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About
iOps
iOps
is a newsletter for BPO professionals in India. Its mission is to enhance
the operational capabilities of the Indian BPO Industry through
dissemination of
knowledge and sharing of best practices.
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Last
Issue
The
last issue of iOps was published exactly one year ago. Somehow, the
standard excuse "no time to write" does not cut it. Well, we hope to do
a better job this year to keep up the flow.
The last issue of iOps was on "The Power of Now"
which talked about Operations Intelligence. We are glad to note that
some companies have now taken steps towards developing such systems.
These are internal initiatives and are being done as projects by IT
departments.
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An
iOps Tip
"Whether you think you can, or whether you think you cannot, you are right" - Henry Ford
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Retention
Many
other retention strategies can be used at a corporate level. Some of
the most effective retention strategies include retention bonuses that
are directly credited into a family member's account, full subsidy for
higher education, creating visible career paths to other parts of the
business e.g. software, banking, insurance etc.
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Retention
The Team Leader's Challenge
One of the most important issues plaguing the BPO industry in India today is Attrition. Various estimates place the industry's
annual attrition rate at anywhere between 50% to 60%. But an informal chat with
executives of many companies will reveal that this number could possibly be
under-reported. In some cases, the attritions rates are as high as 100% i.e.
the company re-invents every year.
There are many factors that cause agents to leave their
job. There are localized company specific factors like company policies,
culture, reputation, salaries etc. There are also personal factors like travel
time, marriage, relocation and other family issues. However, these are issues that would exist in any
company. Therefore, there must be
larger economic or demographic factors at play that are causing this
problem. A couple of these factors
are as follows:
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Jobs are a commodity
As compared to the mid 80s or 70s, jobs are no longer scarce.
Even in the mid 90's abundant opportunities existed, but this was mainly
in the IT industry. However,
today, BPO companies in various areas (e.g. animation, call centers,
accounting, banking, insurance etc.) are providing graduates with a diverse
range of jobs. This employment also brings with it many perks including
but not limited to, higher salaries.
But the scenario today is such
that companies are falling over each other to recruit people, thereby resulting
in multiple job opportunities for employees (this situation was only enjoyed by
people graduating from the elite colleges/universities in India.). Therefore,
jobs are now perceived to have become commodities. As is the situation with any commodity product, consumer's loyalties
are seldom associated with any company.
This means that BPO companies face the same
challenge as companies making commodity products. While the latter have to deal
with building customer loyalty, BPO companies have to build employee
loyalty. Again, manufacturers of
commodity products have to operate in a certain price band. They cannot charge
lower prices due to profitability issues while consumers will not want to pay a
higher price for a commodity. Similarly, most BPO companies operate in a
certain salary band. Paying too low or too high will be detrimental to the
company. Therefore, the question
for every BPO company is "how do we build employee loyalty" when our employment
is perceived to be a commodity.
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Low tenure differential between Team Leaders and Agents
Due to the fast growth in the industry, the tenure
differential between an entry-level employee and his immediate superior
has now reduced (This difference is as low as a few months in certain
cases).
The
high growth in the industry has resulted in an explosion in demand for lower
and mid level management talent.
Therefore, people with low tenures are getting promoted to higher levels
even before they are ready. This low tenure differential leads to similar
competing aspirations between the team leader and the agent. This also leads to the agent not
learning much from the team leader
(apart from some areas of knowledge directly related to the job). There is minimal learning by agents in
the areas of personal or professional development.
Due
to their low tenures, team leaders have challenges in establishing and managing
relationships with their agents. They also have challenges in managing their
agents' expectations. Sometimes, basic mathematical and analytical skills are
missing (e.g. interpretation of graphs, quick reading, ability to extract
information, summarizing situations etc.).
Even
if team leaders have higher tenures, chances are that they have built it in
multiple companies and therefore do not have the experience of staying in one
place for a sufficiently long period of time to build basic competencies.
From an agent's perspective, it
therefore makes no difference which team they are in (i.e. which team leader
they currently work for). If there is no difference, then the agent might as
well work for a team leader in a different company which pays a few thousand
rupees more. Therefore, Team leaders with lower managerial maturity become a
major reason why agents leave companies.
