For example, a person with high IQ, a very well educated person, is a janitor, and he loves his job, as he interprets sweeping the floor to be a great job; this clearly indicates that individual's perception plays a major role in enjoying the work or making a fuss about it. It is the duty of the manager to make the worker see the positive side of work.

Balaji: Any tips that you give to your trainees?

Ravi: I ask my trainees to ask themselves one question, "Why should my agents work for me?" as in what is so special in me that people should work under me and accept me as the team leader.

Secondly, I ask the trainees to make their agents successful in their jobs. That make the agents work better under the team leader.

Thirdly, I ask the trainees to focus on the careers of their agents, as no one is interested in sticking to the same job. I ask them to do some succession planning; it adds value to the value basket of the employees. Team members should have their succession plan. I also instruct them to make sure that their agents get enough sleep, consume healthy food and take appropriate precautions. You must train people on other topics also, make them smarter.

Monitoring coaching feedback should help individuals work better in the BPOs.

Blacken your windows; put a double curtain to ensure sleep, so that you can be awake at night. Too much coffee and coke causes dehydration, therefore consume less coffee.

Balaji: Is there a biological clock, which does not allow a person to work at night?

Ahmad: There is no such thing as a bio clock. It's all in the mind of the individual, but depravation of sleep at night, does have a deep impact on the body, since we have been accustomed to be awake during the day and sleep at night since birth.

Actually speaking, there are many positives, in the BPO industry; it is just that people are not aware about them and are making a fuss only about the problems.

Audience Member(Varun): How important are the pre employment health check-ups and how seriously is it taken by the companies? How often should the employees go through a health check-up?

Ahmad: It is very important for an employee to go through pre employment check-ups. An employee should undergo medical check-up once every six months. It makes you aware of yourself and what measures you should take to keep yourself healthy.

Ravi: One should understand that team building does not happen only by partying together. It can also happen by organizing social campaigns, blood donation camps, cleaning the streets, where the employees are satisfied and feel that some team building has taken place. The team leaders should guide them in these aspects.

AM: Also, there are some identity related issues in the BPOs, wherein the workers are not sure about their identity and are in a dilemma. Also, what affects the employees' lives adversely is the psychosocial stress. They are not able to live their normal social life, and they end up mixing their domestic problems with their work related targets. Thus, this makes the situation worse at both the home and the workplace. They do not know why they are there, may be just because of the money, they say that they wanted to do something else.

Ravi: Creating a fake identity at a call center is ok as long as the objective of doing it is fulfilled, that is servicing the call, and also nowadays companies are discouraging this. Every job has its own requirements. Proper leave planning by the top management would ensure less attrition. That would lead to adequate breaks for the employees, job satisfaction and less health related problems. Productivity increases and social stress is also reduced.

AM (Ashwin): By creating the right kind of ambience at the workplace, does it not help in making a difference in the perception levels of the employees?

Ravi: The managers can make the employees adapt to the work environment, but the employees have to communicate with their friends as and when they want, which cannot be facilitated by the managers. They can to a certain extent but they are not doing so.

Ahmad: Focus group interviews at the workplace ensure that work is made more enjoyable, as they find the root cause of the problem.

They come out with ways of doing work in a more enjoyable manner.

Married couples find it difficult to work in BPOs due to the odd working hours and so do students, as majority of the workers are those who gave given up studying, which make them guilty and makes them sick internally. The guilt factor will make them crib and make them leave ultimately.

Ravi: 80% of leave taken by the employees are predictable in nature. They should identify trigger events and festivals when people would naturally seek leave. If these holidays are planned in advance and every employee is given appropriate holidays, then attrition rate won't be so high.

Ahmed: For example, during Diwali, the Muslim employees can work little more on behalf of their Hindu counterparts and vice versa in case of Id.

Ravi: Enabling people to carry cell phones inside the working premises is not safe as there are so many security issues coming up every other day. We tell managers that their agents are reachable to their kith and kin at all times. The luxury of cell phones had suddenly become a need and it is dangerous to allow the usage of them in the working premises. Security is a huge issue, and a small leak can create havoc in the organization. Controls are always going to be there in all work sectors, so why make fuss about BPO industries?

Ahmed: It is found that because of use of computers the following ergonomically related issues have cropped up among corporate units across  India...Computer vision syndrome( eye related disorders), Neck Strain, De Quervain's Syndrome, Trigger finger, Carpal tunnel syndrome, Tenosynovitis, Bursitis and the most common being Backache or lumbosacral strain.

When you teach some one before he join works, he feels good and the feel good factor develops automatically towards the organization, and he feels more attached to the company

AM (Levine): Shouldn't BPOs form transportation forums for safe transportation of the employees, keeping in mind the mishap that took place recently. Also, is it right to hire employees in the rural areas?

Ravi: We should look at a problem in a particular context. There are 3,50,000 employees working in the industry and the BPO industry is 5 years old. There are so many ordinary people who die on the roads and they go unreported. So, are we not making a big fuss about the death of an employee in the BPO industry only? So many people die in the manufacturing industry also, do we make a fuss about it? As the number of deaths and murders is increasing, one can easily say that the BPO industry is safer as compared to other industries. Moreover companies are continuously improving security and safety measures. The mishap that happened could have been avoided. What if one BPO employee murdered another employee, while in the van? You can't expect the driver to be a martial arts expert also who can prevent such mishaps.

You have to match your shift pattern with the call volume pattern. It is done to optimize performance. So shifts that begin late at night shouldn't be allotted to women, which is possible.

Ahmad: Transportation is a gift to the employees, from the BPO industry. Probably, proper steps should be taken to enhance the transport system also. The corporate world has to take appropriate measures for such susceptible issues like women working at odd hours, and come out with solutions.

Ravi: People capable of performing non-voice jobs in the rural areas are being recruited to work in BPOs. Small towns are now accommodating BPOs, like Vardha, a small town near Nagpur, has many BPOs.People are the industry's strength.

The percentage of voice jobs is high as compared to non-voice jobs in a BPO, but this percentage is going to come down in the near future.

AM: What is the ratio of the physical to psychological problems facing the BPO industry?

Ahmad: There is no particular ratio as such, as both are interdependent, like a two faced coin.

I would like to conclude by saying that luckily we do not have problems that cannot be solved. Today, many BPOs have in-house doctors, counsellors and psychologists who are at the beck and call of the troubled employees.

Ravi: The BPO industry is a young industry; it has a long way to go. It will learn from its mistakes and improve continuously. From the people perspective, adapting to the environment is the key. I feel that, soon middle-aged and old people will also enter the BPO industry that will give a new dimension and identity to the entire BPO industry. The industry is already heading towards maturity and all the technical, people and client specific problems will soon come to an end; and we will do it better than China.  

Issue BG59 Feb06