A job with a BPO firm, once a sought after choice for the urban youngsters, is fast losing its sheen. The $14.7 billion Indian BPO industry that employs one million people, is finding it tough when it comes to talent acquisition. Quality CVs are fast drying up in the industry. Industry experts point to lack of stability, limited career progression and monotony at work, which is driving the youngsters away.
Today the job market provides ample options for the young graduates, with sectors like retail, insurance, FMCG, healthcare and financial services proving to be a better career deal. According to the latest Ma Foi Randstad?s Employment Trends Survey, in the last few quarters sectors like BFSI, healthcare, manufacturing and hospitality has created the most number of jobs for freshers. 24/7 Customer vice-president-human resources development Nina Nair said, ?The availability of quality talent is being stretched with a lot more players hiring from this limited pool of talent. The ratio of demand has certainly overcome the supply to a large extent.?
According to Infosys senior vice-president & global head-HR Nandita Gurjar, today’s generation look for different and diverse career options at workplace, which most of the BPO jobs fail to provide. ?They are not interested in hierarchy, they want to try different things. It is important for BPOs to provide different projects and career path and not just hierarchical movement to attract young crowd.?
In the current job market, finding the right candidate for a BPO company has become a tough call for staffing companies also. ?Young candidates realise that BPOs are more of a volume-based option as they hire in bulk. They hire 100 people on the floor and one or two out of that will get a promotion. There is no clear cut career plan,? says Sangeeta Lala, vice-president (sourcing), TeamLease, country’s leading staffing company.
?We map out colleges according to category A,B,C and depending on the requirement quality and salary package we go out for hiring. Since it is difficult to get good talent, companies nowadays are going to tier-II and III cities for hiring,? Lala added. In the BPO industry, majority of the workforce is not from B-schools and top colleges. The requirement from top B schools is only for lateral recruitment which is much smaller in number and therefore it is not difficult to source the right talent. Experts point out that hiring from smaller town have led to higher investment in trainings. ?Since companies are hiring lower quality workforce they have to invest more in training to bring them up to a certain level,? Lala said.
For companies such as Omega Healthcare Management Services, a BPO who does US healthcare work, availability of talent is a major concern. ?If you don’t have good talent, quality of work comes down and it impacts business. We have 100 applicants everyday coming for interview but we are able to offer only one or two and sometime even none,? Gopi Natarajan, president and chief executive, Omega Healthcare Management Services, said.
Looking at the current trend, BPOs have realised that swanky offices and perks will no longer be a pull for the youngsters. BPOs like Intelenet, which is experiencing the talent gap at the entry level, feels there is a need to encourage learning and development opportunities for the fresh pass outs. Manuel Dsouza, chief human resource officer, Intelenet GLobal Services, said, ?Once the role roadmap is articulated for an individual it provides a positive perspective on the career path of an employee. If this is further beefed up with training programmes and development tracks one can attract talent across the diverse functions in our industry be it finance, HR, process excellence and marketing.?
Big players like Infosys BPO, TCS and Wipro who has training and education programmes for their employees, pure play BPOs like 24/7 Customer also provides degree and diploma programmes via tie ups with institutions. It offers certification programmes in diverse subjects through Nalanda Academy, Leadership. It also offers an in-house certification program for employees who are keen to make a career in HR. ?We feel that the industry needs to be positioned as a sunshine industry going forward – a positive image needs to be built to alleviate any negative influences,? Dsouza said.