Therefore,
a pivotal component in agent retention is the Team Leader. Agents spend a significant portion of
their work time interacting with team leaders. Hence companies can use team
leaders as a key element in their battle against attrition.
The Concept of the Value Basket
Team leaders
should be trained to build a value basket for their team members. The concept
of the value basket enables team leaders to think in the following terms:
"Why should
agents work for me? If my company had a democratic system where agents could
choose their own team leaders, what are the reasons agents would choose
me?"
A common excuse
given by agents and team leaders as to why people leave is low salary levels.
However, even companies that offer relatively higher salaries in the industry,
face significant attrition. Therefore (and as research has shown), salary
levels account only for a minor portion of the reasons as to why people leave
companies. If this is the case, then why is salary cited as a big cause for
attrition? The reason is that when
various other issues important to an agent are not addressed, they don't have a
choice but the compare the only common factor across companies i.e. money.
Therefore, a few thousand rupees more at another company becomes more
attractive.
While discussing
attrition with team leaders, many of them start talk about various scenarios
and how to handle them. E.g., "my agent has a got a higher paying job. How can
I prevent him from leaving?", "My agent is getting a promotion in the other
company. How can I come in the way of his career?", "My agent is quitting because he is taking the CAT exam. How
can I discourage him from focusing on his career?", "My agent is leaving
because he did not get promoted in the recent IJP. What can I do?" .... And many
more... While these discussions are valid, many team leaders do not realize that
at the time the agent puts in his papers, it may already be too late. This is
similar to asking what should one do to pass an exam, one day before the exam.
The question is, what was one doing about this exam throughout the year? Last
moment preparations are almost always sub optimal. Similarly, tackling an agent
at the time of resignation is not a great strategy to combat attrition. Had the
team leader done certain things through the year, the need for the agent to
resign would not have arisen in the first place. This is where the concept of a
value basket comes into the picture.
In the value
basket, the team leader must perform a set of value adding activities for each
individual in her team. Whenever and agent thinks of leaving the company, the
agent will then evaluate the new company against all of these value adding
activities, and not just money, before making the decision to quit. Some
examples of such value adding activities are given below:
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Success in current job
Everyone wants to be successful in his or her current job. However, not everyone knows how.
Therefore, one item in the value basket will be the
coaching-monitoring-feedback cycle that is intended to improve the
performance of agents. This cycle is frequently underestimated. Not too
many team leaders are taught how to coach. Most of them end up telling
agents what to do, rather than showing them how to do the job. E.g. team
leaders may tell their agents that they need to reduce their handle time
from 10 mins to 7 mins within 2 weeks. They may even put them through an
action plan. However, they do not teach their agents how to achieve this
result. To show agent how to achieve results, team leaders need to get
down to the nitty-grittys. This involves analysis. For example,
team leaders may figure out that an agent has a high handle time because
of certain types of calls. Within these types of calls, the agent has a
high handle time because of inability to document properly at the end of
the call. Therefore, a razor sharp focus on after call work for specific
types of calls could solve the problem. Such detailed work will enable agents to see that the
team leader is genuinely interested in their success. One reason why they
should work only for their team leader.
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Focus on future career
Everyone has career aspirations beyond their current jobs. If
agents see that their current job offers a path towards their future
career aspirations, then they are likely to stay longer in the company.
Therefore, team leaders have to play the role of career counselors and
need to perform career-planning activities. They need to create succession
plans for every one of their team members. This plan will consist of names of agents, the next
role they want to get into and a target date by which the team leader and
the agent will finish preparing the agent for that new role. The goal is
to ensure that the agent has the best shot at making it through an IJP
after preparation. If the agent qualifies to attend the IJP, the team
leader should spend time preparing the agent by administering mock tests,
mock interviews etc. Team
leaders can also focus on agents who have other longer term career
objectives e.g. some may want to do an MBA while others may want to become
software engineers etc. Even in these situations, the team leader can help
team members. Every additional month that agents stay with the company,
increases the average tenure of people.
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Training
Training is a great way to increase competencies and capabilities of
agents. While most team leaders focus on process related training (which
they must do anyway), they do not realize that developing agents on other
parameters will add value to an agent's capabilities. For example, team
leaders can train agents on new skills (e.g. use of word, excel, power
point etc.). They can choose to train agents on a variety of other topics
including time management, importance of personal savings, career
opportunities in various departments, changing attitudes, how to get jobs
done in various departments, aspects of the team leader's own jobs etc.
The list is infinite. Each training session need not be longer than 10
minutes and it should not take more that 15 minutes to prepare the program
itself. Every month, the team leader must do 3 to 5 such sessions. If this
happens, the agent observes that he is getting smarter by staying with
this team leader.
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Extra Responsibility
Giving extra responsibility to agents is another way to get them
engaged with the team/company.
For instance, many companies have the concept of SPOCs (Single
Point of Contact). An agent can be made a spoc for a certain activity e.g.
transportation, customer complaints, training, etc. But the way an agent is made a
spoc is where the problem lies. Giving the title of a transport spoc to an
agent may make him feel good for a few days, after which he realizes that
there is nothing much to do in the job, or that the job is of a very low
value. On the other hand, if the team leader spends time and teaches the
agent all the tasks involved, how to collect data on these tasks, how to
analyze the data, how to draw charts and trend lines, how to do top
problem analysis etc., the agent feels that the job of the spoc is
important. The agent also learns all the skills that will help him move to
his next role.
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Delegation
Many team leaders and managers feel that they are the only people who can
do a particular task or job. Therefore, they do not delegate their jobs as
much as they should. Delegation is a great way to develop competencies in
an agent. The agent also feels motivated for having been given an
important task. However, the moment a job is delegated, team leaders must
understand that there will be a performance problem. The agent will not be
able to do the job as well as the team leader. For this drop in
performance, the team leader must be ready to take the heat from his
manager. He must also be ready to compensate for this drop in performance
by putting in extra hours to coach the agent. At this point, if the team
leader decides to take back the job and do it himself, then he will be
back to square one. However, consistent coaching, monitoring and feedback
will enable the agent to improve upon the job and over a period, the agent
may do the job better than the team leader current does it.
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Focus on Family
A key element of Indian culture is family involvement on any major
decision the member of a family makes. For example, if an agent decides to
change jobs, the family will most likely be involved. Therefore, if the
team leader takes the effort to establish closer ties with the agent's
family, he can add an extra layer of friction that will discourage the
agent from quitting. For instance, if an agent does something
significantly good at work, the team leader can call up his parents. He
can introduce himself and then talk about the good job that the agent has
done. When the agent gets back home, he will get a pleasant surprise
because his parents will tell him about how happy his boss (the team
leader) is. If the agent ever thinks of quitting, the parents will most
certainly ask questions to check if the agent is making the right
decision.
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Standing up for the Team
Team leaders are closest to their team
members. While they need to ensure smooth functioning of their teams by
implementing management decision, they also need to educate their managers
about the realities on the ground. For instance, the if the workload is
high, and agents are expected to put in more hours/days the team leader
will communicate this to his agents. However, if there is an agent who is already overworked or is
stressed, the team leader must inform the manager that further stress will
push the agent to quit the company, which is worse than him not working
the extra hours. When agents see the team leader standing up for them,
they will have one more reason to stay in the team.
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Setting expectations about career growth
Team leaders and agents need to understand the
value of staying in one company for a significant period of time. At a
time when jobs are plenty, agents tend to look at their careers in 1 year
blocks rather than 5 year blocks. It is very tempting to jump jobs for a
more money. However,
such jumps will only slow down a person's career in the long run.
In the short run, the jump will fetch more money, but in the long term,
the agent loses out because his colleague (who did not jump) has had the
benefit of tenure, and has therefore increased his competencies. The agent
who changed jobs, restarted himself at his new jobs time and again.
Team
leaders need to set expectations with their agents and themselves that career
growth is like the chart of the stock market. While it has its ups and downs,
the long-term trend is always up. Therefore, when an agent quits a company
because he is facing some problem, it is like looking at a short period of the
stock market during which it was down and therefore getting out of the market.
Team
leaders need to tell agents that if they every want a job as a director or a VP
at a company, that company only hire him if he has shown that he can handle
tough situations (professional or personal), because anyone can handle an easy
situation. Tough situations can be professional or personal. Professional
issues could be a bad boss, lower than market salaries, problems with
colleagues or clients, loss of promotions etc. Personal issues could be longer
travel times, marriage, money problems, relationship problems etc. If a person
learns to handle these problems, and is still able to deliver on his
commitments at work (without the though of quitting),
then the person is automatically developing himself for high value positions in
the future.
Team
leaders also need to tell agents that there are some people who have been very
successful by constantly changing jobs. However, such people are very few in
number and their success is like winning a lottery ticket. One does not plan
one's career around a lottery ticket. Therefore, the only long term sustainable
strategy is to develop oneself by staying in a company for a significant period.
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Becoming Interesting
The team leader must become an interesting person to work with.
As the saying goes, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". If the
only thing agents hear from their team leader are work related issues, the
team leader may be perceived to be a "boring" person. Instead, the team
leader must make an effort to discuss various issues with agents. Team
leaders can develop such qualities by reading books on a variety of
subjects, reading newspapers etc. It would be pleasantly surprising of the
team leader discussed about the future of the space travel with his
agents, the results of the recent by-elections, the latest medical
advances, and the latest book by Dan Brown etc.
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Creating a Motivating Environment
This has become a cliche in BPO circles.
However, team leaders who are able to create motivating environments are
likely to keep their team members together for a longer period of time.
Motivation does not necessarily have to come through fun events such as
pizza parties, celebrations, team outings etc. They can also come through
serious events e.g. arranging a talk by the VP of Quality on career
opportunities in the field of quality or a mock test/quiz to allow agent
to test themselves if they are ready to become team leaders, quality
analysts, trainers etc. Team leaders must maintain and publish a monthly
"events calendar" where they plan motivational events for the entire
month. Agents will look forward to these events and are likely to remain
more engaged.
The
above-mentioned items in the value basket are just a sample of a vast number
that the basket can actually contain. Every team leaders must build the value
baskek based on his or her strengths. Developing team leaders to create these
value baskets can be the strategic weapon companies are looking for to combat
attrition. Team leaders are the critical layer who can help in changing the
perception among agents that BPO jobs are just another commodity.
OnTrac Internal Staff
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ONTRAC NEWS
=>Over
1400 Team Leaders across multiple BPO companies in India have received the
OnTrac Star Certification
This
is the first program of its kind in India. The Star Certification
Program helps team leaders manage their teams and deliver superior
performance consistently.
=>OnTrac launches the Manager's DNA (MDNA) program to enhance capabilities of mid level managers in the BPO industry.
The
MDNA program has been created to tackle the key challenges faced by
middle management in the BPO industry today. These challenges line in
the areas of managing their teams, managing client relationships and
managing the organization.
=>OnTrac launches the Xcelerate series of career enhancement programs for frontline BPO agents.
Xcelerate
series consists of courses that help agents get promoted to a role of
their choice within their own organization (e.g. team leaders, v&a
trainers, quality analysts etc.). Many agents have already received the
benefits of these programs and have moved on to become team leaders and
v&a trainers.
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Myth of Salary
There
is a myth in the market about agents shifting jobs due to lower
salaries. However, most companies have to operate in a similar
cost-to-company band, failing which they may not be profitable. While
lower salaries may be a disincentive to stay, higher salaries are no
guarantees that people will stay. Every company needs to create
numerous innovative non monitary benefits for their employees, that
they would otherwise not get elsewhere. For example, a BPO company
could tie up with organizations such as country club. A deal could be
reached where employees need not pay the signup fee, but they can use
the club's facilities by paying the monthly charges. Another idea could
be to reduce the cost of purchase of house-hold items by tying up with
a large superstore. Employees can get goods at a much lower cost while
the superstore has a guaranteed clientele. Numerous other such
arrangements can be made with organizations such as restaurants,
schools, automobile dealers etc. If the employee leaves the company, he
loses all of these benefits. The new company, which offers a higher
salary, may eventually end up costing him more, if he has to maintain
his old lifestyle.
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